From an empty space to a 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.