CraftPittsburgh Issue #40

cooking with beer • homebrewing • upcoming events • the hoppy couple • have you tried...

table of contents editor’s notes upcoming events history of holiday beers the brewery bunch beer business chronicles - Neil Callaghan buffalo, our good neighbors to the north pinball and beer hoppy couple - pub in the park pin pals - veterans in the beer industry . have you tried ... homebrewing - american pale ale cooking with beer - mad elf bangers & mashed

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PUBLISHER

P•Scout Media, LLC

EXECUTIVE EDITOR

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CraftPittsburgh | issue #40

HERE FOR THE HOLIDAYS!

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Rob Soltis rob@craftpittsburgh.com

MANAGING EDITOR

Mike Weiss mike@craftpittsburgh.com

COPY EDITOR

Jason Cercone, Nathan Stimmel

SALES DIRECTOR

Tom Garzarelli tom@craftpittsburgh.com

CONTRIBUTORS Joe Tammariello, Brian Conway, Amanda Stein, Mindy Heisler-Johnson, Hart Johnson, Jack Smith, Chris Boland, Jason Cercone, Tom Marshall

PHOTOGRAPHERS Jeff Zoet, Buzzy Torek

CREATIVE

Soltis Design soltisdesign.com

COVER PHOTO Buzzy Torek - Voodoo Good Vibes Festival

FOR INFORMATION ON CONTRIBUTING EDITORIAL CONTENT OR PLACING DISPLAY ADVERTISING PLEASE CONTACT US AT INFO@CRAFTPITTSBURGH.COM

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Craft Pittsburgh is issued bi-monthly by P•Scout Media, LLC for readers of legal drinking age.

All information and materials in this magazine, individually and collectively, are provided for informational purposes. The contents of this magazine do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of P•Scout Media, LLC., nor does the mention of trade names or commercial products constitute endorsement or recommendation for use. No portion of this magazine may be reproduced in whole or part without expressed written permission from the publisher.

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HOUSE-SMOKED WINGS

• CraftPittsburgh is officially the big 4-0. Well, kind—of, it’s not 40 years old, but this is the 40th issue. As a print magazine living in a digital world, it’s an accomplishment I’m both proud of and humbled by. Without our readers, advertisers, and contributors, this simply would not have been possible.

• This also happens to be the final issue of the year. We've had the privlage of meeting a lot of awesome people, visiting some fun places, and drinking a shit-ton of great beer. Here are a few of our favorite pictures from 2018.

From myself and everyone at CraftPittsburgh, thank you, happy holidays, and cheers to a safe and happy 2019.

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HERE FOR THE HOLIDAYS!

Cheers,

1805 E. CARSON ST. PITTSBURGH PA, 15203

Rob Soltis

CALL FOR TAKEOUT 412.431.7433 FATHEADS.COM

upcoming events

Visit CraftPittsburgh.com/calendar for the most comprehensive and up-to-date list of local beer events.

December • 7 Holly Jolly Donut Pairing @ Fat Head's Saloon • 7 Sour Mash Bros! – Can Release @ ShuBrew • 7 Red Onesie Pajama Party @ Blue Dust • 8 Ugly Sweater Fest @ President's Pub • 9 Beer Belly Yoga @ East End Brewing • 9 Supply Teachers with Supplies @ The Beerhive • 11 Beer & Tea Blending Workshop @ Cinderlands • 12 F irkin Tapping w/ a Few Bad Apples & Big Hill Cider @ Carson Street Deli

• 13 Beer Can Collages w/ Lindsay Huff @ Artsmiths of PGH • 15 Winter Market @ Threadbare Cider House • 15 Bless the Rains Can Release @ Butler Brew Works • 16 Beer + Yoga: Winter Warmer @ Brew Gentlemen • 16 Ugly Sweater PAWty @Allegheny City Brewing • 18 Happy Hour Yoga @ Penn Brewery • 18 A Little Beer Tasting Group @ Cobblehaus Brewery • 20 Troegs Five Course Beer Dinner @ Double Tree - Mars • 20 Third Thursday Bluegrass @ Hop Farm Brewing • 22 Grain to Glass Tour @ East End Brewery • 27 Sunday Best Bloody Mary Festival @ The Pennsylvanian • 31 New Year's Eve Beer Pairing @ Spoonwood Brewing • 31 Brew Years Eve @ Smallman Galley

January • 3 Poetry & Pints @ East End Brewery • 19 Good Wood Festival @ East End Brewery

February

CraftPittsburgh | issue #40

• 2 4th Annual Imbibe North Side @ Mattress Factory •9 R hapsody in Brew, Homebrew Competition,

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Benefitting the Edgewood Symphony @ Spirit

• 17 4th Annual Fermentation Fest @ Spirit • 24-25 Pittsburgh Winter Beerfest @ Convenstion Center

March • 23 Hell with the Lid Off XV @ Kelly's Bar & Lounge

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Congratulations to the Hoppy Couple on finally tying the knot.

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CraftPittsburgh | issue #40

the history of

Winter & Holiday I

n case you didn’t notice, it’s a bit nippy aht n’nat, which means two things. One: it’s almost time to get your parking chair dusted off.

Two: it’s definitely time for winter and holiday beers. In past style profiles we’ve looked at specific styles like IPAs, Barleywines, and even general categories like sour beers. These all, for the most part, speak for themselves and when you hear them mentioned you have an idea of what you’re getting. Holiday beers on the other hand can be a little trickier since, well, what do the holidays taste like? No, saying the holidays taste like beer doesn’t count.

drunk in the winter months to celebrate their holiday Jul, which you’ve probably heard of, but as Yule. The Vikings would offer up some of this beverage to their gods, which meant it had to be strong or else they could fear the wrath of Odin. That Thor guy can get pretty salty about his beer too, or so I’m told. Even after converting to Christianity, these countries kept their love of these big beers, sharing them along with their idea of “Yule” with the new religion. Scandinavian households were even given a required amount of beer to keep on hand during the holidays, something that’s a pretty solid idea, even today.

Holiday and winter beers are for the most part bigger beers that offer up a higher dose of alcohol along with spices and, more often than not, some roasted toasty goodness. This doesn’t mean every holiday beer falls into this category, but it’s a pretty safe bet that a winter seasonal will be pretty close.

As travel between countries increased, these winter beers traveled throughout Western Europe, most notably to the birthplace of modern brewing: England. The British already liked dark beers, so they took this idea of Jul beers and merged it with their own to create some pretty impressive drinks, which in turn ended up being the basis for many of the holiday beers we have today.

The History of Winter/Holiday Beers

The beers we know as winter and holiday spiced beers today most likely got their start with none other than the Vikings. These natives to the Scandinavian countries of today were known for liking their alcohol, and doubly so in the cold months of winter.

The Vikings enjoyed something akin to our beer of today, but their version was very malty with little to no bitterness. This strong “beer” was

A Wassailing We Will Go

Along with the beers from the Vikings, the holiday season in other parts of the world was celebrated with mulled wine. This was typically red wine mixed with various spices and raisins. These mulled drinks took many names throughout the world, called Glühwein in Germany and Austria, glogg in the Nordic countries, and vin chaud in France. Today’s winter spiced beers mostly started their history with a mulled drink known as

CraftPittsburgh.com

Beers

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wassail. This hot, mulled cider was traditionally enjoyed while…you guessed it…wassailing. It shouldn’t be a surprise that wassailing, which is the act of going door to door and singing to complete strangers, was fueled by alcohol.

The tradition of drinking wassail during the winter months lined up with the apple harvest and dates back as far as medieval times. As tastes and alcoholic beverages fell in and out of popularity the spiced aspect of winter alcohol seemed to stay put.

As you can see, the spiced beers we have today are based in quite a bit of history, so every time you have one, you’re linking yourself to thousands of years of celebrations. Pretty cool, eh?

The Winter Warmer

Today, more often than not a winter or holiday beer will fall into the winter warmer category. While not all winter or holiday beers are winter warmers, it’s a very common style for this time of year.

Winter warmers are known for their maltiness and a full body. They can range in color from a brownish red to black as night. While very malty, you won’t find much in the way of hop bitterness in a winter warmer—their major focus is typically on the malt body and sometimes spice.

Much like IPAs, winter warmers are typically categorized as either British or American. British varieties often have little to no spice but instead focus primarily on the malt. It’s common to have a standard winter seasonal simply called a winter warmer here. American varieties of winter warmer beers, much like our IPAs, are often bigger, stronger, and a little more bitter.

CraftPittsburgh | issue #40

When spiced, both varieties often rely on the spices we think of when we think of the winter months. These spices include cinnamon, ginger,

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nutmeg, fennel, cocoa, brown sugar, and even some coffee. Since these are typically malt-driven, expect a toasty, bready quality that, when paired with the spices, can even be reminiscent of gingerbread.

As for alcohol and bitterness specifics, this “style” is all over the board.

There are some offerings that come in at 10% ABV while others go down as low as 4.5%. It’s common to find these beers edging towards the higher end of ABV however, as the alcoholic warmness seems to go just right with a cold, dark night.

Commercial Examples

Winter and holiday beers abound, as nearly every brewery has at least one offering, sometimes more as you get into barrel-aging. Some notable varieties include:

• Penn Brewery - St. Nikolaus Bock • Great Lakes - Christmas Ale • Ellicottville - Ski Bum • Samuel Smith’s - Winter Welcome • 21st Amendment - Fireside Chat • Breckenridge - Christmas Ale • Sweetwater - Festive Ale • Southern Tier - 2XMAS • Anchor Brewing - Christmas • St. Bernardus - Christmas Ale

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CraftPittsburgh.com

The story of a group of beer reps coming together at Rusty Rail Brewing Company to bring a collaborative beer back home to Pittsburgh.

Words Chris Boland

Photos Buzzy Torek

My head is bumpin’ and I’m not quite sure where I am or how I got here.

