CLAG Brewing, Where You Can Get a Bowl of Pho and a Double IPA

Born and raised in Vietnam, CLAG Brewing Founder Kha Bui fled his home country in 1989 with seventeen other people. He spent ten days and nine nights in a boat on the South China Sea before the Italian Navy rescued the refugees and took them to Taiwan. From there, Bui traveled to Hong Kong and eventually the Philippines, where he spent three years in the Palawan Refugee Camp.

Bui and his family eventually immigrated to the U.S., opening several successful businesses. In fact, you may recognize his brother, An Bui, who owns the world-renowned The Answer in Richmond, VA. The brothers developed a love for great beer in the Virginia Capital before Bui moved to Sandusky, OH, in 2011 to help his family open Mekong Sandusky, an authentic Vietnamese restaurant.

In 2014, Bui struck out on his own, opening Small City Taphouse, one of the best craft beer bars in the Ohio town of about 24,000.

“I was surrounded by great beers from breweries all over the world,” Bui wrote in an email to Hop Culture. “I was able to get a first-hand account of what people liked and didn’t like—I couldn’t help but want to try my hand at making my own beer.”

And making his own beer meant eventually following in his brother’s footsteps and opening his own brewery, where you can currently find a bowl of pho and one of the best double IPAs in the country.

From Small City Taphouse to Big Boy Brewery

Photography courtesy of CLAG

“If you know craft beer [in Sandusky],” says CLAG Brewing Head Brewer Kevin Kowalski, “you know Kha’s bar.”

Kowalski goes on to explain that Bui always brought in the best beers possible to cover his fifty taps. People would line up outside just to get draft pours from kegs he’d tapped that day.

Beers like Toppling Goliath’s King Sue and Founders KBS, which were not available anywhere else in the state.

“It was the hotspot craft beer bar,” explains Kowalski, who pitched Bui on becoming CLAG’s head brewer over a casual dinner date. Although Kowalski caveats, “We didn’t even talk about the brewery. He just asked me about what’s going on in my life.”

At the end, Kowalski turned to Bui and asked, “So, about this brewery?”

He told Kowalski that if he wanted the job, it was his.

What drew him to CLAG is Bui’s approach.

Kowalski had worked in the industry but never as a head brewer. He started homebrewing, so he didn’t have to buy beer in college before joining Market Garden Brewing as a bartender, working his way up and bouncing around to a few different brewpubs in Ohio.

Kowalski wanted the chance to “forge his own path” and brew his own beer.

When he asked Bui what type of beer he wanted to brew, Bui responded, “I want to make full IPAs, really flavor-focused beers that push the limits of what we can do,” recalls Kowalski.

Whereas previous jobs had handcuffed Kowalski to price-conscious recipes, Bui gave him carte blanche to order more expensive hops and ingredients.

Bui told him, “If you think it’s really going to put the beer over the top, then do it.”

“It was free rein to essentially do what I wanted,” gushes Kowalski.

Which is probably why CLAG has become the second-highest-rated brewery in Ohio on the Untappd app. With over 96k ratings from 318 beers, CLAG maintains an awe-inspiring 4.29 rating on the world’s largest social media platform for craft beer.

That also makes them one of the top fifty highest-rated breweries in the world, according to Untappd, and a shoe-in to our list of the “17 Best Breweries to Watch in 2025.”

Cocky Nickname, Brave Beer, Humble Humans

Photography courtesy of CLAG

Photography courtesy of CLAG

You’d think with such a highly rated brewery that Bui would be cocky. Look a little closer at the name, and it’s hidden right there. CLAG stands for Cocky Little Asian Guy.

The acronym comes from a nickname Bui earned after he told a friend, “We can make better beer than these guys!”

But that’s probably as cocky or confident as Bui has ever gotten with CLAG.

“I always tell people that Kha is the least cocky person you’ll ever meet,” Kowalski assures us.

It’s why Bui preferred we interview Kowalski for this article, responding to our questions only over email.

“He’s very shy,” explains CLAG’s head brewer.

Instead, Bui lets the beers Kowalski makes speak for themselves.

Without any true flagships or year-round offerings, CLAG changes its beers frequently, earning a reputation for hazies and barrel-aged beers.

