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Ninety-two neighborhoods. Ninety-two beers. Hopefully not 92 years.

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Dan Rugh, of Commonwealth Press, and Scott Smith, of East End Brewing, enjoy cans of Allentown. (East End Brewing)

If you could pick a beer style for your Pittsburgh neighborhood, what would it be? Even though Brighton Heights Berliner Weisse has a nice ring to it, I think I’d prefer a Baltic porter for my ‘hood’s beer.

I might even make that suggestion to Scott Smith, owner of East End Brewing; his brewery is embarking on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood tour of the city’s 92(ish) neighborhoods, making a unique beer for each one — and maybe even finishing the process before he’s ready to retire.

East End’s arrival at a pretty hefty milestone — the brewery’s 15th anniversary — got Smith thinking about EEBC’s place in the city and, further, what he could do to commemorate its 15th year. For a few months, he kicked around the idea of neighborhood beers, trying to match that up with a production schedule that might have a dozen or so beers at various stages going at the same time. A convergence of coincidences — the grand opening of the new Allentown warehouse of brewery design partner Commonwealth Press, for example, gave Smith the nudge he needed to start the project this weekend.

The addition of the new beers into the rotation will mean some changes to how things are done at the brewery, Smith said. If the brewery is able to add, say, 20 neighborhood beers into its production schedule each year, it will mean that seasonals like Pedal Pale won’t be in production — or available — as long as they have been in the past. “We won’t be able to make as much,” Smith said. “They’ll truly be one and done.”

And no matter how much I beg him, I probably won’t get my Brighton Heights Baltic porter. Sometimes the neighborhoods will precede the beer and sometimes it’ll be the other way around, but Smith said he won’t try to tailor specific styles to specific neighborhoods.

Still — 92 beers. That’s a lot of experimentation for the folks at East End — something that keeps the brewing business from becoming too much like a factory — and it’ll be a lot of fun for us.

Category: Pittsburgh | Tags: , , ,

Five Pink Boots beers are in the works

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ShuBrew co-owner Erika Shumaker in ShuBrew’s brewery in Harmony.

Women in the craft beer business? It’s becoming the rule, rather than the exception.

And nowhere is that more evident than it is here, as members of Pittsburgh’s Pink Boots Society prepare to release five — FIVE — collaboration beers this spring, up from just a couple a year ago.

What changed? There are a lot more members of the local Pink Boots chapter, which serves to promote women in the industry by providing training, scholarships and activities, like attending the annual Craft Brewers Conference. Pink Boots cracked those doors, here and across the country, and women in the biz here have thrown them open and marched on through.

I visited ShuBrew in Harmony, Butler County, earlier this week to check on their brew day, which will result in a hazy IPA that will fit with their Pixelated series. Co-owner Erika Shumaker was there, as were a couple of female ShuBrew employees; the brew day also brought in Lauren Baker, the production manager at Slippery Rock’s North Country Brewing, and Christine Jenkins, who works at CNC Malt House, a new business that set up in an old elementary school east of Butler.

Baker knows here way around a brewery, but for Jenkins, the experience was new. She spent much of the morning helping David Ieong, ShuBrew’s head brewer, who walked her through much of the process.

And that’s pretty much the point, right? Jenkins said the experience she gained this week will help her when brewers approach her CNC for malts — and down the line, that will mean better beer for all of us.

Shumaker said Federal Galley will once again host a debut party for this year’s Pink Boots beers, on a date that has yet to be determined. Also, look for events at Piper’s Pub, the Harmony Inn and at ShuBrew, which will host a tap takeover once all five beers are released.

I can’t wait to taste those beers. And I can’t wait to see what happens as more women get into the business.

Category: Butler County, Pittsburgh, Region | Tags: , ,

Beer Me extra: It’s all about the water

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There is a reason that water was one of three things included in Reinheitsgebot, the German law of 1516 that governed the purity of beer.

The reason? It’s important.

It can make enough of a difference that when the same beer is brewed in two locations — like, say, Southern Tier’s now discontinued porter from the mothership brewery in New York and the locally brewed version made on the North Shore a few weeks back — the difference in the water can make it seem like you’re drinking two different beers.

