Is Your Brewery Dirty? Or… Are We Just Looking For Clicks?

Written By: The Gnarly Gnome

8/30/24

This isn’t meant as a dig at WCPO’s Dan Monk. He does a great job overall, and we need more actual reporters out there writing actual stories about the world. He’s a nice guy, and I want to clarify before I let loose on his latest story about Cincinnati Breweries that it’s not coming as an attack on him personally.

Now, with all that said – and out of the way – his latest article with the beautiful title of ‘Dirty Dining’ got under my skin. In the article, Dan (rightfully so… it’s accurate) outlines five breweries with the highest total health violations of all our local taprooms this year. He calls out March First in Blue Ash, Sonder Tap Haus in West Chester, FigLeaf Brewing in Middletown, VooDoo Brewing in West Chester, and Braxton Brewing Company at the airport.

I didn’t think it was the whole story, though.

I Dig Deep, From The Inside Out

Like any good lawn ornament who also runs a beer blog, I had to find out what was really going on with this. I bellied up to a few of the bars on the list, cracked open a computer and a notebook, and pretended that I was a real reporter. Then, I read the health inspections—one by one.

Before we get to my overarching thoughts about all of this, we should break down what I learned. Because there’s a lot here, we’ll take it individually with the three breweries I tackled. (Also, to note, I did reach out to each one of these places to let them know that I wrote about this, and if they have comments of their own, I’ll add them as they’re available.)

Sonder Taphaus, West Chester

If we really want to do this… we have to do it. So we have to start back to January 4th, when Sonder got a follow-up inspection and received the first two of their 15 total violations. They were dinged for:

Not air-drying pans before they stacked them up.
Grease and debris near the grease storage tank in the back of the kitchen.
Non-critical violations… but of course – we count them.

On 1/20, an inspection revealed the first critical violations of the year:

The person in charge couldn’t state the proper temperatures at which the chicken was supposed to be kept to be safe. They said 120 when it should be 135… this was corrected during the inspection.
They also had trouble demonstrating the dishwashing equipment at the facility; they weren’t aware that they didn’t use chlorine sanitizer.
Moving on, the handwashing sink nearest the dishwasher was off… they marked this to follow up later.
There was a knife between the prep cooler and the prep table—knives should always be stored in clean locations. They fixed this during the inspection.
The chicken and soup were not holding the correct temperature: 8 degrees too low for the chicken and 20 degrees for the soup. This was fixed during the inspection.
They had some non-critical violations, too, during that visit.
The wings were being cooled down in the prep cooler… which they shouldn’t have been—they were moved to the walk-in to fix that during the inspection.
They didn’t have an appropriate “irreversible registering temperature indicator” for dishwashing…
Still had grease back by the grease tank… which might be leaking. Gotta fix that!
Uh oh… someone left a Monster energy drink and a slushy on the top shelf of a cooler.

On 1/28, another inspection hit them with a new critical violation.

That handwashing sink still isn’t fixed.
And non-critically speaking…
That pesky grease tank… work faster.

Finally… on 7/9, they had another inspection… this time, only one non-critical violation.

Grease. Tank. What’re you gonna do?

VooDoo, West Chester

Poor VooDoo, West Chester getting thrown into a WCPO article about having a “dirty kitchen” when they’ve only been open for a little over two months. Talk about great publicity. They do have a bunch of serious violations that we should be concerned about as craft beer fans, though as the article points out. 13 violations in that short time since they’ve been open.

It all started on July 24th with their first inspection, which turned up four critical violations:

Their dishwasher wasn’t properly dispensing sanitizer.
Salsa was kept 11 degrees warmer than it was. They said they had just put it in the cooler, and they immediately fixed it by putting it into an ice bath to cool it down faster.
There were cooked vegetables that weren’t labeled with the date. They were easy to fix, so they did.
They were also using a non-approved multi-surface sanitizer, so they also switched that.

The non-critical violations from the inspection also came in, and there were six of them.

They needed to buy some dividers for their prep cooler to make sure it could keep up the load limit.
They couldn’t find a food thermometer.
Stacked dishes were wet instead of air drying first.
They didn’t have one of those “irreversible registering temperature indicator” things for their dishwasher.
Debris on top of their pizza oven.
Again, equally as appalling as the Monster Energy was at Sonder, there was a Red Bull on the top shelf of the cooler here.

They got their follow up inspection on 7/31 – and while they’d fixed most everything, there were still a couple problems, all non-critical.

Dishes were still stacked wet.
That “irreversible registering temperature indicator”
There is still debris on top of the pizza oven.

The nerve! 13 violations this year! And they just opened in June!

March First, Blue Ash [UPDATED 9/10]

Here’s the big one, the massive focus of the article. WCPO let us know that not only does March First Blue Ash have 26 violations this year, but 23 of them have rolled in over the last month before the article was released.