It’s an overcast day in a rural Pennsylvania town, an Amish buggy cruises by. We drag ourselves from the crowded car into a dimly lit diner and park it at a table in the center of the room. Schmidty sits at the end of the table looking as confused as the rest of us. What just happened?

“Most people probably have no concept of how the beer makes it from our breweries to their refrigerator,” says Damien Gruendl, our local market rep from Rusty Rail and the mastermind behind this adventure. “I think one of the coolest aspects of this collaboration is the general public gets a glimpse at the people behind the scenes that play a vital part in bringing some of their favorite beers from production to their pint glass.”

Brewery representatives working in tandem with distributor reps are the force that drives the beer business in any given market. Despite what some may think- no, we do not get paid to go around drinking beer all day. When a job with that description opens up, let me know where to apply. We are the ones arranging events, pouring at festivals, delivering tap handles to bars, and stacking up cases of beer at the distributors.

No task is too small. We are also responsible for a lot of what you see on beer menus around town. Many of those beers were either sold to those establishments directly by one of us or sometimes even presold months in advance (think pumpkin beer being presold in May).

Because our days are primarily spent behind the wheel going around to bars and distributors, this can often be a somewhat isolating occupation.

As Ali Wyrostek of Rhinegeist Brewery explains, “Most of us are out here on our own as the only rep from our brewery, so we’re kind of on an island with no other coworkers. It’s really nice to have other people in your market that you can relate to about work stuff.”

And this goes far beyond just trading notes about work. In fact, the brewery rep dynamic in Pittsburgh is somewhat of an anomaly. In most other cities, you will not see such camaraderie amongst the reps, but rather a cliquey, overly competitive environment that more resembles the lunch room in Mean Girls than the continuous house party that we enjoy here in Pittsburgh. One of our local Fat Head’s Brewery reps, Corey Cavalovitch states, “We are all friends, we’re not just acquaintances.

We all hang out and do things [together] in our free time, this goes way beyond the beer scene. I get to work with some of my really good friends as opposed to ‘Hey, I have to play nice with these other reps.’”

He goes on to say, “It’s one team one dream - sell beer and have fun doing it.”

We finally get to Rusty Rail. It’s raining a bit, but that certainly won’t dampen our spirits. It’s about 9am and I am handed a beer of formidable strength, which quickly disappears as I examine the raw beauty of the Rusty Rail facility. Detailed woodwork as far as the eye can see with repurposed rail spikes throughout the building accenting the wood and tying into their identity as a brand. When you first enter through the main doors, you walk into a grand dining room and main bar with huge vaulted ceilings and a massive lofted area upstairs featuring an additional bar and event space.

Some of us have actually been here before, such as Jocelyn Howard from Yards Brewing Company. She fondly describes her surroundings: “It’s such a lovely spot tucked away in cute and quaint Mifflinburg, PA, constructed with beautiful and historical architecture and original wood and bricks. But if that’s not enough for you the beer is great, the food is delicious, and I cannot give high enough praise to the staff and crew everyone was so friendly and knowledgeable, and very welcoming.”

Not only is the staff and food top notch, but this place is huge - it goes on forever and the intricate details and gorgeous woodwork are consistent throughout. One can’t help but see a similarity between the atmosphere of Rusty Rail and the rustic-chic motif seen throughout Pittsburgh. In fact, when asked about why they decided to distribute beer in Pittsburgh so early on, Rusty Rail’s Brewery Director Guy McCarty explains, “We are a working class brewery. A lot of our history deals with the working class person. We felt that we tied into the Steel City and that aspect of blue collar, hard working people, so we felt like our brand resonated really well in Pittsburgh.” And it clearly has resonated here, as Rusty Rail is currently experiencing double digit growth and is pumping out new and innovative beers on what seems to be a daily basis.

CraftPittsburgh.com

24 hours prior, we hit the road early on a Friday morning, eager to reach our destination. We are heading to Rusty Rail Brewing Company in Mifflinburg, PA, and the group consists of several of my good friends and comrades in the beer trenches. We are brewing a collab beer. Not a beer that will end up in four-packs of 16oz. cans only to be traded on black market forums for some uber rare #whale that you’ll have to wait in line for (not that I am opposed to doing so). No, this one is special because instead of a collaboration between brewers, this is being made by the people who actually sell the beers you drink everyday. These are the sales reps employed by the breweries that you love who live in your city and get your favorite beers to your local watering holes.

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The day continues as we move our way down into the brew house, which contains a modest 15-barrel brewing system capable of producing about 25-30 kegs at a time. Currently, this equpiment is being pushed to the max due to heavy demand. The bulk of our day is spent frolicking around here like kids in a candy store, laughing over mysterious unlabeled cans and sampling thick stouts straight from bourbon barrels. Good times are had. As the day progresses, we take turns dumping hops into the brew kettle, picking the brain of head brewer Michel Spuesens, and even sampling the thick syrupy hop extract - everything you drink is an IPA after trying that stuff.

The ever inquisitive Mike Schmidt from Rivertowne Brewing talks about his time spent on the brew deck: “It was my second trip to Rusty Rail. They have a fantastic facility that is very detailed and modernized. Because I had been on a tour of the facility before, I utilized this opportunity to spend some one-on-one time with Michel. We dove more in-depth with the chemical aspect of beer and discussed tweaks we could make. It was an informative highlight of the trip for me.”

The beer we end up brewing is an IPA brewed with Pacific Gem hops, blueberries and black currant. It comes in at 6.5% ABV and has a relatively bright bluish purple hue with a thick, hazy consistency. It drinks great with a pleasant fruity bouquet, bright hop notes and a clean refreshing finish.

A unique brew to say the least - but more importantly, it was brewed by a unique group of individuals.

Others on the trip include Heather Kistler from Tröegs Independent Brewing, Ryan Burgess from Victory Brewing Company, Natalie Kiro from Brooklyn Brewery/21st Amendment, and Pat Morris from Neshaminy Creek Brewing Company - who was there in spirit.

Commenting on our delicious meal that followed the long day of brewing, Natalie describes the overall experience: “Rusty Rail is a beautiful facility

from the guest rooms to the restaurant (food was bomb). And hanging out with good people while brewing and drinking beer? Sign me up. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was blown away and look forward to my next visit.”

Shortly after wrapping up our dinner, we retreat to a room known as “The Cage” where we spend the rest of the evening doing what we do best: enjoying some amazing beers in the company of good friends... or at least that’s all I’m allowed to disclose.

Editor's Note: Huge thank you to Damien, Jeb, and the rest of the Rusty Rail crew for showing us an awesome time. For more photos of our trip, check out CraftPittsburgh.com

CraftPittsburgh.com

We devour our food at the diner the next morning and stumble back into the car to begin the long journey back home to Pittsburgh. Between my waves of nausea, I cannot help but reflect upon how over-the-top beautiful Rusty Rail was and what a unique experience this was for all of us. It’s not every day you get to design and brew a beer with some of your closest friends only to sell it directly to bars around your hometown and share it with the people of Pittsburgh. With that said, keep your eyes peeled for Rusty Rail Side Track #48: Black & Blue IPA. It was made by a passionate group of jagoffs who work their asses off to supply you with the best liquid around!

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Words Jason Cercone

BEER BUSINESS CHRONICLES

NEIL

CALLAGHAN W

e're pretty lucky to be beer drinkers in Pittsburgh these days. Good liquid, can release lines, beer festivals, and various styles as far as the eye can see are as consistent as gravity. No matter what you love, you’re going to find it. And if you haven’t found it, keep looking. It’s here.

Our beer landscape is made up of innovative products from across the globe. That’s what makes it so special. Before the many, many local breweries began operating, Pittsburgh was establishing itself as a thriving craft beer hotbed. One could argue that it was the availability of so many artisanal options that built a foundation for the rise of the local beer renaissance we’re all enjoying today.

Local breweries have become a staple of our scene, exemplifying how strong our love affair with craft beer truly is. And as local breweries continue to increase their presence, breweries from outside our confluence continue to see Pittsburgh as a market they want to be part of.

One of those breweries is Cigar City. Founded in Tampa, Florida in 2007 with production starting in early 2009, this brewery has blazed a trail throughout the Sunshine State and helped put craft beer on the map. With beers like Jai Alai IPA and Tampa Style Lager leading the charge, Cigar City carved out its identity in the South and currently produces approximately 60,000 barrels of beer annually!

CraftPittsburgh | issue #40

Earlier this year, they broke into the Pittsburgh market. And, not surprising at all, the Steel City has become one of their best-selling markets outside of their homeland in FLA.

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I had the opportunity to speak with Neil Callaghan, El Lector at Cigar City. His industry experience spans close to a decade and his knowledge of the business side of beer provides some great perspective on where the industry stands today and where it’s headed. Who better to help us learn more about the beer business than a Certified Beer Judge, Advanced Cicerone, and all-around enthusiast of all things craft beer?!

Give us some background about your experience in the beer business.

I've been involved in the craft beer industry since 2009, working on the retail end as a bartender, buyer and staff trainer at world-

renowned beer bars in the Southeast for five years and working as a part of the Cigar City Brewing team since 2014. I've been a BJCP Beer Judge since 2011 and I'm currently one of 102 people worldwide to hold the Advanced Cicerone certification. I was drawn to beer through the history, culture, and community that's been fostered by beer and am motivated to continue in the industry by the relationships I've formed with others in all facets of the beer community. Also, I drink a lot of beer.

What's the one thing about today's craft beer industry that truly stands out to you?

I love hearing about the different paths that beer professionals have taken to reach their current spot in the industry. Craft beer is unique in that very, very few folks began their professional lives in beer. Some of the most talented, knowledgeable people I've met in the industry have been former musicians, occupational therapists, and line cooks. Many people have left very lucrative jobs to pursue their passion in craft beer and it’s amazing to see how those various life paths have informed the direction that some breweries have taken.

What is one thing you know today about this industry that you wish you knew when you started out?