Southern Tier’s Cassandra Buncie and Justin Schau help explain:

Category: Pittsburgh | Tags: ,

A fresh approach for the country’s first black beer festival

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Mike Potter and Day Bracey. (Jessie Wardarski/Post-Gazette)

Rhythm Brewing. Black Frog. Sankofa Brewing. Patuxent Brewing.

Simmer down — those aren’t new Pittsburgh breweries you’ve missed. They’ll all be in town on Saturday, though, among the dozen or so black-owned or -operated breweries from around the country that will be highlighted at Fresh Fest Beer Fest, billed as the first black beer festival ever. The locals will be there too, featuring around 25 collaborations made with black brewers, artists and others — all exclusive to the festival.

And let’s get one thing clear — the beer isn’t the best part.

As one of the hosts of the Drinking Partners podcast, Day Bracey has become well known in Pittsburgh’s craft beer scene. And through the past few years, he’s become painfully aware that when he heads to an event or a festival, he is one of a very few — if not the lone — person of color in the room. And Bracey says the problems are obvious: barriers having to do with comfort, access and education.

It’s hard, he says, to know you stand out in any group setting, and that’s what black beer fans face when they show up at a tap room or a fest — a sea of white faces. That’s what Bracey had in mind when he started talking about Fresh Fest with podcast partner Ed Bailey and Mike Potter, founder of the forthcoming Black Brew Culture magazine — a festival to give black craft beer fans a chance meet black brewers, black collaborators and other beer drinkers.

“We can relax a little bit in a space where you’re people who look like you and understand you,” he said this week. “And that’s how you open doors to the industry and the opportunities that are there for everyone.”

And if you have any doubts about enthusiasm for the concept, check this out: since late spring, the number of participating breweries and collaboration beers has more than doubled, forcing the fest to move from its original location — Wigle’s Theadbare Cider House in Spring Garden — to the massive plaza at Nova Place in the North Side.

As of Wednesday, there are still tickets available to this game-changer. And by all means, go for the beer … because it’s going to be spectacular. But once you’re there keep in mind the big thing that Bracey told me — it’s going to be good for everyone to just have a beer together.

Category: Allegheny County, Beaver County, Butler County, National, Pittsburgh, Region, Westmoreland County | Tags: , , , ,

The secret is out — Cinderlands is good, and ready to get bigger

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Baseball players rarely hit home runs with their first at-bats. The same goes for breweries.

Here’s a notable local exception: Cinderlands Beer Co.

And Cinderlands managed to pull off a double surprise: not only did co-owners Joanna and Jamie Warden manage to pull off a low-key opening six months ago — there was no hype surrounding the rookie getting ready to open on Butler Street — but once they arrived, they nailed everything — beer and the food coming from the open kitchen beside the bar — right from the start.

Jamie Warden attributes that to the luck they had finding the right chef and the right brewmaster. Chef Joe Kiefer came over from Meat & Potatoes and began turning out creative takes on pub food, like the amazing spent-grain chicharrones and pierogi that already have a reputation as among the best in the city.

Brewer Paul Schneider, who came here from Solemn Oath Brewery in Illinois, might be even more ambitious. He’s already turning out new-school IPAs that stand up to the competition, local and beyond. But he’s also shown a willingness to challenge Cinderlands customers with unusual styles — try the Grizzled Canary grisette, brewed with a Norwegian yeast strain, that’s on right now — and unusual ingredients — Land Ethic tea witbier, brewed with organic white peony tea, or Blazing Crude coffee milk stout, brewed with Ethiopian coffee and orange peel, are good examples. And as the Pittsburgh’s summer warms up, it would be good to mention that Schneider loves turning out refreshing lagers.

He’ll be able to expand that palette further, once Cinderlands opens its second location, in the old Spaghetti Warehouse building on Smallman Street in the Strip District. The Wardens are coy about the details of what they have in mind for the space — remember how quiet they kept the opening of the Lawrenceville pub? — but they are willing to discuss the expanding brewing capacity it will bring. Schneider knows a little more: most of what he brews on Butler Street will be transferred to the bigger facility in the Strip, and the extra capacity will allow him to expand the brewery’s just-started canning program. And Lawrenceville will become, he said, a place that’s “a little more fun” — think sours and wild fermentation.

Given the track record, I have to think the new place will be just as good as the original — so the only surprise will be the opening date.

Category: Allegheny County, Pittsburgh | Tags: , , , ,
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