CraftPittsburgh Issue #21 by CraftPittsburgh

cooking with beer • home brewing • upcoming beer events • have you tried...

CraftPittsburgh | Issue 21

table of contents

6. 7. 8. 10. 12. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 26. 28. 30. 32. 33. 34. 36. 38.

SEPT 11 AT 3PM

Founders sampling

Vertical KBS bottle event with the Founders crew

upcoming events

SEPTEMbEr 22 – 26

pumpkinFest

editor’s letter the hoppy couple - pa brew tours

The return of pumpkin soup, special menu items, and seasonal tastings including a Pumking vertical event

OcTObEr 27 AT 8 PM

halloween hoedown, robinson

style profile - oktoberfest

Featuring live music from Earth by Train

hand crafted - butcher on butler the locals - marta napoleone mazzoni a good time for a good cause

OcTObEr 31 AT 8 PM

halloween bash, monaca

Featuring live music from Decade Resisitors

@craftpittsburgh - we love instagram beer geer - the beer scout knife beer & benevolence

rustbelt revival pittsburgh’s gluten-free brews where dives survive - rock room cooking with beer - braised cabbage & bratwurst brewer sit-down - curt rachocki

illustrated breweries of pa - penn brewery have you tried... home brewing - brown rye ipa

page

CraftPittsburgh.com

brew science - malt

staff

heads up!

PUBLISHER P•Scout Media, LLC

EXECUTIVE EDITOR Rob Soltis rob@craftpittsburgh.com

MANAGING EDITOR Mike Weiss mike@craftpittsburgh.com

COPY EDITORS Melanie Huber, Frank Cunniff

CONTRIBUTORS

spooky tooth THE PUMPKIN BREW WITH BITE.

hop fro

IT’S HOPADELIC! YOU DIG? BOTH IN STORES AND ON TAP NOW!

Brian Meyer, Beth Kurtz Taylor, Joe Tammariello, Amanda Stein, Mike Weiss, Mindy Heisler-Johnson, Hart Johnson, Gregor Bender, Ben Summers, Ian Mikrut, Dino Juklo, Frank Cunniff, Nils Balls, Jack Smith

PHOTOGRAPHERS Tim Burns, Malcolm Frazer, Jeff Zoet, Kelly Gorney Photography

COVER PHOTOGRAPHY Jeff Zoet Visuals

AD SALES sales@craftpittsburgh.com

CREATIVE Soltis Design soltisdesign.com

award-winning beer, handcrafted for you! ™

CraftPittsburgh | Issue 21

® ALPENGLOW • GOLD MEDAL • GERMAN-STYLE WHEAT ALE • GREAT AMERICAN BEER FESTIVAL 2014 ® BONE HEAD • SILVER AWARD • IMPERIAL RED ALE • WORLD BEER CUP 2014 ® HEAD HUNTER • SILVER AWARD • AMERICAN STYLE IPA • WORLD BEER CUP 2012 & 2014 ® • • 2010 SILVER MEDAL & 2011 BRONZE MEDAL AMERICAN STYLE IPA GREAT AMERICAN BEER FESTIVAL ® HOP JUJU • GOLD MEDAL • IMPERIAL INDIA PALE ALE • GREAT AMERICAN BEER FESTIVAL 2013 ® TRAIL HEAD • SILVER MEDAL • FRESH HOP ALE • GREAT AMERICAN BEER FESTIVAL 2013 BLACK KNIGHT • SILVER MEDAL • GERMAN-STYLE SCHWARZBIER ® GREAT AMERICAN BEER FESTIVAL 2013

FATHEADS.COM

FOR INFORMATION ON CONTRIBUTING EDITORIAL CONTENT OR PLACING DISPLAY ADVERTISING PLEASE CONTACT US AT INFO@CRAFTPITTSBURGH.COM Craft Pittsburgh is issued bi-monthly by P•Scout Media, LLC. 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. Advertisements are subject to the approval of P•Scout Media, LLC. P•Scout Media, LLC. reserves the right to reject or omit any advertisement at any time for any reason. Advertiser assume responsibility and complete liability for all content in their ads.

CraftPittsburgh.com

upcoming events Check out CraftPittsburgh.com for even more events and make sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram. September •1

New Belgium rides into town. Full list of samplings & tap take overs at CraftPittsburgh.com/events

• 7 Craft Beer Industry Night @ Caliente • 11 ZooBrew Oktoberfest @ PGH Zoo & PPG Aquarium • 12 9th Annual Steel City Big Pour @ Construction Junction • 12 C apt. Sean Ruane Memorial Cornhole Tournament @ The Greater Pittsburgh Aquatic Boat Club

• 20 Lingrow Farm Beer Dinner w/Grist House @ Twisted Thistle • 18-20 Oktoberfest @ Penn Brewery • 19 Mars/Cranberry TapFest @ Double Wide Grill, Mars • 25-27 Oktoberfest @ Penn Brewery • 26 Homebrewing Essentials/Beginners Course @ Rosedale Tech • 26 The Brews & the Bees Tour @ PA Brew Tours • 26 Breaktoberfest @ Breakneck Tavern • 27 Homebrewing Essentials/Advanced Course @ Rosedale Tech

October • 3 Pittsburgh Real Ale Festival @ Highmark Stadium • 5 Craft Beer Industry Night @ Caliente • 10 Pumpkin Fest IV @ Blue Dust • 10 TRASH XXV Homebrew Competition @ James Street • 17 Brewing Up A Cure @ PPG Winter Garden • 17 Barks & Brews @ Beaver County Humane Society • 20 One Hellofa BooBrew Tour @ PA Brew Tours