Had I known that I'd end up working in beer, I would have dual-majored in Organic Chemistry and Business Management, interned at a law office that specialized in franchise law and maybe apprenticed as a welder instead of studying music and drinking Pabst in college. But hey, hindsight is always 20/20!

What's something happening in today's beer world that you thought you'd never see?

The secondary beer market continues to befuddle and concern me. There have always been coveted beers. But 10 years ago, the way to acquire those beers was to trade some of your own sought-after beers. The idea that people are paying $30 for a bottle of a barrelaged stout and re-selling it on the Internet for $400 is upsetting, for lack of a better word. There are too many breweries making exceptional beer to justify spending that kind of money on a single bottle of beer, especially when so little of that money ends up in the brewery's coffers.

What have you done to maintain your nationwide distribution footprint as more independent breweries have opened across the country?

Cigar City Brewing, Oskar Blues and all the CANarchy breweries share the same focus of brewing the highest quality and most consistent beer possible. It sounds hokey, but building confidence in consumers through quality has helped us stay relevant to consumers throughout our footprint. In a market where some newer breweries struggle with consistency and shelf life, knowing that Jai Alai IPA or Dale’s Pale Ale are going to taste delicious every time you pick up a sixpack definitely helps us stay front and center on beer drinkers' minds. At the same time, our early days were greatly helped through relationships with older brands and we try to emulate the stewards of the industry that helped us. Brewing collabs with local breweries, participating in local beer festivals, and hiring sales staff who have built lives in local communities, like Christina Glasser in the Pittsburgh market, helps us understand each unique national market.

Do you see nationwide distribution models changing as more breweries continue to join the fray?

Nationwide distribution is constantly evolving, absolutely. As more breweries open, beer

CraftPittsburgh.com

Oskar Blues has been a staple in the Pittsburgh market for years. How has Cigar City's entrance been so far?

Pittsburgh has quickly become one of our strongest markets outside of Florida. Our wholesaler partner, Vecenie Distributing, has really helped us ingratiate ourselves into the local beer community, as they've been servicing the area for over 80 years. Beyond that, we're extremely lucky to be based in Florida, an area that sees a ton of tourism from the Pittsburgh area. So many people in the area tell me about the memories they have going on vacation or visiting family in Florida and how CCB's beer figures prominently in those memories.

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drinkers really have an embarrassment of local beer riches to choose from and their bandwidth for more regional and national breweries is becoming less and less. It will be interesting to see how the national distribution model develops, but I think it will be much, much more difficult for a regional brewery to reach 20+ states in 2019 than it was in 2012.

What are some exciting projects on the horizon for Cigar City? Any new beer releases headed this way?

We're always working on new beers and new processes at the brewery!

I'm always excited to see what our brewers do with El Catador Club, our barrel-aged beer club. They're currently finishing up a few barrel-aged collaborations, including one with Meadville's own Voodoo Brewery.

We're also working on some new seasonal releases for 2019 including Golden Ale, a new crisp ale never before released in Pittsburgh.

What are some ways you've enlightened beer enthusiasts and helped them understand what craft beer is all about throughout your career in the business?

CraftPittsburgh | issue #40

Most of my career in craft beer has been centered around education and training, whether it’s been for bar patrons new to craft beer or seasoned beer professionals on the wholesale or retail end to get them speaking the same language we use to describe CCB beers at the brewery. I love getting beer novitiates excited about the flavors and aromas they're experiencing, and I love hearing some of the descriptors they use to describe these new flavors. Talking with craft newbies expands my own vocabulary to describe beers and sensory aspects of beers because they're not relying on the same words that most craft professionals are.

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What do you feel will be the next step in big beer's attempts to keep independent beer down?

Many large breweries are working hard to drive down the price of their flagship craft-esque and "crafty" products to undercut smaller, independent breweries, and I anticipate that trend continuing and expanding. The idea is to make small breweries' beer appear overpriced and inaccessible when they're on the shelf next to a flagship product from a brewery aligned with a multinational entity, and they're able to do that by throwing their weight around. That's not taking away from the quality of many "big" brands by any means, but there does seem to be a concerted effort to drive prices down. At the same time, that $7.99 IPA six-pack from a brewery owned by an international entity may open the door to craft beer for a consumer who is price-conscious, and that consumer may use that as a springboard into smaller, regional and local breweries.

What's next for Cigar City?

Not only are we looking at some new markets in 2019, we're also working on some new distribution-wide releases and some very ambitious, very small batch beers that will only be served in our Tampa Tasting Room.

Beyond that, we'll be continuing our focus on quality and consistency and working hard to get the freshest CCB beers into people's hands around the world.

Jason Cercone is the founder of Breaking Brews and is the executive director of Pittsburgh Libations Week. Learn more by visiting breakingbrews.com.

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CraftPittsburgh.com

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hroughout the United States, suburbs, as well as cities and states as a whole, have been experiencing a resurgence. The reason? Look no further than the pint glass in front of you.

Craft beer has sparked the economy, bolstered tourism, and breathed new life into communities all but left for dead. In your own backyard, areas such as Braddock and Homestead are prime examples of blue collar, rustbelt, lowly populated regions where few people ventured and even fewer set up businesses. But add a brewery or two to the equation and everything changes.

This nationwide revival is a true testament to the power our favorite liquid wields. Undoubtedly, people enjoy beer their own way and for their own reasons. But whether you’re standing in line to get cans to trade, attending a beer festival to experience multiple breweries at a time, on a mission to rack up countless Untappd badges, or traveling from brewery to brewery to see what each has to offer, one universal thread ties it all together: people love beer and all the experiences it bears. It’s this philosophy that has helped thousands upon thousands of folks find success in this industry, as well as helped cities revitalize other aspects of their culture (art, theater, etc.) to become recognized as respected tourism hotbeds on a global scale.

Buffalo is a proud, hardworking city with a population and beer landscape not unlike Pittsburgh. One brewery became two. Two breweries became several. The number of taps at watering holes grew and began to feature more artisanal variety. Festivals started popping up. Buffalo Beer Week started in 2012. Neighborhoods at all corners of the city, once forgotten, gave people reason to visit its streets again, thanks to the opening of a new brewery and taproom.

Today, Buffalo is home to over 30 craft breweries, all unique in their own way while maintaining universal standards for quality, innovation, and customer experience throughout each. Additionally, the bar scene has run parallel with beer’s growth across western New York and has committed to featuring a large variety of liquid born within the region’s borders. Like so many craft beer destinations across the country, they’ve risen to prominence thanks to the unwavering hard work of many men and women serving numerous roles in the industry — as well as a loyal consumer base open-minded enough to embrace craft beer, see the good it brings to a community, and support it at every possible juncture.

We recently had an opportunity to explore Buffalo to see what it had to offer. Pour yourself a fresh pint and get ready to discover why a quick 3.5-hour trip north to The City of Good Neighbors is well worth your time.

Opening Words Jason Cercone Photos Mike Weiss

Big Ditch Brewing Co. 55 E Huron St, Buffalo, NY 14203 • bigditchbrewing.com

"Buffalo is a beer town; I'm guessing Pittsburgh is too. We have that rich brewing history — it's a part of who we are and we want to share that. Even in the beginning one of our top goals was to get people not from here to come drink our beer and be like, 'You know Buffalo is pretty cool. I actually like it here, I could live here. I would most certainly come back.' Then go home and let people know this is a pretty cool place to hang out and live."

- Matt Kahn, Co-Owner

Old First Ward Brewing Co. 73 Hamburg St, Buffalo, NY 14204 genemccarthys.com

" We were the third brewery in town, you could see it was coming. People were ready."

CraftPittsburgh | issue #40

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- Bill Metzger, Founding Partner

Flying Bison Brewing Co 840 Seneca St, Buffalo, 14210 • flyingbisonbrewing.com

"Yeah, the breweries are definitely having a lot to do with the uptick in traditional business and building development in Buffalo."

Resurgence Brewing Co. 1250 Niagara St, Buffalo, 14213 resurgencebrewing.com

" Buffalo beer is back and we're here. Not just us, but all the other local breweries are making really good stuff."

- Brandon Woodcock, Bar Manager

- Tim Herzog, Owner & Brewer

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CraftPittsburgh | issue #40

42 North Brewing Co. 25 Pine St, East Aurora, 14052 • 42northbrewing.com

where we slept HOTEL HENRY

" I think the state of the industry in Buffalo is every brewery that opens, raises the bar.

Four years ago you might have been able to get away with making average beer.

Those days are gone. You can't open a brewery now with average beer and an average enviroment. You just can't."

- John Cimperman, Managing Partner

where we ate

THE BAR-BILL TAVERN

Community Beer Works

what we saw

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT'S MARTIN HOUSE

15 Lafayette Ave, Buffalo, 14213 • 520 7th Street, Buffalo, 14201 communitybeerworks.com

" The reason you want a city full of breweries is because breweries spur all kinds of other ancillary developement, which is pretty gratifying. Where breweries have gone to do their thing, for the most part, have been areas that need a little love and attention."

- Ethan Cox, Owner

where else we drank • T HIN MAN BREWERY

492 Elmwood Ave, Buffalo, NY 14222

• 100 ACRES AT HOTEL HENRY 444 Forest Ave, Buffalo, NY 14213

•H YDRAULIC HEARTH BEER GARDEN 716 Swan St, Buffalo, NY 14210

• BUFFALO RIVERWORKS 359 Ganson St, Buffalo, NY 14203

•C OLE'S ON ELMWOOD

1104 Elmwood Ave, Buffalo, NY 14222

CraftPittsburgh.com

25

&BEER It's half an hour before closing at Oakdale's Helicon Brewing when a tall, white cargo van comes to an abrupt stop outside the loading dock. Two men exit quickly, grab dollies, and begin to offload their wares.

They're not hauling malt, or hops, or empty kegs. They’re hauling a different ingredient, one that's increasingly essential for craft brewery taprooms: pinball machines.

