Photograph courtesy of Fabled Brew Works
On a Saturday night in September, beer lovers gather among cottages and potion cabinets under wrought iron chandeliers, getting their fill of locally-made brews. On the walls, wanted posters for mythological creatures hang and shelves are packed with spell books. This isn’t the local Renaissance festival or a gathering of LARPers, it’s Fabled Brew Works.
Fabled—located in Erlanger, Kentucky—has been pouring house-brewed ales, sours, IPAs, and more since June 2023. Started by a group of friends brought together through their love of trying craft beers, it ditches the understated, often industrial interiors of most breweries and instead offers guests a chance to taste beer brewed in-house in an immersive taproom.
Fabled is also one of the few meaderies in Greater Cincinnati, according to co-owner and founder Jon Lawlor. “We wanted the tap list to be something that stood out,” he says. “But also to get a place that we could theme in a way that no one else had bothered to.”
First drawn to beer thanks to local craft beer selections, Lawlor, Aaron Daniele, Mike Turvey, Kent Wessels, and head brewer John Ewers would meet up and share new finds. “We started going to [The] Party Source and just picking single purchase beers off the shelves based purely on the artwork—very stupid way to do it,” Lawlor recalls. “We’d buy bottles that were like, 750 milliliters that you can’t drink by yourself and share them.”
Despite opening last summer, the idea for Fabled Brew Works goes back much further, to 2018, a time that Lawlor calls “the peak” of craft brewery. “You were seeing new breweries pop up every couple weeks and they were all the same,” he says. “So why don’t we do something better? We’ll do something different.”
The creative fantasy theming that was decided upon came from the owners’ collective love of media from the genre like World of Warcraft and The Elder Scrolls.
The location, off the Dixie Highway in Erlanger, proved advantageous, thanks to the scarcity of breweries—specifically meaderies— in Northern Kentucky. “[The location] turned out to be fortuitous, just because you look at a map, there’s nobody else,” Lawlor explains. “There’s a beer desert for craft beer in Northern Kentucky in general.”
Despite the more unusual theme for a brewery, the owners insist that their establishment draws plenty of customers that one might not expect to be enamored by the fantasy theme. “It’s weird, and it’s nerdy but over the last 20 years or so fantasy has been more mainstream,” Lawlor notes. “I trusted that the barrier doesn’t exist anymore. And like, I mean, we have people in here who you stereotype, looking at like they’re gonna hate this. They either, at worst, are neutral, and at best, they love it.”
Head brewer John Ewer believes the quality of the drinks speaks even louder than the decorations of the taproom. “If the product’s good enough, you’re gonna get over the rest of that,” he says.
With upward of 30 beers on tap at any given time, it’s hard to disagree. Options range from the typical—a hazy IPA (Harfoot Hazy) or a Mexican lager (Unlitigated Sea Monster)—to the more unusual, like a PB&J sour (Vi’s Berry Knuckle Sandwich) or a mojito mead (Draco).
“Differentiation is the big winner when there’s so much saturation in the market. At the same time, we make a lot of stuff because we like to drink it,” Lawlor says. “If my choice was to not exist or to have 32 West Coast IPAs, I’d probably just bounce.”
This emphasis on quality also explains the decision to only sell their products in the taproom. While many other local breweries have expanded to selling in grocery stores and beyond, the Fabled team believes that their beers are best consumed in the place they are brewed. “We take care of our draft lines, how we want to make sure they’re always clean, and we have the proper people that have proper knowledge about the beer serving to you so you get the right experience,” Ewer says. “Because we believe experience is a lot.”
Fabled Brew Works, 331 Kenton Lands Rd., Suite 300, Erlanger, (859) 727-2337
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