I began a beer blog about a year ago called ClevelandHops.com to get info out to the general beer loving public of Northeast Ohio. Around that same time, others began blogs as well, hitting on similar topics. There is a great beer scene here in Cleveland, take a look, Cleveland Beer Week starts tomorrow. Seeing that there are so many bloggers devoted to promoting all of the great breweries around town, I began to shift my focus to brewing my own beer. I became a homebrewer.

To me, home brewing enhances my knowledge of the beer making process. By no means am I an expert, but up to 8 batches of 5 gallon brewing now, I feel that I have a good grasp of what I am doing. So far, I have only been doing extract brewing which means that much of the grain used has already been transformed into syrupy substance to put into your boil. My next step will be moving up to “mashing” my own grains. For more info on mashing and other brewing lingo, check out brewwiki.

But the fun does not stop there. With every beer that I brew, I also design some art to go along with it. Sometimes it is a label, but future brews could be tap handles. Everything is connected; the name, the beer style, the font, the color. It is a little branded package for each brewing.

It was a logical transition for me into brewing because of my interest in craft beer, but it does not take a beer nerd, geek or snob to get into it. There are plenty of resources for help getting started. Of course you can order online, but for the most part I like to purchase from local stores. The Brew Mentor, Warehouse Beverage, The Grape & Granary, Leeners are all local shops that can help get you started. There are also the Brew-On-Premise places, The Brew Kettle, Little Mountain and soon to open The BottleHouse. These are establishments that you can go to to brew a batch without having to buy equipment (or cleanup).

Brewing is a fun outlet and a getaway from the daily routine, but it also has a connection through design. In my digital world of immediacy, it has taught me to be more patient. One beer usually takes 4-6 weeks until it is ready to be enjoyed. But the most gratifying part of the process is sharing your brew with family and friends. Cheers!

Prost! Check out the Stocktoberfest materials that we designed for Xpedx‘s 2011 Fall Paper Preview. Hope to see you there tonight.

Xpedx invites you to see what’s on tap this fall from your favorite mills. All lines on display are made with only the choicest pulps, producing the finest grain. Join us in our yearly toast to to all things paper! Cheers!

Thursday, Oct 6 , 2011
4pm – 8pm

Arhaus Furniture always allows us the ability to visit interesting locations – be it a farm, a trout club, a beach, a vintage greenhouse, a southern plantation, or a turn of the century mansion – art directing photoshoots literally takes us into the pages of an Arhaus catalog.

In May – Anne, John and Brian had the fortune of attending the opening gala for the newest Arhaus store in New York City. Arhaus transformed a two-story warehouse space into an exquisite exhibit of everything that Arhaus is – incredibly crafted furniture, lush rugs, unique accessories and beautiful lighting – all styled and placed with perfection. The elegance of Arhaus product finds itself a striking new environment to reside in, amongst the chic downtown dining/shopping mecca of the Meat Packing District in lower Manhattan. It was fascinating to meet the many vendors and designers from all over the world, and hear their rich history with Arhaus Furniture, who is celebrating their 25th Anniversary this year.

The perfectly balmy May weather allowed us to take advantage of the sights and sounds of New York City in the best possible way – walking everywhere. We witnessed the haunting beauty of the work of Alexander McQueen in the exquisitely curated retrospective at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, window shopped our way through Greenwich Village at which Anne and Brian put the legendary Magnolia Bakery cupcakes to the test (yes they are incredible and worth waiting in line for), and dined at the delicious open air restaurant Barbuto,recommended to us by our client Zack Bruell.

One of our favorite experiences had to be The High Line. The High Line is an elevated walking park created from a railway system originally constructed in the 1930s to lift dangerous freight trains off Manhattan’s streets. Non-operational since 1980, the park was constructed using monies raised by “the Friends of the High Line” conservancy, transforming  this once despaired of and abandoned landscape into a thriving and lush park, alive once again with greenery, people and public art. It was nothing less than inspiring to peacefully walk above the streets of the bustling city, as you encountered all the variations of botanicals nestled amongst the train tracks, art, and countless visitors strolling, reading, resting, and sunning along the mile-and-a-half park. The High Line is a MUST visit next time your find yourself in New York City.