Chris Meyers, owner of coin-operated vending provider Starport LLC, has brought with him three new pins for the taproom: • The Champion Pub, a quirky 1998 release Bally where you shoot at a fighting Irishman named Knuckles O'Brien, complete with swinging arms.

• Kiss, the new one, from 2015, with a licensed soundtrack, Love Gun multi-ball, and a tonguewagging Gene Simmons whose open mouth beckons for your pinballs.

• Rob Zombie’s Spookshow International, Limited Edition. One of only 50 in existence, it boasts a fullcolor display, second mini-playfield, and 10 of the White Zombie founder's hard-chugging rock anthems.

CraftPittsburgh | issue #40

The Champion runs 50 cents per 3-ball game. Kiss is 75 cents a play, or three games for $2. Spookshow, the rare one, goes for a buck a pop. There are options for the casual fan and hardcore flipper-heads alike.

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Opened in November 2016 alongside the Panhandle Trail, Helicon Brewing has become a destination for pinball as much as craft beer. The three new pins bring their total to 22. According to the handy, crowdsourced “Pinball Map” app, that's more than any location in Pittsburgh that isn't a private club or museum.

By way of comparison, that's nearly three pins for every one beer on tap.

Words & Photos Brian Conway

Words Brian Conway Photos Buzzy Torek

Chris Meyers and Chris Brunetti

CraftPittsburgh | issue #40

Helicon owner Chris Brunetti has cultivated a world-class pinball lineup. Including the Rob Zombie game, 20 of the 22 machines are limited or special edition. These rare, more expensive machines boast all sorts of special features, better props, high-grade speakers, and unique animations.

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and Star Wars. While they don't disclose sales figures, Sharpe says sales were up 40% year over year from 2015 to 2016 and again 2016 to 2017.

“We have all of the latest games from all six current pinball manufacturers,” said Brunetti. “This is almost never seen outside of pinball-specific conventions or shows.” (The six are Stern, Jersey Jack, American, Homepin, Multimorphic, and Spooky.)

Sharpe says the boom in craft breweries and arcade-bars has “without a doubt” helped to fuel pinball's resurgence. He believes that pinball is the rare activity that's able to cross the generational divide and appeal to millennials, Gen X-ers, and boomers alike. He also said pinball machines aren’t just seen as “an old man's toy” anymore and notes there are more women's leagues and tournaments than ever before. (The Facebook page for the Pittsburgh Women's Pinball League has over 220 members.)

This makes Helicon a destination. The brewery plays regular host to the Pittsburgh Pinball League, who arrive with dozens of members who want nothing more than a few beers alongside a few rounds of competitive pinball.

“Pinball is a universal language,” says Sharpe. “If you grab someone from China, Australia, France and the States, you can't understand what anyone else is saying. But you play four-player pinball with a round of beer, you're going to have fun, laugh, and enjoy the moment.”

“It turns out the huge fans don't think much of driving from Columbus, Erie, Atlantic City, or even Baltimore to play pinball for an entire day,” he said. “There are folks playing pinball at Helicon almost every day that come from an hour or more away.”

Helicon is not the only area brewery with pinball machines. Voodoo, East End, and Beaver Brewing all have a collection. Hitchhiker got three pins in the spring, and Apis Meadery welcomed six in September.

Pinball is undergoing a resurgence nationally as well as in Pittsburgh, but it has taken a while to get to this point. When WMS Industries shut down in 1999, that left Stern Pinball, formerly owned by Sega, as the last manufacturer standing.

One of Voodoo Brewery's principal owners, Jake Voelker, says that Voodoo Homestead has had about a half-dozen pinball machines since last February, when they transformed the old holding cells of their centuryold municipal building home into a “pinball speakeasy.”

“There's the possibility that pinball may not live into the next millennium,” one pinball historian told the NY Times upon hearing the news.

Over the summer, Voodoo had four pinball machines and about a dozen arcade cabinets installed at the Voodoo Compound in Meadville as a temporary arcade for all the visiting brewers in town for good vibes fest. They had so much fun, they decided to keep them permanently in the taproom.

Boy was he wrong.

Zach Sharpe was the highest ranked competitive pinball player in the world in 2017. He also serves as Director of Marketing for Stern Pinball, the oldest and largest of all pinball manufacturers worldwide.

Stern releases about four new games a year, plus reissues. Their most recent titles include Deadpool, Iron Maiden, Guardians of the Galaxy,

Pinball is spreading.

“We had our homeboys from Sweden in, our homeboys from Oklahoma, our homeboys from California; we wanted to give them good beer, good food, and have fun. At the end of the day that's what our industry is all about — having fun,” said Voelker.

Voodoo gets their machines from Starport LLC, owned by Chris Meyers, the same individual who supplies Helicon, Apis, and All Saints in Greensburg.

He manages pins and arcade games at over 70 sites across Pittsburgh.

Meyers says he is getting more calls than ever from people interested in renting pins, and that in recent years, interest in pinball has “grown such an exorbitant amount I can't describe it.” He believes that craft brewery patrons tend to treat the machines better than those at dive bars, for example, which leads him to feel comfortable lending his limited edition games to a place like Helicon. (Some breweries operate on a revenuesharing arrangement with Meyers, while others pay to rent the machines and keep the earnings.)

Meyers also owns Starport Arcade in Morgantown, West Virginia, and he has his eyes on several potential arcade-bar sites in Pittsburgh.

In the near future, Meyers will open a dedicated late-night pinball club in the former Abandoned Pittsburgh art gallery space adjacent to Voodoo Homestead. With a separate entrance and address, patrons will be able to grab a growler or cans at last call, then keep the party going next door at the relocated speakeasy.

So what makes pinball so damn popular? Sharpe, the pinball pro and Stern's marketing lead, had this to say: “It's physical, interactive entertainment that can't be replicated...At the end of the day, you can't beat the real, tangible feel of a pinball machine.”

“There's a sense of community togetherness,” he continues. “And kicking back with an ice-cold brew doesn't hurt either.”

Local Pinball & Beer Spots APIS MEAD • BEAVER BREWING CO. BLUE DUST • CATTIVO CRAVE MELT & TAP • DOUBLE WIDE GRILL EAST END BREWING • GOOSKI'S HITCHHIKER BREWING • OTB SOUTH SIDE THE ROCK ROOM • TIKI LOUNGE VOODOO HOMESTEAD ACCORDING TO PINBALLMAP.COM

CraftPittsburgh.com

HAMBONE'S • HELICON BREWING

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hoppy couple Atmosphere

As mentioned, a lot has changed at The Pub. Most notably, they added outdoor space! Chances are, if you are reading this, you live in Pittsburgh... and most people in Pittsburgh know that we only have precious little time throughout the year to enjoy a beer outside. Well, now we can do this at The Pub! In the last year, they have added a nice deck out back of the bar that is fenced in and private. There are high and low tables and even some bench seating. Even better, they have an outdoor TV enclosure that proved to be a really cool addition. We tend to prefer the outside seating and have enjoyed it every time. Alternatively, you can hang inside and throw some darts or load up the jukebox with some choice tracks.

Food

Now that The Pub has its own kitchen (another major part of their upgrades), the menu also changed as drastically as the beer did. Before, they had the option of local restaurants delivering food to the bar - so you only had 1-2 close options. Now, they have a full complement of tasty foods and snacks.

My go-to menu item at The Pub is their “Morning Burger” and if you know me, you’ll know why. This burger is the two things any great burger should be: juicy and cheesy. But that’s not all. This burger is also topped with lettuce, tomato, sautéed onions, mushrooms, peppers, bacon, a fried egg, and provolone cheese. I guess they call it a Morning Burger because of the egg and bacon...but I’d say you can enjoy this masterpiece any time of the day!

Pub in the Park

7034 Blackhawk St. PGH thepubinthepark.com

Joe

Location

The Pub in the Park is conveniently located a few blocks from The Hoppy Couple’s home...so we were extra excited to be given the chance to write about it! The Pub, as we will call it, has been there for as long as many Swissvale residents can remember and is located about a mile from Regent Square – an area that offers many shops, bars, and restaurants.

The Pub is a steadfast neighborhood haunt offering an Irish feel wherein the beer and whiskey never run out. Recently, The Pub has gone through some major changes, as you will find out. Make sure you say "hi" to The Pub’s co-owners, Billy and Bobby, who are always ready for a chat and will likely invite you back for The Pub’s next event.

Amanda Location

The Pub is “just around the corner” from our Hoppy Home, located on a corner lot and sandwiched right between Swissvale and Swisshelm Park (but we proudly get to claim it as a Swissvale establishment). On the outside, The Pub looks like just another neighborhood home. But on the inside, it’s all Irish pub. If you know the area, you may also know that Homestead is just a few minutes away and is home to the ever popular Voodoo Brewery and the very new Enix Brewing Company. Not only that, but Brew Gentlemen is on the way, over in Braddock. East Shore brew tour anyone?

Beer

The Hoppy Couple has certainly had some fun late nights at The Pub but who hasn’t when you can walk home from your neighborhood bar? What used to be nights of liquor and mixed drinks and “we did not need that shot” has been replaced with a revamped drink menu (and some moderation).

Nowadays, there are more options to choose from like local crafts on tap (obviously our favorite part!), special handcrafted cocktails, a solid wine list, and the perfect Irish pub pour of Guinness. They even have some tropical and refreshing ‘Deck Cocktails’ to pair perfectly with their new cozy outdoor patio. No matter what your poison may be, they’ve got it.

CraftPittsburgh | issue #40

Beer

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When I first moved to Swissvale years ago and realized there was a bar around the corner, I had to check it out. When I first visited, I generally stuck to their whiskey offerings, being an Irish pub with very limited craft beer choices, at the time. However, that has all recently changed. Today, The Pub boasts many craft beer options both from their taps and from a bottle cooler where you can pick out what you want. They also have some local options, of course, including the likes of Full Pint and Southern Tier. Usually you can find at least one brew from each of those breweries readily available at The Pub. Needless to say, we were very happy, and welcomed this change to our local bar.

