The Uniontown Brewing Company is open for business and now Ashland locals and students have another downtown restaurant to experience. Located at 105 West Main Street, the brewery offers a variety of craft beers, from their Ashland IPA to a rich and smooth vanilla porter; the Old Man Gilbert.

“Ashland was in need of a new trendy restaurant, and Uniontown fulfilled that need,” recent AU graduate, Derek Stallard said. “With their options of food and drinks, it has something for everyone.”

They also have an 1850 Stout, a strong stout with chocolate and coffee; Local 1386 Amber Ale, named after the Ashland Fire Department, is a smooth ale with a warm, caramel taste to it.

Not only does the brewery have more than seven craft beers on tap, but it also offers a menu of food and wine for those who are not into beer.

They also serve liquor including Crown Royal Apple and Bacardi along with Pinot Grigio and sparkling Moscato wine.

Some items on the menu include appetizers like spicy tater tots, pork rinds and finger steak along with main entrée’s: steak, chicken, salads and slider burgers along with a variety of sides to choose from like fresh-cut fries or house chips.

The brewery has kids’ menus that include mac and cheese and burger sliders. Uniontown opened in mid-December and the success has been noted by many students.

“My first experience at Uniontown Brewery was great,” Stallard said. “It was a chill night with great food, a sample of some rad drinks and close friends. It definitely had a vibe that was new but kept all the traditions and character of Ashland.”

Owners, Doug and Anna Reynolds bought out the Gilbert Furniture building in July of 2016 and have been working to open since, due to waiting for the Gilberts lease to open up.

It took most of 2017 for licensing and the contracting to get the approval in 2017 and “got the final okay” to open up in April of 2017 from Richland County as well, according to Reynolds.

Reynolds said that it was not that long to receive the license to brew, but they had stuff ready ahead of time so they were prepared for the grand opening.

“We had things ahead of time before that with equipment and with the brewery stuff, the licensing through the federal government took about eight months; it takes about half that through the state for your licensing to be able to brew beer,” Reynolds said. “But that went pretty quick.”

Along with the food and beer, the atmosphere and design of the brewery is described as a place to sit down and relax.

“It’s a casual, fine-dining as we like to call it,” Reynolds said. “We wanted a good family atmosphere, comfortable and that’ll take you away and as we hear from a lot of customers that they don’t think they are in Ashland anymore. It gives you a big city like Columbus or Chicago or any kind of feel of a bigger town than Ashland and that’s what we were shooting for and that’s what we got.”

Bartender, Carol Cocchiarale, loves working at the brewery and said the beer is delicious and loves the brewery owners.
“It’s a really fun place to work because beer makes people happy,” Cocchiarale said. “Doug and Anna Reynolds are phenomenal people and it’s a pleasure to work for them.”

The brewery sells merchandise such as sweatshirts, shirts, hats with stickers on the way and 64, 32 and 16 ounce growlers that come in a four pack; filled with your choice of beer to take home.

The brewery is open for all ages and Reynolds says that “it is awesome” for the large variety of people to come in to the brewery and how long people have been waiting for the brewery to open.

“It’s like people have been sitting and waiting for us to open for years,” Reynolds said. “And as busy as we are on the weekend, I can see and it’s been cool.”

The Uniontown Brewing Company is open Monday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. and is closed on Sunday’s.

You can also check out their Facebook page or their website, www.uniontownbrewing.com.