Brewhaus Dog Bones

A few months ago I made one of my regular trips to Rivertown and noticed something new in the tap room. It’s a lot cooler, to me than a bunch of arcade cabinets though those are extremely cool! A few days later I was at Mt. Carmel and noticed something new in the tap room there as well, the same thing I ‘ve seen at Rivertown. This was when I got very curious, which led to what you are about to reading.

The things which sparked my curiosity were Brewhaus Dog Bone stands like the one to the right. Then I noticed it said “Proudly made with quality grains from” above the Mt. Carmel logo. Dog treats made from spent grains from local breweries? Only one word for this, Awesome.

As part of my homebrewing adventures I’ve kept spent grain after the mash and used it to make pretzels and dog treats before. You add eggs, peanut butter, a bit of flour, bake for a while and boom, dog treats! That’s the same thing the folks at Brewhaus Dog Bones are doing. Instead of using homebrew spent grains they’re using spent grains from production breweries. That’s not where the greatness of this product ends, young adults with disabilities put together everything going into these dog treats.

Brewhaus Dog Bones

Brewhaus Bakery Co. is a 100% not for profit 501(c)3 company. The breweries donate the spent grain and all proceeds from sales go back into the company to provide the other ingredients and help grow the organization to help more students. The young adults learn valuable work skills that can lead to community-based employment. It’s important to know that these students are not working with someone else’s hand on top of their hand, they are doing this work themselves to reinforce these skills. They’re responsible for predicting the supply and demand by working with staff at the breweries, picking up the spent grains, packaging, labeling, and weighing the bags, calculating costs, counting the money brought in, working community sales and brewery festivals, and, of course, making and baking the dog bones. With everything these young adults are responsible for doing it sounds like it’d be an excellent program for every student to help develop their business skills.

Participating Breweries and Schools

• Rivertown
• Listermann/Triple Digit
• Mt. Carmel
• Bad Tom Smith
• Paradise Brewing Supply
• Old Firehouse Brewery
• Fibonacci is in as well, once they have spent grains
• Sycamore
• Mariemont
• New Richmond
• Oak Hills
• Princeton, coming soon.
• Ed Note: This list is now a year old and they’ve expanded since

Along with the breweries listed above you can score a bag of dog treats at Earthwise Pet Supply, Newton Feed & Seed, and Family Animal Hospital. The company has plans to continue to expand to more schools and breweries to help more kids. Future plans include additional food products, hence the company name Brewhaus Baker Co. instead of Brewhaus Dog Bones. They’ve also got an idea I find super exciting for “Brewhaus Brewbus” a food truck for dogs. Many food truck festivals are pet-friendly events, but there’s nothing for the pooches to eat!

Now look, all the hipness of local and natural ingredients, all the awesomeness of spent brewer’s grain, and all the warm tingles of helping young adults with disabilities don’t amount to jack if dogs don’t enjoy the treats. To find out if these treats are worth your five bucks I volunteered my fluff ball, Izzy.