New York City is always inspiring, especially for designers – where incredible signage, packaging, window displays and fashion are a part of daily city surroundings. We were certainly honored to be a part of such a monumental achievement for our friends at Arhaus Furniture, and we wish them continued success in their new city home!

Recently, ClevelandHistorical won First Place in the eTech Ohio Apps Contest. Epstein Design Partners collaborated with DXY Solutions to build this dynamic application that showcases North East Ohio’s History for Cleveland State University’s Center for Public History + Digital Humanities.

“…Find interesting people, places and events in Cleveland history, and even take curated historical tours of the city. Each point on the interactive GPS-enabled map includes historical information about the site along with historic images from Cleveland’s top archival institutions. Many sites also include audio clips and short documentary videos based on the more than 500 oral history interviews from CSU’s Cleveland Regional Oral History collection.”

Check out the app for yourself. It is a free app available for both Android and iOS devices.

For this year’s TEDxCLE, I was asked by organizers Hallie and Eric to shoot some photos for the event to which I gladly accepted the offer. Having attended the TEDxCLE 2010, I knew that it would be filled with inspirational talks and this year’s speakers hit on a few topics that I have an interest in: Food, Art, Community and History.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x=independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.

Eat Local

Client, Chef Jonathon Sawyer’s talk, “Sustainability: Local, Practical and Profitable”, focused on the importance of eating local. He lives this motto with his restaurant The Greenhouse Tavern, which was Ohio’s first Certified Green restaurant.

Authenticity

Hearing Dr. David Franklin, Director of The Cleveland Museum of Art‘s talk, “Why Museums Still Matter”, was very inspirational. Being a Designer in a digital medium, it is important to snap back into a real, tangible world. A digital replica of a museum is just that, a replica. To truly experience something, you have to be immersed in it. He brought a couple of ancient carvings, over 5,000 years old from the Cleveland Museum of Art’s collection and held them as he spoke. The audience gasped at amazement that Dr. Franklin actually brought the items to his talk. Somehow the images on screen did not have the same effect as Dr. Franklin holding over 11,000 years of history in his hands.

Communal Spaces

There were a few related talks about the effect of community public spaces and their effect on cities. One of the statistics references was the fact that Public Spaces, more so than jobs or schools, is a deciding factor on where people choose to live. Seeing some of the plans for Cleveland’s Public Square flash up on the screen really got me interested in seeing what becomes of that development.

Preserving History

Talks on preserving history were another interesting topic to me. Working on the ClevelandHistorical app, I have learned a lot about the history of Cleveland. As the city moves forward, I hope that historic preservation is integrated into the plans for advancement. A lot of “what used to be” is no longer around as evidenced by the ClevelandHistorical app. Another good documentation on historic Cleveland is a documentary on Ideastream entitled “Downtown Cleveland“. I caught it on WVIZ but you can also view it online.

TEDxCLE has been a great event for the city. The Cleveland version of TED highlights a lot of local people, companies and organizations that are working to make our city relevant, our region stronger and our world a little better. If you get a chance to attend next year’s event, do it. All that it takes is a little motivation from one of these events to get your wheels turning on how you can get involved and get your ideas heard.

Epstein child recognizes newest member of  the Cavaliers…..
This past Sunday all Baron Davis (right) had on his mind was which fish to buy from the great, Kate’s Fish stand , at the West Side Market. Luckily, James Kelemen, (left), son of Epstein Design Partners, Anne Toomey – Kelemen,  had no trouble recognizing him among the crowd. I’m sure he had no idea that in just two short days he would be on cloud nine after conquering the Miami Heat on home turf. Making this sighting so very timely, all Cavs fans are proud of our win against the Miami Heat last night, and are glad to see our newest player, Baron Davis, enjoying the famous West Side Market. Hopefully, he enjoyed a delicious lunch at the Bier Markt and Bar Cento as James and his family did.

