Bier Stube has operated in one form or another since 1966, a lifetime ago in terms of the pace of redevelopment endemic to Ohio State campus. Ownership has shifted over the years from sole and shared stints, starting with Doug Milsap’s tenure when he purchased the bar in 1979. Owner Craig Kempton serves as face of the Columbus dive bar today, working his way up from manning the Bier Stube door as a student in 1996 to taking over as co-owner in 2004. Kempton’s goals are clear, focused on maintaining the authenticity of one of Ohio State’s last remaining dives and keeping prices affordable amid shifting pressures and nearby competitors.
The space is a dive bar time capsule, the faded cinder block exterior giving way to an intricate piece of lattice work that serves as the partition between parking lot patio and wood panel dive bar paradise. A classic drop ceiling covers the Bier Stube, tile flooring underfoot, every other surface covered in often diagonal wood paneling, as prototypical a dive bar setup as there is. The Bier Stube consists of a single room, a long row of small booths installed along the bar’s south wall, the wood paneling here etched and carved by decades of student visitors.
Thanks to its age and diversity of selection, the bar’s jukebox does a fine job of capturing the vintage nature of the Bier Stube, the music selection diverse and offered at the obscenely low rate of four songs per $1. The decorations here aren’t suffocating necessarily but they of course lean toward Ohio State artwork, a large portrait of Woody Hayes the most prominent visual element inside. There are no theme nights here, but there are communal events like celebrations for bartenders on a last shift or potlucks on major holidays, underscoring the friendly, neighborhood vibe.
