When Shannon Went: September 11, 2020
Where: 1660 Blue Rock St, Cincinnati, OH 45223
Urban Artifact made their home in the historic 140 year old St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Cincinnati’s Northside neighborhood back in 2014. By 2015, they opened their doors and began pouring pints and hosting live music events almost nightly. Standing out among the Queen City’s craft beer scene, Urban Artifact specializes in tart and sour ales, especially balanced, heavily fruited ales. Brewing a number of different sour beers, from the standard Germanic style Goses, to fermented barrel aged sours, there is always something new and exciting to drink in their taproom. Urban Artifact is currently on pace to use over 1,000,000 lbs of real fruit just this year!
Shannon: The best way to describe Urban Artifact and their style is eclectic. There are no conventional IPAs, stouts, or lagers in sight on their draft list. Their brewing range of sours, fruited and funky beers is impressive. While I’m not a huge sour beer fan, I knew I had to give them a try. Urban Artifact reigns supreme as Cincinnati’s resident sour king. At the taproom I tried one of their classic original sours, The Gadget. This was the first beer in their Midwest Fruit Tart series. When The Gadget is brewed, each batch is done with 1,280 lbs of blackberries, 1,280 lbs or raspberries, and 30 grams of vanilla beans. The outcome is a beautiful, hazy purple beer with puckering tastes of tart blackberries and raspberries.
Other Cool Things:
- Radio Artifact is their very own FM music station created to feature local music!!
- Outdoor patio
- Wildfire Pizza Kitchen in the taproom
- Their former church spent some time as a cookie factory before being a brewery!
- Lots of cool merch including handcrafted dice sets inspired by different Urban Artifact beers!!
- Urban Artifact uses their space really well! The taproom is in the church basement, the upstairs sanctuary is used for special events. The rectory building is office space for their FM music station, and the church gym holds the production and packaging operation.
- Beer delivery offered to Ohio, Vermont, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Nebraska, Connecticut, Oregon, Nevada, and Washington D.C.
What Shannon Drank:
Shannon: The Gadget (Blackberry & Raspberry Sour) 7.9% ABV – 3.5 out of 5
Shannon: Polygraph (Cherry Sour) 8.1% ABV – 4 out of 5
Shannon: Peanut Butter & Raspberry Jelly (Spiced Beer) 8.5% ABV – 3.5 out of 5
Brewing Persuasion: 4 out of 5
Feeling persuaded yet?
Brewing Persuasions 