The Evolution of Our Beer Garden
From Empty Space to Gathering Place
What began as a half-grass, half-mud empty lot for the occasional parked car or pop-up event has blossomed into one of the crown jewels of an outdoor Columbus experience – the Land-Grant Beer Garden. Since 2018, our Beer Garden has served as an extension of our taproom, allowing us to welcome more friends, more events and more fun. It helped us all through most of 2020, serving as a safe and compliant outdoor space for people to come together to enjoy a beer and fresh air in an otherwise limited and isolating time for many. (In fact, it still functions as such today.) It’s hosted movies, music, festivals and trivia; two Jeni’s Strawberry Jams, watch-parties, birthday parties, wedding parties, a 3-on-3 basketball tournament, and more. Most importantly, it’s allowed Land-Grant to offer a large open and inviting space for people all throughout Columbus to come together and enjoy a beer.
While we look forward to being able to return to some normalcy when restrictions can safely be lifted (bringing back yard games and mini golf in the turf recreation space, to name a few) – we’re excited to be making some upgrades to the Beer Garden over the next several weeks to enhance the experience and provide maximum comfort to our visitors. In addition to planting trees throughout the space to offer some greenery and shade, we’ll also be working to install pipelines to accommodate gas fire pits for on-demand warmth on the chillier days and nights.
We’ve already been hard at work (thanks to some good old-fashioned blood, sweat and beers) – installing a large LED screen in May, improving and expanding our fencing, and bringing in more tables in the turf area to accommodate additional safely spaced seating. It’s our hope that these latest updates will be quick and minimally disruptive, but we do ask that you excuse our dust in the meantime. (We already know the construction along Town Street kicks up enough!)
We’ve Come A Long Way
While we here at Land-Grant are always tinkering and working to beautify our space, it is sometimes hard to remember a time before the Beer Garden. Let’s take a look back at its evolution to see how far it’s come!
This is the view from Town Street in 2014, including patchy grass and broken fencing. 
Here is a peek at the outdoor space after our 1st anniversary party in 2015. 
Use of the space continued as an extension for events, show here during our 2nd anniversary party in 2016. 
We continued growing into the space during our 3rd anniversary in 2017, bringing in a temporary stage to host the entertainment. 
With gravel down in mid-2018, tables and umbrellas were added to create the first iteration of the Land-Grant Beer Garden. 
To expand our outdoor footprint in 2019, our team tackled clearing additional space north of the Beer Garden, creating what is now known as the Turf Area. 
In 2019, our 5th anniversary party maximized the use of the Turf Area expansion to allow for both a stage and screen for the Buckeye game. 
To accommodate social distancing throughout 2020 and into 2021, our Beer Garden got a few updates, including additional (and more colorful) seating and the installation of our LED screen.
Tour De Mural Beer Launch & Premiere, Featuring Hakim Callwood
Art and Community are two cornerstones of Land-Grant Brewing Company, so we are proud to support local artists and showcase their work and impact whenever we can. As events slowly begin to safely come back, we’re excited that Land-Grant will get to feature local artists during each Franklinton Friday this year.
Our first artist feature is a really special one to us. Not only does Hakim Callwood’s work live all over the city of Columbus, but we are lucky enough to be surrounded by his art right here in our own backyard in Franklinton.
Want to see what we mean? Take a virtual tour of Hakim’s 2020 murals here.
We partnered up with Hakim on a limited-edition experimental citrus pale ale beer, with the label featuring one of his most popular and impactful murals – “I Don’t Know You, But I Love You”. Releasing on Friday, April 9th, 100% of the proceeds from the beer will go to supporting his nationwide Tour De Mural initiative.
TOUR DE MURAL
With increasing notoriety throughout the Columbus community, especially with the influence of his art during the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020, Hakim decided to safely take himself on the road to share his passion. Coined the “Tour De Mural”, Hakim and video producer and director Max Rodriguez have set out to meet artists across the country to hear their stories. With goals of putting up new art in the cities they visit and making new friends along the way, the pair are capturing their experiences for a docu-series that shares the Tour De Mural name.
Episode 1 of Tour De Mural is available on YouTube now, and episode 2 of the series will be premiering at Land-Grant on the evening of Friday, April 9th in the Beer Garden.
Hakim and Max will also be available after the April 9th screening for a Q&A session about their Tour De Mural project.