General Manager Jen Roberta and Bartender Zack Simko

Atmosphere

If you had a rough day and maybe you just want a drink and someone to take care of dinner for you, then “you want to go where everybody knows your name” and The Pub is that place. The second you walk in it feels like a staple of the community where all of the regulars are celebrities. Not only did the owners revamp their drink menu, The Pub itself got quite the makeover. Starting with new tables and chairs and the aforementioned new patio, the new general manager, Jen, has really taken The Pub up a notch. There’s also karaoke night, trivia night, scavenger hunts, and of course “the game” is always on their TVs. But no worries—this classic Irish pub still boasts their big St. Paddy’s Day celebration with live music because some things should never change! Whether you want a relaxing night or a fun night, The Pub is sure to please.

On the trail or in the woo ds, we’re here fo r your post ri de ... refreshments .

Food

One of the best things about their recent upgrade is the food. No lie, it’s some of the best pub food around. There are dips, chips, flatbreads, salads, burgers, sandwiches, wings, and more. One of my favorite things to get at The Pub is the Crispy Chicken Salad (yeah, I said salad) and in true Pittsburgh fashion, it’s topped with French fries. Sure, you can get this kind of salad at a lot of places around the area...but I bet it won’t be as good as The Pub’s. Along with their weekly events, they also have food specials like pasta nights, prime rib, and other rotating favorites they post on their Instagram (@thepubinthepark) so you can plan your visit accordingly. Let their chefs make you dinner - you won’t be disappointed!

Made fresh everyday, be sure to try the one with peanut butter.

Really!

a great sele ction of seasonal craf t beer on tap. Espe cially the local br ews.

There’s a lot to like about a place that can change with the times while maintaining its roots, especially a place that you can walk to in your neighborhood. We are proud to call Swissvale home and we hope you make a trip over to The Pub in the Park for a cold beer and a great meal.

You might even see us there!

The Hoppy Couple is one part Joe Tammariello and one part Amanda Stein. We don’t consider ourselves beer experts, but we spend a good bit of our free time exploring Pittsburgh and sampling all of the food and drink it has to offer. Say “Cheers!” if you see us out!

north park boathouse • historic southside

otbbicyclecafe.com

CraftPittsburgh.com

Summary

31

Words Tom Marshall Photos Jeff Zoet

10 Frames / 10 Beers LIGHT

ShuBrew

Kölsch Runnings

Kölsch

5.5% ABV

DARK

Voodoo Brewery

The Barrel Room Collection Imperial Breakfast Stout

Stout Aged in Bourbon Barrels

12.3% ABV

LITTLE BIG PALE SOUR MALT WHEAT WILD CARD IMPORT

Oddside Ales

Bean Flicker

Coffee Blonde Ale

4.5% ABV

Voodoo Brewery

Wynona’s Big Brown Ale

Imperial Brown Ale

7.5% ABV

ShuBrew

Jumpman Pixelated IPA

Hazy India Pale Ale

6.0% ABV

Sweetwater Brewing

The Pit & the Pendulum

Sour Golden Ale w/Cherries

6.1% ABV

Bell’s Brewery

Best Brown

American Brown Ale

5.8% ABV

Westbrook Brewing

Gose

German-Style Sour Wheat Ale

4.0% ABV

Trillium Brewing

Fort Point (Mosaic Dry Hopped)

Pale Ale

6.6% ABV

De Brabandere Brouwerij

Wittekerke Wild

Witbier Aged in Oak Foeders

5.0% ABV

My name is Tom, and I have been working in the craft beer industry in one capacity or another over the past seven years. Pin Pals is a bi-monthly installment where I interview a veritable who's who of the craft beer world at a bowling alley. We drink beer, shoot the shit, and of course bowl. In this installment, we are bowling and chatting with two of our local craft beer industry’s veteran servicemen: Jake Voelker, co-owner of Voodoo Brewing Company of Meadville (US Army); and Zach Shumaker, of ShuBrew of Zelienople (US Marine Corp).

Jake: My name is Jake Voelker. I am 34 years. I have a wife and a child who I love more than anything. I am a partner at Voodoo Brewing Company. I was able to invest in Voodoo Brewing in 2010, and I have been super lucky to be a part of this company and its growth ever since. I am originally from Erie, Pennsylvania, and I live in Aspinwall now. I tend to like longer walks on the beach. And I am cat person...fuck dogs (figuratively not literally).

Zach: I am Zach. I am 35. I live in Mars, Pennsylvania. I am one of the owners of ShuBrew in Zelienople and Harmony, Pennsylvania. I am the father of two awesome kids, Wolfgang and Beatric, and husband to a beautiful wife, Erika. That’s Erika with “K”... the German way. Oddly, Erika with a “K” and Zach with an “H” are both the traditional spellings. So we’ve got that going for us. We have owned ShuBrew for five years now. I am a video game enthusiast (which is how we came up with our Pixelated Series). I went to Edinboro University, and Diablo II was most likely the reason I didn’t finish at Edinboro. I joined the Marine Corp. When I came back home from the military, I finished my degree, and I got a job at Verizon. That’s where I met Erika, and also where we started the idea of ShuBrew. Long story short.

2) Who/what can you attribute your love of craft beer to?

Jake: I started getting into craft while I was in the Army. When I came home, I was always looking to drink really good beer and eat really good food. I think my first craft beer experiences happened here in town at Fat Heads and East End. During college, I lived in the South Side and went to Fat Head’s all the time. This was back when they only had a handful of draft lines, but they were all dope. They had on tap Stone Arrogant Bastard and Sierra Nevada (at that time those beers weren’t around much). That’s when I started to fall in love with craft beer. They were totally inspirational.

I knew it was something that I wanted to be a part of based on the great people that were in the industry. I absolutely love good things made by good people.

Zach Shumaker and Jake Voelker

Zach: I was stationed in San Diego when I was in the Marines Corp. A couple of buddies that I lived in barracks with told me I needed to check out this brewery that was twenty minutes from base, and it was Stone Brewing. We went out there, we took the tour, and did the tasting. At the time we didn’t know shit about craft beer. When I went to Edinboro, I drank nothing but Old German. When I was in the Marine Corp, I drank Coors Light or whatever was on sale. I never really thought about what beer I was drinking, until that trip to Stone. It opened my eyes. The case of domestic beer I bought right before my tour at Stone was the last case I bought that was made by a macro conglomerate brewing company.

Craft beer immediately resonated with me. I even got a part-time job working at Stone Brewing Company and immediately fell in love with the cultural of craft beer. At Stone, they made sure that every single employee working there was fully invested in their beer. That is the main thing that I’ve borrowed from them.

3) T ell the readers about your company and your role there.

Jake: Voodoo Brewing is headquartered in Meadville, Pennsylvania. We currently have six retail outlets across Pennsylvania, and we distribute to multiple states. We take a lot of pride in the liquid that we put out.

We continually strive to be the best we can be. At Voodoo, I wear a lot of different hats. My role there is focusing on expansion projects (e.g. specifically retail outlet/pubs). I am also in charge of Human Resources and current hold the title of Chief Operating Officer. Voodoo was founded in 2005 as a small brew pub, and the company trickled along for a few years. I got involved in 2010 along with a few other investors. At first I was a silent partner while I did the corporate thing and got my degree.

During that time my partners drove the business and turned Voodoo Brewing into what it is now. I am very proud of the hard work my partners and I put into Voodoo.

Zach: ShuBrew has been open for five years now in Zelienople, Pennsylvania. We started off as a brew pub, which means a small brewery stuffed inside of a restaurant. We wanted to start off that way, but it turns

CraftPittsburgh.com

1) Tell the readers about yourself.

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out the restaurant is much more work than making beer. For several years we had been very small as a brewery goes, and we wanted to change the perception that we were a really good restaurant with beer to really good brewery with a really good restaurant. We spent the last year-and-ahalf investing a lot of time, money, and love into expanding the brewing.

We no longer brew at the restaurant. We have a production facility down the street in Harmony that supplies our restaurant and about 100 other accounts around the Pittsburgh area. My role at ShuBrew... I like to say I am the boss, but Erika actually holds that title. She’s the only person at ShuBrew I answer to. I have my hands in almost every aspect of the company. As the company expanded, I expected my job to become more luxurious, but I ended up doing more and more. I brew, I do book work, production management, recipe development, label design, and basically whatever needs to be done.

4) Tell the readers about your time in the service.

(DISCLAIMER: The interviewees were asked to ONLY talk about what they were comfortable with and could abstain from the question if the wanted to)

CraftPittsburgh | issue #40

Jake: I went to basic at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. I was originally stationed at Fort Knox, Kentucky. I was basically deployed the majority of my time time in the service. I was active duty Army from 2006 to 2010.

I got out a captain. I was a US Army engineer and went to airborne school. It was one of the greatest pleasures of my whole life. I served with some awesome dudes...some dudes that I miss a lot every day. My first deployment, I was deployed to Afghanistan 2006, 2007, and 2008 during the surge. Came home for a few months and deployed again in 2009 and 2010 to Baghdad, which was a much different deployment. I am very proud of my service and get very excited about it. It is really great to translate the skills that I learned into craft beer. I think that gave me a very different perspective on life. I got out in 2010 and the rest is history. It was a wild ride.

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Zach: I was in the Marine Corp from 2004 to 2008. I achieved the rank of sergeant (E5 in the Marine Corp). I was stationed at Camp Pendleton which is just north of San Diego, California. By no means am I an “American Hero”. I worked in a training squadron on Huey and Cobra helicopters. Pilots would come in right from their bootcamp, and we were training school. Our mission was to support the training operations of new Marine Corp pilots. I met some amazing people and made some great friends that I still maintain to this day. I served with a lot of people you would call true “American Heroes”. My best friend was the crew chief on the helicopter that rescued Captain Phillips, which became a movie. But I lived a cushy life in San Diego drinking great beer.

