{"id":183,"date":"2015-11-25T19:15:26","date_gmt":"2015-11-26T00:15:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/beerme\/?p=183"},"modified":"2015-11-25T15:26:16","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T20:26:16","slug":"meeting-an-old-friend-in-beaver-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/beerme\/beaver\/meeting-an-old-friend-in-beaver-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Meeting an old friend in Beaver County"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/beerme\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/11\/charles-pour.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-184\" src=\"http:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/beerme\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/11\/charles-pour-1024x573.jpg\" alt=\"charles pour\" width=\"1024\" height=\"573\" srcset=\"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/beerme\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/11\/charles-pour-1024x573.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/beerme\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/11\/charles-pour-300x168.jpg 300w, https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/beerme\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/11\/charles-pour.jpg 1100w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I met Charles years ago.<\/p>\n<p>But until my recent visit to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hollywoodgardensbar.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Hollywood Gardens and Brixton Brewing<\/a> in Rochester, Beaver County, I hadn&#8217;t had an opportunity to get caught up again.<\/p>\n<p>Charles is the name of Brixton&#8217;s Belgian-style quadrupel, a complex, delicious monster of a beer. Back in 2011, it was the first beer introduced by Brixton, the house brewery for Hollywood Gardens, and I was so pleased to see him again when I visited.<\/p>\n<p>Sightings of Charles and other Brixton beers had been occasional until October, when owner Frank Elia and brewer Zachery Ruskin really got going on their new 2-barrel brewing system to the degree that Brixton beers began to regularly appear on the tap list at Hollywood Gardens.<\/p>\n<div style=\"display: block; position: relative; max-width: 100%;margin-bottom:20px;\">\r\n<div style=\"padding-top: 56.25%;\">\r\n<video data-video-id=\"4631847915001\"\r\ndata-account=\"1105443290001\" \r\ndata-player=\"N1VVkFril\" \r\ndata-embed=\"default\" \r\ndata-application-id \r\nclass=\"video-js\" \r\ncontrols \r\nstyle=\"width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; top: 0px; bottom: 0px; right: 0px; left: 0px;\"><\/video>\r\n<script src=\"\/\/players.brightcove.net\/1105443290001\/N1VVkFril_default\/index.min.js\"><\/script><\/div><\/div>\n<p>What was behind the wait? A little license juggling took up some time, but when Mr. Elia secured a brewpub license he and Mr. Ruskin set up a small system in the basement of the bar and began serving Brixton beers on weekends.<\/p>\n<p>That Hollywood Gardens would be home a 12-tap system and a beer cave featuring bottles in the hundreds &#8212; much less to a brewery turning out quality IPAs and Belgian styles &#8212; is remarkable in and of itself. The bar was opened on Pinney Street in Rochester by Rocky Elia, Frank&#8217;s father, in 1958. Frank Elia took it over in 2009 after his father passed away and remade the place from a shot-and-a-beer bar to one that featured the craft beers he had come to love.<\/p>\n<p>A chance meeting with Mr. Ruskin at the bar &#8212; and a few tastes of Mr. Ruskin&#8217;s home-brewed beer &#8212; got Mr. Elia thinking about making beer to serve in his place and in the spring of 2011, the pair hosted a welcoming party for Charles &#8230; and I was immediately smitten. So I was thrilled to see his name on the list when I visited last week. And just as thrilling? The other two Brixton beers on tap last week &#8212; a bitter named Matthew and a West Coast IPA named Robbie &#8212; were every bit as good.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a small brewing system so for now, trying Brixton beers will require a drive\u00a0to Beaver County. But for a chance to meet Charles, Matthew or Robbie, it&#8217;s worth the trip.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Post-Gazette coverage of Hollywood Gardens and Brixton Brewing:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.post-gazette.com\/life\/drinks\/2015\/11\/25\/More-brewpubs-and-breweries-are-on-the-way\/stories\/201511250008\" target=\"_blank\">More brewpubs and breweries are on the way<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.post-gazette.com\/life\/munch\/2014\/10\/23\/munch-goes-to-hollywood-gardens\/201410230116\" target=\"_blank\">Munch goes to Hollywood Gardens<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I met Charles years ago. But until my recent visit to Hollywood Gardens and Brixton Brewing in Rochester, Beaver County, I hadn&#8217;t had an opportunity to get caught up again. Charles is the name of Brixton&#8217;s Belgian-style quadrupel, a complex, delicious monster of a beer. Back in 2011, it was the first beer introduced by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[25,37,6],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/beerme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/beerme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/beerme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/beerme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/beerme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/beerme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":186,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/beerme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183\/revisions\/186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/beerme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/beerme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/beerme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}