THE STORY OF THE MURAL
Hakim completed the mural, “I Don’t Know You, But I Love You” as part of the #ArtUnitesCbus project in the summer of 2020. Through a city-wide movement initiated by CAPA and Greater Columbus Arts Council, local visual artists were employed to paint murals on plywood that was installed over broken windows that resulted from protests throughout downtown Columbus. The impact of this art throughout the city was so great that it drove public demand for the preservation and exhibition of the murals.
The message within Hakim’s powerful and widely regarded mural became one of the most notable pieces within the #ArtUnitesCbus initiative, which has made its way on the #ArtUnitesCbus mural exhibition tour throughout Central Ohio. “I Don’t Know You, But I Love You is currently on display at Denison University in Granville.
LEND YOUR SUPPORT
If you’re interested in lending your support to the Tour De Mural, but can’t make it out to the event, you can donate to their Kickstarter campaign through May 6, 2021 here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tourdemural/tour-de-mural
POST-EVENT UPDATE
The second episode of Tour De Mural docuseries is available on YouTube now.
Meet Sky Lantern & AACS Ohio
Concepted by Land-Grant head brewer Dan Shaffer and graphic designer Bonnie Zhao, Sky Lantern Yuzu Citrus Wheat Ale invites you to take to the sky in this, the Year of the Ox. Find yourself afloat via bright and super citrusy yuzu fruit, which lends a zesty rush of lime and grapefruit to this classic wheat ale. Loral and Cascade hops add a splash of bright floral & lemon character to this light, refreshing beer which will have you staring at the stars long after sunset.
My family and I like to call this our Family Beer because my mom added the bull, my dad added the Chinese characters, and my sister helped with the colors. It was to celebrate Lunar New Year and so it was a hopeful beer. It wavers now, as I write this. There’s so much confusion, rage, sadness, and fear and I’ve seen it’s emotional toll on my fellow Asian American brothers and sisters. And I ache for the Black community who have known too well how exhausting it is to fight against racism. There’s this thing in Asian culture where you call everyone your aunt and uncle or your brother and sister, no matter if they’re friends or complete strangers. When I was younger, I thought that meant everyone was part of my family and that we were all related. Now, more than ever, I feel that we are. So I extend my Family Beer to every single one of us who have felt othered, alone, silenced or oppressed. It can still be a hopeful beer, because through all the fear and confusion, I’ve seen the strings of our community strengthen stronger than ever. #StopAsianHate
Bonnie Zhao, Land-Grant Brewing Company Designer
MEET AACS OHIO
Asian American Community Services (AACS) has supported the needs of Asian, Asian American and Pacific Islanders throughout Central Ohio since 1976. AACS works to improve the well-being and quality of life of Asian Americans and Asian immigrant families in Ohio by providing social services and empowering individuals through education, training and leadership.
AACS’s Family Support Program (FSP) provides services to crime victims (i.e. hate bias, domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking), helping their clients navigate emergency assistance, transportation, and referrals to partner agencies. AACS also provides support to senior citizens through their Senior Outreach Program and youth programming, Healthy Asian Youth (HAY.)
The AACS Senior Outreach Program provides services for community members who face difficulty accessing public and necessarily resources – supplying case managers who personalize their assistance for day-to-day needs. Because language access can be a service barrier for many, this program is available for Korean and Cambodian-speaking seniors.
For more information about this program and other services offered by AACS, please visit https://www.aacsohio.org/. You can also follow AACS across their social channels:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AACSohio
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aacs_ohio/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AACS_Ohio
SHOW YOUR SUPPORT
At Land-Grant, we strive to create an inclusive and welcoming craft beer culture through our passion toward the quality and creativity of our beers and our involvement in the community. In solidarity with Ohio’s Asian American communities, we’ll be donating $1 for every Sky Lantern pint and six-pack sold in the taproom to support Asian American Community Services (AACS) here in Central Ohio. We encourage all those who can to take action and stand up to #StopAAPIHate. You can donate directly to AACS online via PayPal at: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/aacsohio.
Clean Slate
It’s been a long 365 days. In the past year we’ve had to shut the taproom, reopened the taproom, began delivering beer, released 118 beers in cans, and launched a brand new website. Here we are back in March, we figured it’s the perfect time to relaunch this here blog to invite you behind the scenes to follow along with all the happenings at the brewery, taproom, beer garden, and beyond. We’re still working to get our full archive of posts moved over from the old site, but once we do you should find those posts below this one. Cheers!