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    In Fifth Year, Sideswipe Brewing Plans Taproom Expansion

    It’s a milestone year for Sideswipe Brewing. The local brewing company, tucked away on the West Side at 2415 Scioto Harper Dr., enters its fifth year of business with plans to continue its pattern of growth. They’re joining up with their neighbors, Arcade Super Awesome, to expand their taproom and offer more gaming options.

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    The plan is to add another 1,500 square feet to Sideswipe’s taproom, continuing the bar into the arcade and joining the two spaces with a door at the front of the building. In the new space would be part of Arcade Super Awesome’s inventory of arcade games and pinball machines, adding to the brewery’s current selection of darts and pinball.

    Sideswipe’s taproom has had games since it opened in 2013, but owner Craig O’Herron says they’ve been able to offer more since they expanded the first time, in 2016. At that point, they doubled their square footage and gave the taproom a needed revamp.

    “When I started here just drinking and became a regular…there were nights when it was Craig with a kegerator, a couple card tables and folding chairs, and that was the taproom,” says head brewer John Stewart. “There’d be only two or three other people in here all night long.”

    It didn’t take too long for them to gain a following, mostly thanks to word of mouth, Stewart says. People from the neighboring businesses would come, and when they came back they’d bring friends or coworkers. 

    Arcade Super Awesome should bring in a whole new customer base, one that arcade owner John Geiger has built for the last eight years. The arcade started as somewhat of an underground experience, he says, operating out of a warehouse in Grandview for five years. It entered the public eye when it opened up above Yellow Brick in Olde Towne East in 2015, and then Melt Bar & Grilled in the Short North, in December 2018. 

    The partnership with Sideswipe was a natural next move, Geiger says.

    “I think we align in a lot of ways. I love craft beer, and I think those things go well together,” says Geiger, “but the community they’ve created over there, the tone and the mood they have in their taproom, is really cool. I think expanding that to have games that have a social aspect — like pinball — I think it’s going to be pretty sweet.”

    The arcade is planning a pinball tournament at the Sideswipe taproom at the end of January, with plans to open the new space soon after.

    Sideswipe will celebrate five years this Saturday, Jan. 19 with a party from 2 to 10 p.m. The brewery has 16 beers on tap every night, and they’ll be releasing six new beers that day: two anniversary beers, a Chocolate Imperial Porter and a Pineapple Upside Down Cake, both in cans; along with a golden rye ale, a super pale ale, a black IPA, and a fruited Hefeweizen.

    Fetty’s Street Food truck will also be onsite.

    For more information, visit sideswipebrewing.com and arcadesuperawesome.com.

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    Lauren Sega
    Lauren Segahttps://columbusunderground.com
    Lauren Sega is the former Associate Editor for Columbus Underground and a current freelance writer for CU. She covers political issues on the local and state levels, as well as local food and restaurant news. She grew up near Cleveland, graduated from Ohio University's Scripps School of Journalism, and loves running, traveling and hiking.
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