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Hollywood — and some glamorous beer — on Butler Street

Posted May 12, 2016 • 0 comment

Let’s make one thing clear at the start: yes, you can take bottles from Bierport into the theater at Row House while you watch a movie there.

There are two signs and two entrances to what seems like two businesses on Butler Street in Lawrenceville. But Bierport bottle shop and taproom and Row House Cinema are one and the same. And general manager Theo Ackerson said that was pretty much the plan from the beginning — to address some of the things the neighborhood didn’t have, like, say, a bottle shop.

Lawrenceville has changed some in the two years since Row House and Bierport opened their doors. The neighborhood is no longer a craft beer desert, for example. And Ackerson said the beer side of the business has changed as well; it added a basement tap room about a year ago and changed its name from the original Atlas Bottle Works earlier this year after the owners discovered a trademark dispute involving two breweries using the Atlas name.

Bierport and Row House are part of a growing segment of businesses that saw an opening as the state began to change how it interprets its liquor laws, giving new opportunities for businesses selling beer and food.

But Mr. Ackerson, owner Brian Mendelssohn and the others there aren’t content to just serve up beer with popcorn and classic films; they’re putting some thought into those presentations. Last year’s release of Goose Island’s Bourbon County Brand Stout merged a tasting of the sought-after beer with a ticket to see a documentary about making the beer. But you’re not going to just get stuffy documentaries, either: why not make Flying Dog — and its Hunter S. Thompson-themed beers — your brewery of the month while you have “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” showing on the screen next door?

For those who work at Bierport and Row House, finding those common themes has to be easy when the bottle shop has more than 850 beers available. And that should make it pretty easy for you to find something you like as well.

Post-Gazette coverage of Bierport and Row House:

Category: Pittsburgh | Tags: beer and food, bottle shop, tap room

Five years, dozens of beers — that’s Beer Week

Posted April 28, 2016 • 1 comment

When you reach a five-year milestone, it feels right to take a moment and reflect on the path that got you there. And if you think back to the first Pittsburgh Craft Beer Week — especially if you do so right after completing the fifth — you’ll understand just how far the industry has come in that time.

Were there a dozen Pittsburgh-area craft breweries back then? And will there be three or four times that many by the end of 2016?

As we learned last week, it’s not just the number that should leave an impression. It’s the quality of the beer as well. Just look at this year’s collaboration beers: breweries that haven’t yet opened or got started in the last six months contributed to five of the seven official collaborations, and all were excellent.

Summarizing my beer week is always a tough task. But let’s give it a try.

Favorite events: I made a point to try to get to some new stuff (to me, anyway), and I liked everything I got to. A standout was Oysterfest, the annual party under the Homestead Grays Bridge put on by Blue Dust — and I’m not even a fan of oysters, although the festival’s namesakes drew huge lines all afternoon. The beer choices were unique — don’t pass up a chance to try stuff from Shawnee Craft Brewing as it shows up around here, boys and girls — and there were plenty of food trucks for those who didn’t want oysters. I was also pleasantly surprised by the Summer Craft Brewhaha, a summer seasonal preview held at Altar Bar; the selection was far from predictable and the space worked out better than I expected. I hit some staples as well: the annual Wednesday beer breakfast at Piper’s Pub featured an extra delicious menu this year, perhaps in celebration of its spot on the calendar (April 20, ahem); the Helltown Brewing cask takeover at Piper’s, this year with beef braised in the brewery’s Mischievous Brown Ale as the dinner special; and if I can help it, I will never miss an edition of the Brewers’ Olympics, the event at Grist House that puts a perfect cap on the week.

Favorite beers: Here’s a great sign — the collaboration beers are more consistently good every year. With one slightly embarrassing caveat — that this North Side resident never got a taste of the Mash Paddle vs. Hipster India Red Lager collab from Penn, Spring Hill, War Streets and Allegheny City — I’ll say that the standout among the collaborations was Greenfield Bridge is Falling Down, the deliciously juicy Vermont-style IPA from Spoonwood, Helltown and two newcomers: Helicon and Dancing Gnome. I loved all of the other collaborations, but I have to give specific mention to one more, mostly because I made such a big deal about it in my beer week previews: white stouts — like Prospero, from Rock Bottom, Hitchhiker, Bloom Brew and and Eleventh Hour — work wonderfully, even if one’s brain can’t figure out in advance how a white stout might work. A few others: I really liked 5 Point Black IPA, the collaboration between Carson Street Deli and Rock Bottom; Big Boots Gose, a margarita-esque effort from the women of Pittsburgh’s Pink Boots Society; and as it starts to get warmer, be on the lookout for Grapefruit Chinookee IPA from Full Pint — it was a standout at the summer festival.

Category: Pittsburgh Craft Beer Week, Region | Tags: breweries, brewpubs, cask ale, PCBW, Pink Boots Society, Pittsburgh Craft Beer Week, restaurants, seasonal beer, tap room

For Fat Head’s fans, there’s no rivalry in beer

Posted January 7, 2016 • 0 comment

I remember my first Head Hunter IPA.

I had tasted another Fat Head’s beer before, a tripel contract-brewed in Belgium for the Carson Street saloon and craft beer bar, but this was something else entirely. I didn’t know all the details then, but I had heard about a new Fat Head’s brewpub in Cleveland … and I had heard the IPA was excellent.

