First Look: Tricky Tortoise Brewing, Opening This Weekend in Willoughby

After eight months of work, Bobby Ehasz finally is ready to welcome the public into Tricky Tortoise Brewing Co. (4057 Erie St., 440-306-8372). He will do that this weekend when the doors officially open for the first time.

Ehasz, a partner in Pompatus Brewing in Bainbridge, started with a dark, cavernous building that had been vacant since early 2020. The bulk of the work has been devoted to making the space, long home to Willoughby Brewing, feel lighter, brighter and more welcoming. Walls were removed, flooring replaced, booths extracted, lighting updated, and fixtures and furniture upgraded.

Already, Caleb Brown, a brewer who worked at Platform/AB and Thirsty Dog, has assembled a tasty roster of beers for opening weekend. He’s starting with a couple IPAs, a cream ale, and a helles brewed in collaboration with Akronym Brewing. There’s also a house-brewed lime seltzer. In the pipeline, says Brown, is a brown ale, black lager and West Coast IPA.

“In my mind, you’re always pushing to educate the consumer towards balance and nuance rather than to how many hops can we throw in this and how many flavors can you throw in that,” Brown says. “I think that’s what we’re seeing in the craft market overall right now. The pendulum is swinging back from the pastry stouts to things with nuance and balance and simplicity.”

The lunch and dinner menu is simple, but hearty and scratch-made. The beer-friendly lineup includes loaded nachos, jumbo wings, sausage-stuffed peppers and a Bavarian pretzel served with beer cheese. There are salads, pizzas, fried chicken sandwiches, meatball subs, sausage and pepper sandwiches and a burger.

There will be live entertainment, starting this weekend.

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