We enjoyed the heck out of our first trip to Runaway Blue Brewing

Two-year-old Newark brewery offers a lovely assortment of well-crafted beers in a dog-friendly environment.

As a parent, naptime is sacred. It’s often the only window during the day when you can get some work done (or catch up on your shows) without interruption.

It can also be really difficult to get there. Each kid is different. Some need complete dark and silence to venture into sleep-world. Others require the motion and hum of a car engine. Our 3-year-old, Audie, is pretty versatile and can thrive under many circumstances and situations.

On a recent Saturday, right around naptime, Audie and I headed out to run some errands. I knew I’d be cutting it close, since he’s at that age where he either naps hard or doesn’t nap at all. But once he dozed off a few minutes into our drive, I knew I had to keep moving. I also knew that as soon as I stopped and turned off the engine, he’d perk up (or grunt unhappily). Somewhat aimlessly, we ended up in Newark, Wayne County.

It wasn’t what I intended as we were originally headed somewhere closer to the city of Rochester to hunt for Hot Wheels (yes, I am now fully hooked and enjoy searching for these cars as much as Audie loves playing with them).

Our car search didn’t yield much of note, however.

Being out in Newark, though, Audie and I were able to make our first visit to Runaway Blue Brewing, the two-year-old Wayne County nanobrewery. And I am quite ashamed it took us this long to visit. Two years certainly won’t elapse until our next visit.

The husband-and-wife team of Brian and Maria Bremer started planning for this spot in their hometown more than three years ago. The Newark natives wanted to bring a slice of craft beer culture there. After finding the right location and the perfect name (their energetic, spirited blue heeler mix Coley provided the inspiration there), the Bremers intently worked on making their shared dream a reality.

In the lead up to the brewery opening, I could sense the excitement from the Bremers. You could tell there was a little bit of trepidation (as there would be with any monumental undertaking or new business opening), but upon visiting Runaway Blue, you can see how the community has embraced the brewery.

“It has definitely been fun to hear how excited people are,” Maria told me in 2022. “That’s been one of the best parts. People are also excited to have something like this come to Newark. It’s not something that we’ve had before. It doesn’t seem like something we’d usually have here. But I just feel like it’s really something that people are starting to understand more.”

“Wayne County has been the last place to hit the craft beer boom,” Brian added. “So it’s nice that Wayne County is starting to get some breweries up in here.”

Seeing how these small communities connect through beer and how these breweries connect these communities, that has unquestionably been one of my favorite things to chronicle during my 11 years writing about WNY and FLX beer. Runaway Blue accomplishes that effortlessly. When we visited on that recent Saturday afternoon, the taproom was buzzing with activity. Multiple dogs were relaxing inside. Numerous mug club members were trying Brian’s latest beers. And a whole host of people were just enjoying the calm and quiet. It really was a lovely place to spend an afternoon (and it offered multiple TVs to watch whatever games were on, too).

I’ve visited countless breweries and you can just tell or sense when the vibes are a bit off. This wasn’t the case at Runaway Blue. It was a great place to hang out with the surly 3yo.

And all of these positive feelings are being shared before we even hit on the quality of the beers. I feel like that’s saying quite a bit, because the beers were pretty spectacular.

Brian honed his craft as an assistant brewer at Young Lion and was responsible for many of the brewery’s memorable small-batch offerings. He has certainly taken that same adventurous spirit and transported into his 1-barrel brewery. When we visited, there were eight beers, one hard seltzer, and one cider on draft (as well as a host of N/A offerings and an assortment of snacks).

I loved Brian’s beer outlook when we talked in 2022. He shared, “You can make a 2-barrel batch (roughly 60 gallons) of a really expensive beer that might not be practical to do on bigger scale. You can play around with some crazier flavors. You’re brewing more batches, so you can keep a greater variety on.”

The Runaway Blue menu demonstrated this, but it also featured some tamer offerings that will entice craft beer neophytes to take the plunge (like a light lager influenced by the couple’s love of the Buffalo Bills — next year is our year, I swear). To start, I asked Brian to just pour me an introductory flight of his favorites. He kindly obliged. (No joke, the Bremers might be the nicest people in local craft beer.)