And that was an understatement; loaded with rich citrus and sharp pine flavors, Head Hunter wasn’t for the faint of heart, then or now … but it is for anyone who appreciates an aggressive, well-built IPA.

Since then, the Fat Head’s empire — spanning from the South Side to Cleveland’s western suburbs and now to a new brewpub in Portland, Oregon — has grown exponentially. The brand’s portfolio grows each year and with it the list of awards it brings home from the Great American Beer Festival and the World Beer Cup.

There definitely aren’t any signs of a rivalry between Glenn Benigni, who founded Fat Head’s in Pittsburgh nearly 25 years ago, and Matt Cole, the Ohioan who oversees the Fat Head’s breweries. And although I wondered about the arrangement when I first heard of it, there was nothing contentious about starting the brewing side in Cleveland; that’s where Mr. Cole found investors and a location as he finished up a years-long stint at Rocky River Brewing, also in the Cleveland area. A Fat Head’s franchise was sold in North Olmstead, and the Fat Head’s beer soon began flowing to the South Side.

“We look at it has having two backyards,” Mr. Benigni says when asked about the two cities. “We have the best of both worlds.”

And so do we, regardless of which city we call home.

Post-Gazette coverage of Fat Head’s:

Category: Ohio, Pittsburgh | Tags: breweries, brewpubs, tap room

Trying to mead the demand

Posted October 29, 2015 • 0 comment

Two years ago, David Cerminara was ready to take a leap.

After several years of working professionally as a brewer at Penn Brewing in Troy Hill, Mr. Cerminara had begun thinking of a way to pursue his private passion: brewing mead, the prehistoric style of wine made from fermented honey. The Carnegie native found a space in his hometown and, in the summer of 2014, opened up Apis Mead and Winery with a half-dozen varieties of his modern spin on the ancient drink.

Back then, Mr. Cerminara thought he had found a unique niche; nearly a year and a half later, that’s still the case. As it was when he opened, much of Mr. Cerminara’s professional time is spent educating the customers who walk through his doors; for example, while he makes what he calls a traditional mead — the sweeter, thicker, boozier liquid some of us expect when we hear the word — he concentrates on making a more drinkable beverage: lighter and featuring different flavors than the honey that is the backbone of each version.

As he expected when he surveyed Pittsburgh a couple of years ago and saw a hole in the market, the meads of Apis are in demand, both in his tap room in Carnegie and in bars and restaurants around the region. That’s put some strain on his brewing system, which has doubled in size since he opened and, with the arrival of several new tanks, will increase his capacity again.

That will allow Mr. Cerminara’s experimentation to continue unabated. Yes, as he says, there are meads on his tap list that are just honey, yeast and water, but the fun comes in trying some of the meadery’s more unusual combinations. Habanero peppers and mango? Delicious. Bourbon-barrel aged pumpkin and spice? A perfect warmer for weeks leading up to winter. Cranberry and clove? Thanksgiving is coming, and a bottle of that mead should be on your table. If you’re looking for something that might fall along the lines of a traditional wine, definitely try a bottle of Mr. Cerminara’s mead made with Sangiovese grapes.

It’s understandable if all of this sounds a bit intimidating, but don’t be afraid to stop by Apis at 212 E. Main St. in Carnegie. You’ll likely find Mr. Cerminara there, and he’ll be happy to help you get acquainted.

Post-Gazette coverage of Apis Mead and Winery:

Recognition growing of Apis Mead & Winery’s unusual drink

Category: Allegheny County | Tags: mead, tap room, wine

Just a pizza shop — with big ambitions

Posted October 1, 2015 • 0 comment

This is more than Nick Bogacz had in mind. Even so, he’s happy with the results.

Mr. Bogacz, the owner of Caliente Pizza and Draft Houses in Bloomfield and Hampton, had made a good living working in and running pizza shops; he had recipes that he thought would work and he set out to find a pizza business — take out or delivery only — of his own.

He had been turned down several times before hitting on a promising location on Liberty Avenue in Bloomfield. The catch? The purchase included a liquor license. That went well past the original business plan, but Mr. Bogacz said the numbers worked out … and he took the leap. He also made a fateful business decision — he was going to serve craft beer, as soon as he put in a little research time.

That work paid off. The original Caliente was about six months old when the second annual Pittsburgh Craft Beer Week rolled around, and I recall it kind of exploding into the city’s craft beer consciousness. That was thanks to some shrewd planning on the part of the owner, who made sure he jumped into the beer week efforts with both feet. Those smarts have continued with the opening of the Hampton location, which has been filled with busy suburbanites who wanted to stay caught up with the city’s craft beer scene.

And then there’s the step that goes well beyond what would normally be expected from a pizza shop would — Caliente is making beer. With the help of Matt Moninger — a former brewmaster at Church Brew Works and the currently lead bartender at the Hampton location — Caliente has done beer week collaborations with Church and with East End Brewing; they’ll co-release a collaboration with Draai Laag — a dark sour called The Plague — next weekend and there are plans to brew an IPA with Philadelphia’s Yards Brewing later this year.

I don’t have any reason to doubt Mr. Bogacz when he says he just wanted a pizza shop. But I’m pretty happy that he gave up on those plans three years ago.

Post-Gazette Coverage of Caliente Pizza and Draft House:

Category: Allegheny County | Tags: beer bar, tap room