5) W hat experiences did you have with beer during your service (both domestic and abroad)?

Jake: I spent most of my time during my service over seas in combat zones. The only type of beer I had, and I think you’ll laugh at this, was nonalcoholic beer (Heineken, St. Pauli Girl, Bitburger). It was this big laugh, and we would only drink it to laugh at it. I would touch ground in the Atlanta airport from Iraq or wherever and the first place I would go would be the airport bar. I could drink again because I was on U.S. soil; however, I would have to change out of uniform and into civilian clothes. I would put on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and walk into the bar and grab a beer... and I was hammered because I haven’t drank in a year. You could be drinking a really shitty beer at the Atlanta airport bar and it was as good as any beer. When I was deployed my wife lived in the South Side, and when I got back our first stop was always Fat Heads. Going from Hell on earth with non-alcoholic beer to Pittsburgh surround by family and great craft beer—those experiences were definitely the polar opposites of each other.

Zach: While I was in the service I became a fan of craft beer. I was mostly drinking Stone Brewing beer because I worked there, but my friends and I would drink other San Diego beers too. We drank Pizza Port, which was making some of the most badass IPAs and pizza. We would also drink Karl Strauss (which was dogged on for being a chain craft brewery) but honestly they make great shit. When I worked at Stone, I was introduced to everything. They had a lot of guest taps and would have Dogfish Head and Pliny the Elder on tap all the time. Every single Sunday, Stone would have Sour Sunday where they would take off all of there beers and put all sour beers on tap. Every Wednesday was “Hand Pump Hump Day” that featured cask beer. At Stone, I was introduced to sours, IPAs, cask ale, and so much more. I ran the whole gamut there. I was so lucky to get a major crash course of the craft beer industry at Stone.

6) W hat special qualities do you feel you got from your time in the military? How have they helped you in your current job?

Jake: Leadership and standardization. As our company has grown from a few employees to quite a few, putting things down on paper so that things are done in a certain way is important. Hardworking. You work your butt off in the military. I take pride in how hard I work (but also take pride in and appreciate how hard my partners work). Risk-taking. We have taken a lot of risks with our company over the last couple years and most of them have paid off. You get a lot of that in the military: “Should I go on this mission or not?” Also, honor. Honesty. Loyalty. Duty. At the very end of the day, it is all about being a good person, coworker, and business partner.

Being in the military gave me a new perspective on what all that means.

Zach: The special qualities are relative to my point of view. I have certainly picked up a knack for efficiency and timeliness; however, simultaneously I have picked up tendencies for impatience and other lower qualities like that. Unfortunately, I expect that everyone thinks the same way I do, and I often get upset when things aren’t done exactly how I envisioned them.

I know that I need to get better at explaining my expectations. In the military, when you are told to do something, you were told “you do this, exactly like this” and there are no exception to that rule. I have borrowed that mindset. I do set very ambitious goals. My expectations is that we will be making world class beer, and I don’t think that this is impossible. That is something I gained from my time in the military, I am unrealistic but I make that a realistic goal.

7) What does your brewery do to help with veteran outreach and support?

Jake: Voodoo Brewery will (whenever we can) donate to and pour at Pittsburgh veterans organization’s events. We help as much as we possibly can with veterans’ organizations, but as a small business sometimes you can’t do everything you would want to. We primarily work with the Veteran’s Breakfast Club. I am on the board of this awesome organization.

Please check them out at VeteransBreakfastClub.com. We can assist with veterans' fundraising events at any of our locations, and we try really hard to hire veterans whenever we can. We are a great stepping stone for veterans looking to get into craft beer.

CraftPittsburgh.com

Zach: ShuBrew proudly offers a discount to all active and retired military personnel. Obviously, we get a lot of military folk coming to the brewery who are super stoked to drink the Jungle Boot IPA (which is clearly a reference to the Marine Corp combat boot). Additionally, Zelienople is a great community and will have parades and other tributes to veterans throughout the year (Veterans Day, Memorial Day, etc). On those days, we do get a lot of military folk coming into our pub, and we are able to give a sizable discount.

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To both Jake and Zach and all of our active military members and veterans, we at CraftPittsburgh Magazine thank you for your service. Cheers!

Tom Marshall is the son of a veteran Marine Corp Sergeant (E5) and is very proud of his father’s service to our country. He is the sales & marketing manager for Full Pint Brewing Company in North Versailles and a bowling enthusiast.

[Twitter: @wearethepinpals]

8) How can members of the craft beer industry help veterans with job placement?

Jake: At the end of the day, veterans are just normal people. Not every veteran is damaged. Not every veteran has a physical ailment. I can tell you that veterans are some of the hardest working and super dedicated people you’ll ever meet. I would challenge people in the craft beer industry to try and find veterans to hire. Start with your campuses. Start with your veterans’ groups. Start there and you’ll find some super dedicated people.

For all the start-up and newer breweries looking for employees (either bartending/cellarmen work/etc), you can find some of the best employees by simply going to a veterans' group meeting. It is extremely easy to do.

Zach: Any time jobs are available, we are always seeking the best of the best. I would encourage all craft beer loving veterans (which many veterans are beer lovers) who are looking for work: don’t pass by ShuBrew.

Please stop in and put in an application.

9) How can the readers connect with you?

g n i l ow B B O Y B

CraftPittsburgh | issue #40

Jake: You can reach me through my individual FaceBook page @jdvoelker or through my email: jake@voodoobrewery.com. You can check Voodoo out on the web at voodoobrewery.com. On Instagram: @voodoobrewery. On Twitter: @VoodooBrewery & @Voodoo_Foodoo.

On FaceBook: @VBMeadville // @VBCompound // @VBHomestead // @VBErie // @VBGroveCity // @VBLancaster [Check FB page for individual location hours]. We’d love to have you, and I look forward to grabbing a beer with you. Cheers!

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Zach: You can find ShuBrew on FaceBook, Instagram, Twitter, & Untappd: @ShuBrew. If you want to connect with me personally, I am on Instagram: @WolfgangsDad. You can friend me on FaceBook, and I may or may not accept you. Our website is shubrew.com. Our Zelienople location’s hours are: WED-THU: 3pm to 10pm // FR-SAT: 11am to 11pm // SUN: 10am to 9pm. We are open for brunch on Sunday from 10am to 2pm as Biscuit Town by ShuBrew. We have a badass biscuit oriented brunch menu, and the best fried chicken you’ll ever taste. Our Harmony taproom/brewery’s hours are: FRIs ONLY 4pm to 9pm. We have food trucks, live music, and we do all of our can releases out of this location.

Special thanks to our friends at Crafton Ingram Lanes, the official bowling alley of PinPals. If you're looking to do some BYOB bowling, check them out.

CraftonIngramLanes.com • 412.921.0200

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CraftPittsburgh.com

have you tried...

1 1. ROUNDABOUT

2 Jacked Up O’Lantern Stout

CraftPittsburgh | issue #40

5.8% - Pumpkin-Spiced Coffee Stout - Pittsburgh, PA

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No matter what style of beer you think you hate, there’s always that one you actually really like. I’m Hart Johnson and I loathe most pumpkin beers, but seriously look forward to this beer every year. From the first one I had five years ago, this beer has been a bright, shiny star amid the sweet, overly spiced amber ales wearing pumpkin masks. It’s such a satisfying experience, much like how a donut is just a donut but a donut and a cup of strong coffee can right the ship of any failed morning. This beer isn’t about ginger, cinnamon, allspice or nutmeg. It isn’t about coffee and it isn’t about roasted grains or a slightly creamy sweet finish. It’s about how all of that just comes together in harmony for a beer that tastes like your grandmother screaming at Thanksgiving dinner that you can’t have pumpkin pie without a cup of coffee.

Recommended if you like: Epic - Barrel-Aged Imperial Pumpkin Porter, Southern Tier - Warlock, Cigar City - Good Gourd,

2. FOUR POINTS

Light

4.5% - Lager - Charleroi, PA

Good people of Charleroi, I’m sorry for what I’m about to say, but holy crap is your little town OUT THERE. Absolutely peak Pittsburgh. I had to

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ford a river, packed a lunch, told my wife I loved her very much (she knows) and still I’m 22 miles away as the crow flies and 43 miles away via “roads.” Who built this city? Once you get to the quaint village of Charleroi, Four Points and their sister BBQ place, Fourth Street Barbeque, occupy a nice little block-width stake of town. I sampled a couple bangers off their draft list, damn tasty hazy IPAs and pale ales, a spot-on coffee porter, but this basic bro lager stood out. We’re talking about a lite lager here, most places placate your dad with some sort of sweet-ish blonde ale or a really dumbed-down pale ale and Four Points is out here saying, dad wants High Life? Sure, we’ll make dad a High Life. It’s the goldest of gold, it’s got that effervescence, it has a flavor reminiscent of malt and hops but mostly it’s just a clean, easy drinking beer flavored beer.

Recommended if you like: Iron City, Pabst - Blue Ribbon, Straub - Lager, Tailgating, Taking your folks out for a beer.

3. HELLTOWN

Misfits & Misanthropes #14

7.3% - Hazy IPA - Mt. Pleasant, PA

So, I’m typing these words like a day after Helltown announced they acquired Rivertowne Brewing and all I can think is thank fuck Helltown made it. Like Helltown, you all make great beer, seriously, but the only, ONLY, thing on the entire Internet about this longingly long named beer is on Untappd. “Fruity soft & mildly bitter”. Come on, y’all 14 beers deep

Words Hart Johnson Photo Mike Weiss

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into this series, I’m starved to know what hops/grains/yeast/whatever set this apart from the other 11 hazy Misfits you brewed. And let’s not even start about why every 4th Misfits isn’t an IPA. What I’m getting at here is, I’m really looking forward to the creativity of Helltown merging with the marketing and packaging skills of Rivertowne. Tell me a story about this little juice bomb, tell me why it reeks of macerated blueberries and lemon zest, has a nice creamy body without being too heavy, and tastes like hopped mango juice.

