Serving Sandwiches as Big as Your Head
“Welcome to Danny Boys” greets the sign just past the beer casks to the right of the entrance. Fat Heads Brewery & Saloon has taken over the corner of Lorain and Columbia roads in North Olmsted where Danny Boys used to be. It has become a “classic neighborhood restaurant and brewery.” Two glassed rooms reveal casks of fermenting beer, and beyond that a large bar with high barn-like ceilings stretches toward a dining area. They serve sandwiches as big as your head, burgers, wings, salads, pizza, and a fare selection of starters with award-winning beers.
Danny Boys is sort of an inside thing—those whose grandparents shopped at the vegetable stand at and whose parents later took them to what became Danny Boys Farmers Market to pick out the best pumpkin for Halloween know Danny Boys. We love looking at the pictures of folks shopping for apples in plaid Bermuda shorts in the 1970s and the bins of a dozen varieties of local apples. We remember the fire that destroyed the building that opened up again with a much larger and open space, but still in keeping with its farmers’ market spirit with lots of rustic wood inside and out. Danny Boys sold gourmet tapenades, freshly-baked apple fritters, Boars Head lunch meats, and a fine selection of wines. It was the predecessor to Trader Joe’s, only homier.
Danny Boys closed after 50 years in business. The building was empty until a sign proclaimed Aviator Brewery was coming, but Aviator Brewery never materialized. The original Fat Heads is on Pittsburgh’s Southside, a smaller place that brewmaster Matt Cole (formerly of Great Lakes Brewing Company and Rocky River Brewing Company) visited in his college days. Cole eventually spoke with Fat Heads owner Glenn Benigni about his dreams, and the two of them went into partnership. Beer brewed in North Olmsted is also sent to the Pittsburgh location, so Pittsburgh benefits from Cole’s talents.
The brewery brews a superior extra-hoppy Head Hunter IPA for those who love a beer that bitterly bites. The gold medal winning IPA contains “savage amounts of Simcoe, Columbus, and Cascade hops,” according to the Beer List. The IPA won the Silver Medal in the 2010 Great American Beer Fest and was the champion at the 2010 National IPA Championships. Each week the Beer List is reprinted to feature the current cask-conditioned beer that was brewed with only traditional ingredients and allowed to mature naturally and served unfiltered and unpasteurized, with more character and a richer flavor than ordinary beer.
While Head Hunter is my favorite, there ARE other Fat Heads beers on tap. Many enjoy the delicate Bumbleberry Honey Blueberry Ale made with Olmsted Falls honey from Jorgenson’s apiary. Others like a Duke of Lager Fest Bier made with imported German hops. The brewery usually has 22 beers on tap, and also serves a handcrafted root beer made on site. Unlike some other brew pubs, Fat Heads has a well-rounded list of other breweries’ beers on tap, like the Founder’s Double Trouble from Grand Rapids and the Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout. And yes, Cleveland’s Great Lakes Brewing Company beers are on the menu along with beers from Belgium and Germany.
The food is great. You’ll take part of it home. For starters, the Parma Karma—three kinds of sausages served with pierogies—is a meal. The pizza is enough for 3 and the salads generously fill the size of bowl you would serve mashed potatoes in. The burgers are delicious and the sandwiches are topped with all kinds of things that make them as big as your head. Check out the menu at http://www.FatHeads.com.
Think about this: one of Fat Heads’ employees told me that with several new breweries in the area, Cleveland could have a beer trail, much like a wine trail, where we can go from place to place trying handcrafted beers. Never heard of such a thing? Neither had I, but why not? Cleveland is the perfect place to try the concept. In the meantime, Fat Heads has become a neighborhood place in North Olmsted, but people from as far away as Pittsburgh are driving out to find out why it’s such a hot spot. There’s no reason why they shouldn’t stop at Akron’s Hopping Frog or the Willoughby Brewing Company, Great Lakes Brewing Company, and Rocky River Brewing Company or Lakewood’s Beer Engine along the way.
No, it’s not Danny Boys, but Fat Heads has the same passionate energy. Their sandwiches are as big as your head and their beer is deliciously complicated, very ambitious. And it’s contagious.
Fat Head’s Brewery is located at 24581 Lorain Road in North Olmsted. Call 440-801-1001 or click http://FatHeads.com. Open Sun – Wed 11:30AM until midnight; Thu – Sat 11:30 AM – 1AM.
From Cool Cleveland contributor Claudia Taller, whose book Ohio’s Lake Erie Wineries will be published by Arcadia next spring. Her passion for words has led to creation of the Lakeside Word Lover’s Retreats, an outgrowth of her work with Skyline Writers. Her favorite foods are red wine, salmon, ice cream, and chocolate. She loves to read, write, tour wineries, ride her bike, ease into yoga, and cook gourmet meals for friends. Find her at http://www.ClaudiaTallerMusings.blogspot.com or at http://www.OhioLakeErieWineries.blogspot.com.
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