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A deal with Hop View Brewing allows Rivals Sports Grille to pour its own Pale Ale among its 30 taps. (Sarah Dietsche)
(Sarah Dietsche)
MIDDLEBURG HEIGHTS, Ohio - Usually it's the brewery that creates a beer and puts up a few televisions to show games, or sends kegs to sports bars. But Rivals Sports Grille is flipping around that equation.
The Middleburg Heights bar that started 10 years ago has partnered with Madison-based Hop View Brewing and created Rivals Brewing Pale Ale. It's been so successful out of the gate that the bar is planning more beers while it is scouting a second location that will have a "brewery component," general manager Chuck Johnson said.
It's the first time Rivals has had a beer brewed in its name, he said. The company "reached out to several different breweries" before landing on Hop View, a relationship that worked out so well, at least two more beers are in the works.
The copper-colored, dry-hopped ale is brewed primarily with Columbus and Nugget hops, is 6.5 percent alcohol, and contains 53 International Bittering Units.
So it's no surprise the bar and brewery are working on two more: A double India Pale Ale and a sessionable beer, possibly a lager, Johnson said.
All this comes about as Rivals is scouting locations to expand.
"The next location will have a brewery component to it," Johnson said. "We haven't found the right place. We can pursue brewing our own beer now before we get to a second location, possibly on the West Side of Cleveland.
Options include Westlake and Avon, he said, "but it's a delicate thing to find the right place with the right capabilities."
Down the line, Johnson said, Rivals might enter the beer in competitions and also consider distributorship.