I’ll admit that some of this is a little more severe than VooDoo and Sonder’s violations proved to be, and there are a few more of them to cover. I’ll cover the 23 over the last month.

It starts with a July 23rd inspection, which revealed three priority violations.

Expired food in the walk-in.
Food in the coolers that was too warm.
Food not marked with dates.

All three of these violations were corrected during the inspection, which also turned up two non-priority violations to make note of:

Debris in the walk-in cooler
Aditionally, it was too dark on the walk-in… they need lighting less than “ten-foot candles,” which I don’t think means what I think it means, but I recognize it’s too dark.

A follow-up inspection on 8/15 was a little bit worse, turning up seven priority violations:

One of the TWO dishwashers (the one that they aren’t currently using) does not dispense sanitizer.
They had expired sausage in the cooler.
Pizza Sauce and Mac and Cheese were both not being held warm enough (11 degrees and 5 degrees)
Food in the cooler was still too warm.
Food wasn’t marked with dates.
Coolers weren’t maintaining proper temp.
There was a “clear liquid” at the bar that wasn’t labeled.

Three of the seven violations were, again, able to be fixed right on the spot. There were also three more non-priority violations:

No sanitizer test kits were available.
Debris is still in the cooler.

Finally, their follow-up inspection a little over a week ago (as of writing this) brought forth 4 priority violations:

That dishwasher still wasn’t fixed… one of the two.
Pizza sauce and mac and cheese still isn’t quite warm enough (11 degrees and 5 degrees, still)
Their coolers aren’t keeping things cold enough.
Fruit flies were hanging out behind both bars.
That’s in addition to 4 non-priority violations that came up during this inspection:
Coolers were not maintaining proper temp.
No sanitizer test kits were available.
Modified faucet in the kitchen, which was affecting hot water at the bar.
There was still debris in the walk-in.

Update:

March First reached out with some comments about the situation. It’s all pretty much exactly like I expected.

Their dishwasher was disconnected and waiting for replacement or repair… it was a dishwasher that they had not been using… you know, because it doesn’t work?
The cooler in question with the temperatures is a tabletop cooler that holds all the cold ingredients for pizza. It has been repaired with metal plates to lower the temperatures to keep it in spec, and they’ve been keeping a close eye on it.
The warmers have all been repaired.
The modified faucet (a t-valve) on the sink has been removed, and they’re installing a dedicated line.
The fruit fly battle that just about every brewery faces is still facing ongoing treatment.

Second Update:

March First got their follow-up inspection on 9/6 it looks like – and the inspection revealed no violations, critical or non-critical.

Is It Valid?

Are these kitchens actually “dirty”? That’s the big question. Does all this mean we shouldn’t eat in our local breweries? I’ve spent a bunch of time this week thinking about this, and while… yes – my pizza sauce and my mac and cheese need to be held at 135 degrees if they’re going to be held warm for a while, and sure… If there’s expired food in a cooler… I don’t want to eat it.

I don’t think there’s a real story here. I certainly hope that the breweries that have been called out are working to remedy their issues (and from what I can tell… they are)

So, if the question I’m answering is whether I think it’s safe to eat in breweries or taprooms—a thought I’d never pondered before this week—I’d certainly answer yes. I’m not worried. As I’m writing these words, I’m sitting with a basket of food at one of the “offending” taprooms now, and I don’t think I’m going to get sick… it was delicious.

I have an issue with how the number of violations is expressed in the article. When we take one of these (I’ll use VooDoo West Chester as an example), the article explains to us that they have thirteen violations, which is correct. When we read into it, though, their latest inspection only turned up three, all non-critical. The others had been taken care of. Should we be tallying them all up to come up with some big number without explanation? If we have a repeat violation (critical or not), should it count as four different violations this year? Is a leaking grease tank something that should be explained when we say somewhere has four non-critical violations?

What’s The Real Point?

I don’t really know Dan Monk that well. I’ve met him once and talked to him a couple of times, and he really does seem like a great guy. I’m sure that this comes from a place of concern for the food safety of craft beer fans, which is a valid concern. I’m sure that he pulled all of these health inspections, read them top to bottom, and knows what the violations were for.

I don’t know why he chose to call the places out in the way he did, making it sound like they are “dirty” places to dine. I wonder why he didn’t detail some of the inspections to let readers figure out for themselves how they felt.

I do know that you’re probably not going to die eating at a local craft brewery. I really don’t believe that Dan Monk or the folks at WCPO hate our local craft breweries, but it certainly seems that they aren’t spending enough time in them.

As always, Be Gnarly… Don’t leave energy drinks, open or closed, on the top shelf (and put some flex seal on the grease tank.)