Recommended if you like: Sixpoint - Meltdown, East End - Partly Clahdy, Two Roads - Two Juicy, Four Seasons - Nebulous

4. CINDERLANDS

Pog Whipper

Every time I hear a beer curmudgeon go off about how a beer “tastes like grrdurm jooose!” I have to ask myself, “what’s wrong with juice?” Like sure, those “juice” pouches I was raised on are straight sugar, but fruit juice? That shit tastes good. Why are you upset that beer tastes good?

Inasmuch that there’s room in beer for 198 IBU Imperial Stouts that taste like oily coffee, there’s room in beer for candy beers. This trend of richbodied, fairly low ABV and heavily fruited tart wheat beer isn’t exactly fresh (Germany has been adding syrup to Berliner Weisse for decades

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4.8% Berliner Weisse with Passion Fruit, Tangerine, and Guava - Pittsburgh, PA

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and Florida “invented” FloridaWeisse a decade ago), but to have like half-a-dozen local places banging these things out on the regular is cool shit, man. Pog Whipper is cool shit. It is 100% fruit forward; this is a passion fruit and tangerine bomb. Not viscous like juice, but still not thin; the rich fruit flavors are balanced by not only guava tartness but the underlying sourness of the beer. What I’m saying is: as a beer curmudgeon trying hard not to be curmudgeonly, this beer fucks.

Recommended if you like: Roundabout - Mimosa Gose, Hitchhiiker - Subsurface, Dancing Gnome - Underscore, Grist House/Erie Brewing/Lavery - King Rowans Gelato

5. VOODOO

Caution! Contains Real Pumpkin!!!

11% - Pumpkin-Spiced BA Pumpkin Barleywine - Meadville, PA

CraftPittsburgh | issue #40

Let’s have some thoughts about this one. First, it’s the only Voodoo Barrel Room Collection beer you can buy without ditching work at 2pm on a random Tuesday or trading blood platelets. Second, where is everyone on the pumpkin beer bell curve? We collectively over them and just set to let them exist? Third, Barleywine. The beer style that every meme says all the woke kids drink that no one actually drinks. Now then, let’s wrap all those thoughts into a Voodoo BRC Bourbon BarrelAged Pumpkin Barleywine brewed with real pumpkin, Madagascar vanilla beans, and cinnamon. How’s that for parsing an audience?

This audience of one is hype for it. Rich, chewy malt with boozy vanilladredged bourbon oak are the big, broad flavors that fill the room with flavor while the vanilla bean and cinnamon chorus just scream along hooks. One of the most aromatically enticing beers I’ve ever experienced - it’s a flannel shirt of a beer, it just feels so good.

Recommended if you like: Avery - Rumpkin, Brew Gentlemen - Double Mex, Fat Head's - Spooky Tooth, Hoppin’ Frog - Barrel-Aged Frog’s Hollow, Heavy Seas - Great’er Pumpkin, #BiL

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6. ABJURATION

IPA v1.9

7.1% - IPA - Mckees Rocks, PA

To anyone that says social media doesn’t work, I’d like to refer you to the neon blue raspberry IIPA Abjuration posted a few weeks ago.

Immediately, Abjuration went from “man, maybe I should drive the four whole miles to that place” to “why in the hell haven’t I gone four miles to a brewery/theater place that sounds really cool.” So, that KoolAid IPA was good, in that “I know you made this with Kool-Aid, but it still works” way, but no takeout for that. So we got this juice bomb IPA instead. Thing I love, love, love, love about Abjuration? Every beer they’ve ever brewed is listed on their website along with a fairly in-depth recipe and tasting notes. So, for IPA version 1.9, we have flaked oats and flaked wheat lending to this silky body with Citra, Amarillo, and Galaxy hops throwing dank citrus and tropical fruit flavors without all of that pesky bitterness and some soft, fruity yeast esters tying the room together. I’ve long advocated Mckees Rocks as one of those secret, great, close-to-the-city communities. Great to see Abjuration find a home there.

Recommended if you like: ShuBrew - Pixelated Series, Green Flash - Tropical DNA, New Belgium - Juicy Haze IPA, Sierra Nevada - Hazy Little Thing

@ MOARHOPS

Recommended if you like: Pittsburgh, beer, bicycles,

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NO W O PE N WIT H A F ULL SCRA T CH MEN U

41

homebrewing

Words Jack Smith Art Joe Mruk

N EV ER M IN D

THE BOLLOCKS HERE’S THE

e l A e l a P n erica

Am

SCENE:

ANY BREWERY TAP ROOM OR CRAFT BEER BAR. 7:27PM. THURSDAY.

Our protagonist - call him Jack - weary from a long day writing articles about homebrewing, slides his Levi Strauss -clad buttocks into a comfortable bar stool and grabs the not-quite-up-to-date paper draft list from in front of the similarly-dispositioned bar patron to his left. He fancies himself something flavorful, yet balanced. Hop forward, but not throat-burning. Quenching, but not inebriating. He needs to wash down his plate of Buffalo wings and still be functional for the rest of the evening. He needs a drinkin’ beer.

[Internal monologue] “Let’s see… Citra IPA 7.9%. I’m sure that’s delicious, but not right now. Mosaic DIPA 10.4%. Sheesh. ‘Throat-scorcher’ Triple IPA. 13.2%, 124 IBUs. Good lord. Double Imperial Banana Bourbon Coconut Stout ‘barrel-rested on black and blue berries.’ 12.7%. ¡Ay, caramba!

Moving on… Three different kinds of fruited Gose. Ugh. Hazy IPA #1. 6.8%.

Hazy IPA #2 7.3%. … Hazy IPA #7, cask-conditioned on 25 lbs of Papaya.

8.1%. Oy vey. Hazy IPA #12. Hazy IPA #13. Good grief. Oh, here’s a pale ale. Great! Wait… 7.2%, 70 IBUs. What the hell? That’s an IPA. Come on, now. This is just silly.”

“Hey barkeep. You got any regular pale ale?”

Bartender: [chortles] “Son, reckon ain’t nobody ordered a pale ale since before the great haze craze of 2016. Where you from, anyway?”

CraftPittsburgh | issue #40

“*sigh* Just gimme a Hamm’s.”

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Sound familiar? A little too familiar, maybe? It doesn’t have to be that way.

See, there was a time when craft breweries took pride in making wellbalanced drinkin’ beers because consumers actively sought them out.

Sure, IPAs of all persuasions - New England or otherwise - are delicious.

As are the strong sippin’ beers that are over represented on so many draft lists. But…don’t you ever just want to drink a flavorful, balanced beer and not destroy your palate or your ability to operate heavy machinery?

American pale ale is the beer you want. I don’t mean the 6.5-7% abv, 70 IBU golden yellow IPA’s that breweries are calling “pale ale” these days. I don’t mean “Session IPA,” either. You know, the 4.5-5% abv beers with little

malt flavor and loads of hop character - both bitterness and flavor. Those beers are wonderful, but they lack the balance of a true pale ale. They may be sessionable, but they still attack your palate with sticky-icky hop resin.

I keep talking about balance. Balance is the key to brewing a great pale ale. Yes, it should be hop-forward, but it should also be malty. It shouldn’t be overly rich with caramel malt like an amber ale, but it needs more than just 2-row brewers’ malt. It should have firm, lingering bitterness, but it shouldn’t scorch your palate like an IPA. It should have rounded maltiness, but it should not be sweet or cloying. Balance. There are a lot of factors to balance out, but a good place to start is to compare the IBUs to the original gravity. A 1.070 OG beer with 20 IBUs will be very malty, out of balance. A 1.045, 80 IBU beer will lean heavily toward “hoppy.” No balance.

A great starting point for pale ale is 1.050 OG and 50 IBUs. 50 gravity points, 50 IBUs. Balance. You can use any kind of hops you love, but new world hops (America or New Zealand) will give you the most punch, the kind of flavor you expect from an American pale ale. Don’t be afraid to use a few varieties for complexity, but keep to just two or three to avoid flavor muddling (not counting the bittering hop if you use a nice, clean bitterer at 60 minutes). For malt, I like to use a small amount of crystal malt - less than 5% of the grain bill - to add depth of malt flavor while avoiding the dreaded “caramel bomb” so many 1990’s and early 2000’s pale ales and IPAs were derided for being. The recipe below comes from a lot of brewing and re-brewing and produces a balanced drinkin’ beer that probably won’t win any homebrew competitions which, in this case, is a good thing. Competition-winning pale ales often lack the balance you want in a drinkin’ beer. They stand out from the crowd when compared

to a dozen other similar beers, but pint for pint might exhaust your palate due to lack of balance. So never mind all the trendy bollocks littering every single tap list, go brew yourself some drinkin’ beer; go brew this pale ale.

ANARCHY IN THE U.S.

AMERICAN PALE ALE Batch Size: 5.5 gal.

OG: 1.050 IBU: 50 Difficulty: Easy

Boil Time: 60 minutes FG: 1.011 SRM: 6

ABV: 5.1%

*Assuming 65% brewhouse efficiency

GRAINBILL

• 11 lbs US 2-row malt • 6 oz 60L crystal malt • 2 oz 20L crystal malt

Extract Brewers: Replace the 11 lbs US 2-row with 7 lbs extra light DME. Steep the crystal malt in a muslin sack in a gallon of 150F water for 1/2 hour, drain the liquid into your boil kettle, add water, DME, and boil as you typically do.

HOPS

• 17 grams Warrior (15% AA) @ 60 min • 28 grams Cascade (5% AA) @ 20 min • 28 grams Mosaic (12% AA) @ 5 min • 28 grams Citra (12%AA) @ 0 min, steep for 10 mins before chilling • 42 grams each Citra, Mosaic for dry-hop

MASH & BOIL

A single infusion mash is all this beer needs. Dough in at 152F and hold that temperature for an hour. If your routine includes mashout, have at it.

