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PCBW: An overwhelming week

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Even if you put Christmas, Halloween and the Fourth of July together in one week, it’s not going to be as much fun as Pittsburgh Craft Beer Week.

The annual showcase of the region’s craft beer industry, now in its fourth year, gets started this weekend with collaboration beers, beer dinners, beer brunches and what has become the biggest bash of the week — the instantly sold-out Commonwealth Press Beer Barge.

And that’s only the first weekend.

The rest of the week keeps up a similar pace, with a dizzying list of events all the way through Sunday, April 26. This is the week when it becomes a little easier to track down some of those holy grail beers — you know, stuff like Founders’ Kentucky Breakfast Stout, Goose Island’s Bourbon County Stout, Deschutes Abyss — when they show up at this week’s special events.

Even better? We get the full sense of exactly how good we have it here in western Pennsylvania. We have beers brewed specifically for this week. We have eight different collaboration beers, all made by the talented brewmasters we have in the region, available all over town.

Want some highlights? On Tuesday, you’ll probably find me at Carson Street Deli, which will host a mini firkin festival featuring Grist House and Hop Farm. Breakfast at Piper’s Pub on Wednesday is an excellent idea, especially if you don’t need to be productive later in the day. Thursday? Yikes — get to the South Side and plan on staying there.

Finally, don’t miss the Brewers’ Olympics at Grist House in Millvale on the week’s final day. You’ll pay $15 for the privilege of laughing at with our favorite brewers, and money raised during the event will go to help out the folks at Blue Canoe Brewery in Titusville get back on their feet after last month’s fire.

Are you ready? The fun’s about to begin.

Post-Gazette coverage of Pittsburgh Craft Beer Week:

Category: Pittsburgh Craft Beer Week, Region | Tags: , , , ,

Local brewing tradition on display at the Independent

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In the decades before prohibition, a Pittsburgh-sized city could have had dozens of breweries, most of which served the immediate neighborhood with fresh beer. That way of doing business is making a comeback, and there may not be a better way of the breadth of the region’s beer than by pulling up a bar stool at Squirrel Hill’s Independent Brewing Co.

The original Independent Brewing Co. included smaller breweries, mostly from outside the Pittsburgh city limits; it pooled resources so its members could better compete with Pittsburgh Brewing, which had already turned Iron City into a regional behemoth.

Big Beer still takes up plenty of tap handles, but you won’t find them at the Independent, 1704 Shady Ave. Since re-branding an old sports bar about a year ago, Brothers Matthew and Pete Kurzweg have had a mission similar to that of their namesake: get fresh, local beer into the hands of consumers. When they’re able, they work directly with local brewers, so the Brothers Kurzweg can keep a dozen taps pouring.

The connection to Pittsburgh brewing history is obvious, right down to the old IBC logo that graced beers from Beaver Falls to Monessen a century ago. The brewing industry is returning to those roots, and the Independent Brewing Co. — in its new form — has returned as well.

Category: Allegheny County | Tags:

Family setting is Grist for good beer

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For Brian Eaton and Kyle Mientkiewicz, it’s not enough that they learned how to brew beer side by side years ago.

The founders of Millvale’s Grist House Brewing are also brothers in law; Mr. Eaton is married to the sister of Mr. Mientkiewicz. And those family ties have to contribute to the welcoming feel of Grist House’s cozy tap room on East Sherman Street.

The past of the space — it was a slaughterhouse into the 1970s — is still present, especially in the imposing steel beam and hook that curves overhead. There are newer touches to add to an industrial feel, like the wrought-iron tap handles built for the tap room. But the warm wood of the bar, the colorful walls — especially — the chalk board listing patrons who are owed a pint that was purchased by a friend are a comfortable contrast.

Of course, the beer helps as well. A larger capacity helps keep those iron tap handles moving, and customers are liable to find beers covering a wide range of styles — from an American Wheat and a Belgian tripel to a coffee porter and a Russian imperial stout when we visited — ready to try. And Mr. Eaton and Mr. Mientkiewicz are both professed hop heads, so there was an APA — Horizon Shine — a black rye IPA — Black rIPA — and a double IPA — Master of the Galaxy — all on at once. And that’s not all: the brewers promised the release of a new IPA by the time you read this.

Post-Gazette coverage of Grist House Brewing:

 

Category: Allegheny County | Tags: ,

That Voodoo that we do

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The reminders of the building’s past are still there. A row of heavy firefighters’ turnout coats hanging in one corner. A pile of coiled canvas hoses stacked under a metal stairway behind the bar.

But the conversion of the building that had been Homestead’s old fire station to Voodoo Brewing’s first Pittsburgh-area pub — the first one, actually, other than the original at the brewery’s home in Meadville — was thorough, from the long bar and the floor-to-ceiling menu blackboard to the beer hall-style tables fashioned from old shipping pallets. The space is quirky and inviting, like the beers that Voodoo has been turning out for years.

The pub’s presence should work out well for fans of the brewery who can’t make regular trips to Crawford County, because we’re going to get some draft-only beers we don’t usually get to sample here. Our visit included tastes of the latest in the brewery’s single-hop series, as well as Hail To Pitt, a hop-forward Homestead exclusive that tastes like it’s loaded with resinous simcoe.

Voodoo partner Jake Voelker said the pub has so far been embraced by the community, from people who volunteered to help with renovations to the space to shot-and-a-beer neighborhood guys who just wanted to get a look at the old municipal building. The century-old building that was the hub of Homestead could be that again.

Post-Gazette coverage of Voodoo Homestead:

 

Category: Allegheny County | Tags: ,
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