Another St. Patty’s day feast here at Epstein. A delicious assortment of potato chips, pickles, cole slaw, potato salad and, of course,corned beef sandwiches from Mr. Brisket. Lots of food, spirits, and laughter with the Epstein team.

The Heights Youth Theatre is a wonderful theatre group that has a cast ranging in age from Kindergarten to High School Seniors. It is has been around for over 50 years and is funded by the residents of Cuyahoga County through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture and the Ohio Arts Council. The performances are held at Wiley Middle School which provides a great theatre setting with an orchestra pit, professional lighting, sound and production.

Heights Youth Theatre (HYT) is a non-profit organization committed to providing quality children’s theatre on the East Side of Cleveland. Our Mission Statement says it best–the purpose of Heights Youth Theatre is “to entertain, educate, and inspire!”

Having two children, we try to convey the value of the arts. Sometimes it does not take much to get them interested. After taking the kids to a few stage performances from local theatre groups including the Heights Youth Theatre and the Near West Theatre, our oldest wanted to get involved. At the performance of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat we noticed a call for auditions to the next show at HYT, “The Wiz”. The next week, there we were, preparing for auditions and our son got the call, not only was he in, but he got a line. He is not the first “Epstein child” to get into an HYT production. The next few weeks we listened to the soundtrack over and over and he actually knows most of the songs and all of the characters’ lines. Maybe he will grow further in his next role, but he was happy to be in the Mice Squad and arrest the Lion before projecting his line, “Your cat was really flying there.” I think I will always remember that line.

There’s my son, third from the right, holding his tail.

The children in these performances are very impressive. Having gone to a few different productions, it is fun to see some of them grow in their different roles. A lot of credit has to go to all of the directors, volunteers and choreographers that put on these shows. This particular production has 115 children in the cast. Director, Treva Offutt, gets my respect for pulling this show together with a record size cast for HYT. Learn more about this show in this review in the Sun Press.

Get involved in the arts in your community, donate, volunteer, or just go to one of the performances.

Remaining shows:
Friday, March 11 & 18, 7 PM
Saturday, March 12 & 19, 2 PM

Thank you to the Heights Youth Theatre’s Executive Director, Pamela Fine, for permission in using the photography for this post. There are more photos on the HYT facebook page.

Epstein Design Parters is excited to welcome the newest member of our team, Kaitlyn Spilker.
Kaitlyn will be fulfilling the Business Manager position and is a recent graduate of the
Boler School of Business at John Carroll University with a degree in Marketing.

A friend of mine, Chef Adam Wilson, happens to be the Director at the Viking Cooking School at their Legacy Village Store. He asked me to come out and take some shots at one of their events for him, so of course I would take him up on the offer.

The Viking Store has two class rooms and a studio kitchen (which I had been in previously for a Greenhouse Tavern/Brooklyn Beer Dinner). They also have an outside section for grilling classes when the weather permits. The two classrooms were both in use on this night and each had a nice size crowd. Class times range from about 3 -4 hours and private events can be scheduled as well. Adam says this year has been pretty booked up, but when cancelations arise, they post notices on their facebook page, most of which offer discounted seats for last minute reservations.

It was nice to see Chef Adam in action. He is very knowledgeable and gives tips and techniques so that the attendees can take what they have learned home with them. Terminology and culinary basics are the items that he conveys. He believes in Mise en Place (everything in place) and preaches this as his first step in the class. He is very comfortable in front of the class as he has even more experience teaching at the Tri-C Culinary Arts Program. With all of the instruction Chef Adam is no Chef Gordon Ramsay and this is not “Hell’s Kitchen”. The chefs keep the mood light, entertaining the patrons as they create their dishes. Once the chopping is done and knives are put a way, wine (and sometimes beer) is served with each class.

I am thinking that setting up one of these events for my craft beer crew might be in order. Maybe a beer and food pairing event? Those details will be worked out soon, in the meantime, I suggest setting up one of your own classes. Could be a good team-building exercise.