Review: March First Brewing

As we arrived to March First, we pulled into an office park parking lot, which isn’t unheard of in the brewery industry (in fact, I’ve been to a handful of breweries located in such places), but still a bit confusing at first. Fortunately they’ve got great signage and wayfinding, and making our way to the taproom was really easy.

As we walked up the dock ramp to the taproom, we heard an enthusiastic “Hi!” from behind the bar — the start of our friendly service at one of Cincinnati’s newest breweries. The atmosphere was relaxing and wonderful. The inside opens via garage doors to the outdoors, there are a couple of TVs, you have viewing access to the brewing equipment, and they have some snacks onsite for when food truck fare isn’t available. (It wasn’t when we were there.) They also have outdoor seating and are dog-friendly inside and out.

They had seven beers on tap and, with four beers per flight, we decided to get two flights and double up on our choice for the eighth — gotta try ’em all, right? We ended up with Craft Lager, Heller Bock, their award-winning Dry-Hopped Cider, Dry Limed Cider, Traditional Cider, Stone Fruit Cider, and the Denali IPA, which was the one we decided to double up on.

I recently starting coming around on ciders, so the fact that 50% of the beers we had were ciders was fine by me. They’re so crisp and refreshing in this Cincinnati humidity, which is also a plus. My favorites were the IPA (of course) and the Traditional Cider. The Craft Lager and Stone Fruit Cider were also good and BK commented, “It’s not a Cincinnati brewery without a Bock.” It’s safe to say we were both pleased with the selection.

I loved the space, the service, and the branding. And hey, the beer was pretty good, too. Welcome to the brew scene, March First. I’ll come back to visit whenever I can.

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Location
7885 E Kemper Road
Cincinnati, Ohio 45249

Hours
Wednesday–Thursday, 4–9pm
Friday, 4–10pm
Saturday, 2–10pm

Parking
Private lot

Visit idea
If there isn’t a food truck on the premises, I recommend having a pre- or post-March First meal at Silver Spring House, one of my favorite restaurants in the area.