Dayton Beer

© 2019 Timothy R. Gaffney 
  America's celebrating the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 this year, and several brewers are stepping up to mark the occasion with special beers. This gives us an excuse to taste a lot of new beer, and it's bringing out a lot of new Apollo 11 anniversary bottles and cans for breweriana fans. 
 In case you missed it: the Apollo 11 mission was America's third manned mission to the moon and the first to attempt a landing. Wapakoneta native Neil A. Armstrong , mission commander, blasted off from Kenney Space Center on July 16, 1969, with Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins . Four days later, Armstong and Aldrin touched down on the moon while Collins remained in lunar orbit. They returned to earth on July 24. 
Why celebrate Apollo by brewing beer? For starters, many beers these days are made with Apollo hops , a new variety of hops created in 2000 by cross-pollinating other hop plants. Another reason is, why not? 
 So,...

A group of cyclists at Warped Wing Brewing Co. Photo courtesy Warped Wing. © 2019 Timothy R. Gaffney Rails to trails to... ales ? If you're riding or walking on a recreational trail in Ohio's Miami Valley, odds are good you'll pass close to a craft beer brewpub or tap house. With Bike Miami Valley's 2019 Miami Valley Cycling Summit coming up—Friday, May 10, in Miamisburg—I decided to see how many local brew pubs and tap houses I could find within a mile of one of the region’s recreation trails in the area covered in my book Dayton Beer: A History of Brewing in the Miami Valley . I found 17 Miami Valley brewpubs near bike trails. I wasn’t too surprised, for a couple of reasons. First, the Miami Valley boasts a network of than 340 miles of paved, multi-use recreational trails— the nation’s largest , according to Five Rivers Metroparks. A trail runs close to many of our local destinations. Second, brewers down through the years have tended to locate the...