Dayton Beer

© 2019 Timothy R. Gaffney I had planned to sit down Sunday morning and write my weekly blog about Dayton's brewing history. Instead, I awoke to the horrific news of a mass shooting in the city's historic Oregon District—the second in our country in less than 24 hours, the 250th this year alone. The ability to write or do anything meaningful seemed to drain out of me. Brewing history seemed irrelevant. Over the course of the day, I reflected on what I had learned about Dayton in looking through more than two centuries of its history, and what meaning I might draw from it. I had learned Dayton—and by Dayton, I mean the Dayton region—was settled and built by tough, resilient people. People who weathered incredible hardships just to get here, and more to build lives for themselves, their families and their community. This is the worst mass shooting of which I'm aware in Dayton's history. It will leave a scar on all of us, and on the city. But under th...

Warped Wing and Barrel House are in the heart of Dayton's original brewing district. © 2019 Timothy R. Gaffney When you visit the Warped Wing Brewing Co.  or The Barrel House in downtown Dayton— as I will on Aug. 7  and Aug. 15 —you journey to the heart of Dayton's Historic Brewing District. Warped Wing occupies a former foundry building at 26 Wyandot Street, just south of East Main between North Patterson Boulevard and Wayne Avenue. The Barrel House is in an old commercial building at 417 E. Third. They're both close to where Dayton's founders built their first cabins and close to where its first breweries opened. George Newcom, one of Dayton's original settlers, built his cabin    on the southwest corner of Main and Monument in 1796 and later enlarged it  into a two-story tavern. He added a brewery  about 1810. It was Montgomery County's first brewery, according to historian Augustus Waldo Drury . Sketch of Newcom Tavern, from Lutzenb...