“My one goal,” says Kowalski, “was to not be a one-trick pony.”

Beers like Half a Million Brakepads showcase CLAG’s prowess with hops. The double IPA features New Zealand Riwaka and Peacharine as well as Simcoe.

Of the former, which Kowalski fell deeply in love with, he says, “When we dry-hopped that beer, we cracked open those bags of Riwaka and they just smelled like melted Starburst in a bag.”

He adds, “It was jaw-dropping how dramatic those hops were right in the bag.”

The collab with Fidens earned a nearly unheard-of 4.49 rating on Untappd.

And while Kowalski won’t go as far as to say the Riwaka hops are the only thing that made that beer, “I definitely think they put it over the top for sure!”

Bui’s favorite beer has to be Papa Bui, a 4.37-rated double IPA with a massive charge of Citra in the whirlpool that delivers huge blasts of pineapple, passionfruit, and key lime. Made in honor of Bui’s father, who passed away in 2018, this highly rated imperial hazy epitomizes CLAG. “He was a family man,” explains Bui. “Everyone who met him loved him.”

We’ve yet to meet a beer at CLAG that we haven’t loved, whether that’s on the hoppier side of life or the darker one.

Photography courtesy of CLAG

On the other side of the spectrum, Kowalski cites the imperial barrel-aged stout, Khassassin, as one he’s especially proud of.

For all of CLAG’s barrel-aged beers, Kowalski ages them for at least a year. “That’s where they round out a little better,” he explains.

Khassassin was actually a happy accident.

While pulling out barrels to tap for CLAG’s fifth anniversary, Kowalski came across two Ezra Brooks barrels filled in November 2020 and forgotten.

Kowalski tried samples of the almost sixty-month-old beer. “Holy crap,” he thought. “This thing is perfect.”

Bui’s carte blanche approach to brewing means Kowalski can add ingredients like coconut, vanilla bean, coffee, maple syrup, and cacao nibs all to one beer.

But for Kowalski, it’s ultimately all about balance. Throughout the year, when most of his barrel-aged stouts are resting in barrels, his team is constantly tasting and adjusting as needed. If he finds a beer with a bit more coffee-like bitterness, he’ll blend that with a batch that tastes sweeter, so they achieve a nice equilibrium.

“You can hit somebody over the head with flavor,” says Kowalski, “but if they don’t want to take a third or fourth sip, then I’m not doing my job.”

It’s also why Kowalski won’t ever put any beer out to the public if it “doesn’t live up to snuff,” he says. “I always use the term: How much does it cost to buy back a customer in the lifetime of a brewery?”

Kowalski has approached brewing at CLAG with this mantra since the very beginning, almost a testament to living up to the potential of Bui’s reputation in the local craft beer community, especially among the locals at Small City Taphouse.

“They already had a recognition of amazing beer,” says Kowalski, admitting he felt very intimidated. “I had to create beers on the tier of some of the top ones in the country. I had to ratchet it up and be on their level.”

Which is why people who come to CLAG know they’re always getting the most top-tier, top-notch beer.

The Next Five Years at CLAG

Photography courtesy of CLAG

Recently, CLAG collaborated with North Park in San Diego, CA. While hanging out, Kowalski struck up a conversation with a guy at the bar. He told Kowalski about a brewery he’d just discovered from a beer trade and recommended he try it.

From a little cooler, the guy pulled out cans of CLAG beer.

“I just laughed,” says Kowalski. “My brain went blank.”

It’s a dream scenario for the little brewery from Sandusky, which has “cocky” in its name and bravado in its beer but couldn’t be more humble in its everyday.

For the future, CLAG isn’t getting too big for its britches either.

“I always preach that slow and steady wins the race,” says Kowalski. “It’s not a marathon.”

By adding a tank here and a tank there, Kowalski hopes CLAG will just keep up its steady pace without getting in over its own head.

When I ask Bui how he describes the brewery to someone who has never heard of it, his answer is as humble as he is.

“CLAG is honestly about having fun with a great team of people,” he says, noting ninety-five percent of the beers earned their names from jokes made while the team hangs out or from fans’ ideas. “Though the name implies we’re cocky, we’re really anything but. We just like to have fun making good beer.”