My flight included a delicious stout with adjuncts to mimic a pancake breakfast (spot on and loved the use of adjuncts in a more sessionable beer), a quick sour with blood orange, a West Coast-style IPA with tangerine, and the brewery’s flagship hazy IPA, Bluest Sky. Upon first sip of Bluest Sky, I had no problem labeling it as one of the best flagship hazy IPAs in this region. I thought it stacked up with heavyweights like Knucklehead’s Tainted Haze, Rising Storm’s The Monarch, Other Half’s Green City, and others that surely escaping my perma-tired dad brain. I love the use of an old-school bittering hop like Chinook to give the juicy IPA a little bite on the finish.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Runaway Blue’s Vanilla Bean Blonde. It tasted exactly like a cream soda. And wildly enough, it is the brewery’s current best-seller, something that surprised Brian. He made it for the brewery’s opening weekend two years ago and figured he would revisit it occasionally. But the beer proved to be such a big hit, that it’s pretty much always available in Newark. The moral of the story, give the people what they want.

Don’t be a dummy and get to Runaway Blue ASAP if you haven’t been yet. (Promised Cass that I’d stop saying “dumbass,” but it’s so hard.) And if you find yourself in Wayne County hunting for Hot Wheels, I hope your search is more fruitful than ours. But either way, the beer will be delicious.

Expo update

If you’ve followed me in this space for the past few years, you know how excited I was to take over the reins of the Rochester Real Beer Expo. I got to pick the beers and breweries for one of Rochester’s coolest and preeminent beer festivals.

Over the two most recent Expo editions, I convinced some of my all-time favorite breweries to come party with us in Rochester. In turn, I helped some of these breweries expand their distribution footprints to satiate the thirsty masses in Rochester after they felt the Expo love. That’s pretty neat. In total, we had more 150 participants over the past two years, many of which I got to personally connect with and sell them on the beauty of coming to this event in Rochester. We sold over 4,600 tickets during those two years. That’s no small feat in an age where beer festivals are struggling

And I couldn’t have accomplished any of this without my excellent partners from the Business Association of the South Wedge Area (BASWA, the group directly supported by the proceeds of the Expo), the incredible network of Rochester-area distributors, the breweries and brewery reps, the attendees, and most importantly, my wife Cassie. She encouraged me to take on this Expo task when I wasn’t initially interested. Her logic: How many chances are you gonna get to put your stamp on an event and institution like this? (As is always the case — she’s right, which means I fully support your decision, Cass, to get those replacement windows for our bedroom instead of donating our tax refund to the Will Cleveland beer fund.)

This is really just a long-winded way of saying that I won’t be returning to my role as Expo beer curator in 2025. Life has changed so, so much since the last edition. (Hi there, Eliza!!) I just don’t have the time necessary to devote to this volunteer gig. But I know the Expo folks have lined up another kind and knowledgeable curator, Rob Richenberg, to curate and steer the event (which is again returning to Innovative Field).

So this means, breweries, you can stop pestering me with Expo-related questions. Rob is your new go-between. I am very interested and excited to see how Rob’s vision comes to fruition at the 2025 Expo. I know he approaches things slightly different than me, but I know the soul of the event will remain the same.

I am thankful for the opportunity, proud of what I accomplished during my two-year run, and humbled by the community support I received. And yes, I plan to attend again this year (but only if the BASWA folks will gift me a few VIP passes, lol).

A final note: It’s pretty wild to think I’ve been working on this independent publication for nearly three years now. In that time, I’ve published 250 newsletters, highlighted some of my favorite people in the industry, curated two beers festivals (that featured 150 participants and 4,600 attendees), and continued to break all the biggest news in the region (closures, consolidations, openings, etc.).

The Cleveland Prost remains the preeminent source for regional beer news. If you own a brewery, bar, or beer-adjacent business, this is the best place to reach the nerds you wanna be in front of. So I remain open to sponsorships, advertisements, and sponsored content. Feel free to reach out to me at clevelandprost@gmail.com for more. And more than anything, thanks for all the support. None of this would be possible without the devoted (and thirsty) audience.