Perform your normal lauter and sparge process to collect your standard pre-boil volume for getting 5.5 gallons of wort into your fermenter. Boil for 60 minutes, adding hops at 60, 20, 5, and 0 minutes.

YEAST/FERMENTATION

Fermentation is straightforward, too. Chico yeast works well here. You know, American Ale yeast (WLP001, Wyeast 1056, Safale US-05). The yeast from *the* pale ale brewery in southern California. I find, however, this yeast is a little too clean for my taste. I feel a little more character really makes this recipe pop, so I reach for WLP007 - Dry English Ale yeast. 007 produces a little more fruity ester profile than Chico, but compared to other English yeasts it’s dang clean. It ferments nearly as dry as Chico, too. To ferment, make yourself an appropriately-sized starter, dose the wort with pure O2 for one minute, and ferment at 67F until fermentation is fully complete and all traces of diacetyl have vanished - typically about three weeks. Dry-hop during the final week before crash cooling and packaging the beer.

Our protagonist’s plate of Buffalo wings with their buttery chili pepper glaze and requisite bleu cheese dippin’ sauce want for nothing more than a great, balanced American pale ale. Any sandwich, salad, taco, or burger and fries on the menu at your favorite watering hole would pair better with this beer than just about anything on the tap list. Pizza night?

Pale ale. Pierogies? Pale ale. Pastrami sammich? Pale ale. Starting to see the pattern? Pale ale pairs well with everything. Especially another pale ale! That’s the thing about drinkin’ beers: they’re great for drinkin’!

A homebrewer since 2002, Jack Smith is a National BJCP Judge, a former president of the Three Rivers Alliance of Serious Homebrewers, and an active member of the Three Rivers Underground Brewers Follow him on Twitter @whenyeastattack

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SUGGESTED PAIRINGS

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cooking with beer

TRÖEGS MAD ELF

BANGERS & MASHED CARAMELIZED APPLE SAUCE

CraftPittsburgh | issue #40

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o many holiday memories are straight tied to food. Christmas for our family meant two things: Pop’s kielbasa and Nana’s cinnamon cake. And, lucky me, I was taught BOTH by the masters - only one of the grandkids who did (bonus points for being oldest.) I vividly remember going over the week before Christmas and he and Nana, with a hand grinder clamped to the table, grinding up pork, fat, garlic, and the marjoram Nana grew and dried, hand-stuffing natural casings with a sausage horn.

While he’d work he’d explain why so much fat, why you had to grind everything together just so, how to properly case your sausage so it didn’t rip while it was cooked, and what an utter abomination synthetic casings were - he was a sausage maker for Armour Meats back in the day.

After he passed, Nana gave me his old grinder and clamp, trimming knife, and old sausage horn, and though I don’t use his old pieces anymore, I have them all and I still make his recipe for kielbasa and her recipe for cinnamon cake every holiday - just with my own cool stuff. Hell, her cinnamon cake dough is what the donuts in my shop are based off of!

So for this holiday, I wanted to make something a tad different than the traditional, garlicky, fresh kielbasa that I make every year. (Don’t worry Dad, I’m making that, too!) And I kinda love English Banger sausages.

And then Troeg’s Mad Elf was released for the season. And I found some inspiration! Bangers differ from a traditional sausage in that they have a filler of some kind - oatmeal or bread usually - which 1) stretched really expensive, for the time, meats, 2) gave them a softer texture and 3) made them more prone to ripping open, or ‘banging’ when they are cooked in hot coals - as they were long ago. The filler is usually soaked in liquid before being added to the ground meat. ...Do you see where I am headed with this?

I did this the hard way - I started with whole pork butts, deboned and cubed, ground with the seasonings and oatmeal mush, then cased it in natural casings and linked it. Why the hard way? The sausage is markedly better, in this chef’s opinion. I did all this with my Kitchenaid and its super awesome sausage grinder/stuffer attachment. This makes relatively quick work of a lot of this and it *can* be a one-person job, though it is far easier with two. I do not go into great depth of detail about the process

Words Mindy Heisler-Johnson Photos Mike Weiss

The only odd thing to buy is natural hog casings - you can find them in the Market District meat department - ONLY MD…regular GE does not have them usually, most butchers in The Strip carry them, as do both of my local butchers if you ask for them. You need enough to do 10lbs. of sausage. I get them in a little deli container, packed in curing salt.

Once we get through the sausage making, we are going to serve these delicious sausages on top of a parsnip mashed potato with a caramelized apple and dried cherry pan sauce made with more Mad Elf. It’s a super sexy Bangers & Mashed worthy of a holiday feast.

coming soon

CraftPittsburgh.com

- this is a limited medium - but on a quick YouTube search, I found lots of good videos about how to make and stuff sausages. Or, email me.

I’ll happily talk more about sausage with you. I also fully realize this is not a tool/skill set that everyone possesses or wants to, so there are also steps for how to get around needing special tools to make this happen - nowhere is it written that a sausage must be stuffed into a casing. This recipe makes about 10lbs. of finished, cased or loose, sausage - when I am going to Do The Thing, I Do The Damn Thing - it freezes beautifully raw and/or smoked.

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Mad Elf Banger Sausages • 3 cups whole oats • 2 - 12oz bottles Troeg’s Mad Elf • 6oz dried cherries, chopped up • 10lbs bone-in or boneless pork butt • Alternatively 8-9lbs coarse ground pork - order w/ your butcher • 5 Tbsp. Kosher salt • 3 Tbsp. Herbs de Provence • 2 Tbsp. coarse ground black pepper • 1 tsp. ground mace Mix the oats with the beer and the dried cherries, cover with plastic wrap, and let sit for at least eight hours, preferably overnight. I leave it on my counter.

rope and then go back and twist in the links, 6” long roughly. If I have a helper, I link them as they come off the stuffing horn. Whichever you are more comfortable with. Or, don’t link them at all and leave them as large ropes. Pro Tip: The rope coils are a lot easier to smoke or grill so I usually do a little of both.

If you are not grinding your own pork, everything is the same except you will mix the oatmeal mush into COARSE ground pork. You can use fine, but the texture of the sausage is unpleasantly soft, in my opinion. Casing, or not casing, instructions are the same.

Caramelized Apple & Dried Cherry Mad Elf Sauce • 8 of your delicious sausages • A couple tablespoons of butter • 1 or 2 shallots, julienned

To prep the meat, debone and cut into ½” cubes, fat chunks and all.

Using pork butt, you shouldn’t find any sinew pieces that need to be cut out or trimmed. But if you do, please trim. I prefer my meat mix to be 80/20 meat to fat and an untrimmed pork butt with the fat cap just about nails it. Cut your pieces to a pretty even ½” to make sure they grind easier.

• 1 or 2 apples, tart ones, peeled and diced

Get all the meat into a big bowl. Add all of the seasonings and spices to the oatmeal mush and stir it all together. Pour the mush over the meat and mix it all up so it is evenly combined. Toss it in the fridge until you are ready to grind.

• 1 cup chicken stock

Get your casings into a bowl of cold water to soak before you start grinding, they need to soften up for later. Set the grinder up with the coarse dye and run the whole mess through it and into another big bowl. This gets everything all ground up together and all the spices and seasonings distributed. The oatmeal mush actually helps expedite this process. Once it is all ground up quickly, fold it all together to make sure it is all evenly seasoned. Heat up a pan with some butter and cook a small piece to taste it and adjust your seasonings if needed. This is your last chance to season the meat mix itself! {If you are not casing you are done right here - form it up however you like your sausages shaped and start eating sausage!} Get it back in the fridge while you clean the grinder and get it set up with a stuffing horn. This is also when I rinse all my casings - running water through each one, opening them up and making sure they don’t have any rips or tears saves time as you look to have this all done ahead. Get your stuffing horn loaded up with a casing and start stuffing! You want them to be full, but not bursting full. If I am working solo, I stuff the whole

• A big handful of dried cherries • 12oz bottle of Mad Elf • 2 cups veal stock • Cornstarch slurry Melt the butter in a deep sauté pan and sear the sausages on both sides golden brown. Transfer them to a plate to finish in the gravy later. Add another tablespoon of butter to the pan and melt, add the shallots and the apples, season with salt and a generous amount of black pepper, slowly cook over medium heat until the shallots soften, then turn up the heat to caramelize the apples to golden brown. Add the beer and dried cherries to deglaze the pan, bring to a simmer and reduce until it’s almost gone. Add both stocks and the sausages and simmer some more, letting the sauce reduce and the sausages cook through. When they are cooked, remove from the pan, taste your sauce and season it, if needed.

You can also thicken with a cornstarch slurry if you think it needs to be thickened - however you like your gravy.

Parsnip Mashed • 3lbs red skin potatoes, cut up • 2lbs parsnips, peeled and sliced • 1 stick butter • Pint of heavy cream • Pinch of salt & pepper • Pinch of nutmeg

CraftPittsburgh | issue #40

Boil the potatoes and parsnips until tender in salted water. Drain and mash with a hand potato masher. Add a stick of butter, pinch of nutmeg and black pepper, and mash some more. Taste and adjust the salt as needed. Add some cream to adjust consistency.

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Plate with mashed in the center of a big bowl, two sausages on top, and cover the whole thing in sauce. The sauce and mashed make enough for four, the sausage a lot more than that, so adjust as you need. When finished, they are a little boozy. You can still get the Mad Elf in, though, and the little bits of dried cherries are perfect. I think I will try a version of this with venison if I can get my hands on some this year.

With these great Sausage Quantities comes great Sausage Responsibility - surprisingly people love sausage as gifts - I am dead serious! I also freeze it in freezer bags raw. We’ve smoked it and then placed into freezer bags, too. We also found it delicious on sandwiches with whole grain mustard. Go forth. Stuff sausages!