November

CraftPittsburgh | Issue 21

• 2 Craft Beer Industry Night @ Caliente • 7 Winter Craft Brewhaha @ The Altar Bar • 28 The Pittsburgh Brewery Tour @ PA Brew Tours

editor’s letter

Holy shit it’s September.

hat was by far the fastest year of my life. For those of you keeping score, this issue marks my one year anniversary as owner/editor/delivery driver of CraftPittsburgh. It’s been the busiest, most stressful 12 months of my life, but also the most fun and rewarding. This issue is literally double the size of last year’s. I’ve tasted some incredible beer, heard great stories and made some lifelong friends. I’ve learned a lot about myself, the beer industry, and this city we all call home. I’ve said it numerous times before but I’m compelled to say it again; the local craft beer community has been one of the most welcoming groups of people I’ve ever been around. They took me in with open arms and were always there for anything I needed. From the brewers, to the wholesalers, reps, bar owners, retailers and consumers, I cannot thank everyone enough.Their passion and enthusiasm is infectious. Being around them makes me want to continue to do the best job possible and produce a magazine we can all be proud of. I also would like to thank all my staff, friends, and family that believed in me and have been there from the beginning. Especially my wife, Taten. She’s my biggest supporter and more understanding than I could have ever imagined. This isn’t a nine to five type of job, there are a lot of long production nights along with evening and weekend events that we can rarely attend together. She has taken it all in stride even when waking up to notes like the one below. I can’t wait to see where the next year takes us and if you ever have any questions or concerns please feel free to email me directly at rob@craftpittsburgh.com. Have fun, drink good beer, and be safe. I love you Tater.

CraftPittsburgh.com

Rob Soltis

hoppy couple road trip

PA Brew Tours pabrewtours.com

The Hoppy Couple is one part Joe Tammariello and one part Amanda Stein. Amanda is the charitable creative type, while Joe is the nerdy eccentric type. Together we make a perfect brew, har har. We don’t consider ourselves beer experts but we spend a good bit of our free time exploring the city and sampling all of the food and drink it has to offer. We also try our hand at brewing beer from time to time at our home in Swissvale.We hope that our points of view will pour a well-rounded pint of our experiences with Pittsburgh’s local craft beer scene. Say “Cheers!” if you see us out!

PA Brew Tours offers bus-driven tours to local breweries around the Pittsburgh area and beyond. You get a behind-the-scenes look at some of the coolest and newest local brewpubs in the area, and as well can learn a bit about the history of the Pittsburgh area along the way. The best part is, you don’t have to worry about driving - that’s taken care of for you. It’s a great way to spend an afternoon with friends or family. The tour we enjoyed is not offered publicly just yet, but we are guessing it will be soon since it was such a great experience! Some of the places we visited haven’t yet opened but are on the cusp. Be sure to keep a look out for Cellar Works Brewing Company, Butler Brew Works, and Reclamation Brewing - all opening soon. As well, be sure to check out all the other trips currently offered by PA Brew Tours. We would like to thank PA Brew Tours, Craft Pittsburgh Magazine, and the Butler Country Tourism and Convention Bureau for this really memorable opportunity. And also, all of the breweries!

Joe

CraftPittsburgh | Issue 21

Cellar Works Brewing Company

Our first stop was Cellar Works Brewing Company. You may have heard of them as Cellar Door, but they are changing their name to Cellar Works, and with it, a brand new look and feel. Their establishment, while in the middle stages of development, is going to offer a really unique experience of homemade beer and artisanal foods. While we were there we got to try a delicious sour beer and a farmhouse ale they have been developing. They had some mock-ups of what the bar will look like upon completion, and while there’s work left to be done, the payoff will be tremendous.

I’m especially excited about their idea of having couches and a lounge area as part of the seating offering at the pub.

Butler Brew Works

On the main street of Butler you can find what will eventually be a pretty sweet brewpub. The building used to be a variety of pharmacies, and right now the walls aren’t even up yet, but they still had some beers waiting for us to sample. One I particularly remember was their stout which was made with local coffee from a donut shop right down the street. Be sure to keep on the lookout for their opening which should be in the next few months. They plan to offer a variety of food in addition to their craft beers. What’s even nicer is that they are within walking distance from another brewpub also opening soon, which I’ll discuss next!

Reclamation Brewing

Right down the street, one block from Butler Brew Works, is Reclamation Brewing. Operated in what might have been an old medical clinic many years ago, these guys are brewing up some awesome beer. More recently, it was a place called Unicorn Gift Store, so I suggested a unicorn themed beer in the future and they were already on board. They also plan to offer some Irish pub fare to go with their very unique beers. One of my favorites was their sour. The underside of their bar was lined with old tin metalwork that was previously on the ceiling. They also had a beautiful mosaic on the wall made entirely from old beer bottle caps, about 9,000 of them! Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for their grand opening which should be in the next few months.

DR Distillery

After leaving downtown Butler we took a trek up to Slippery Rock to visit DR Distillery. We found out that DR stands for two of the owners’ names, Dawn and Rebel. This distillery primarily creates a variety of corn and rye

whiskeys. They also offered a brand new rum that they just finished distilling the day we visited. It’s a small operation on a farm, but the flavors were very bold. All of the grains used in the distillation process are from local farms in the area. Their old-school look, paired with the feel of being in basically a barn, created an old timey, whiskey-rebellion-era kind of experience. If you aren’t into tasting whiskey straight, they also offer a few mixed drinks to dull that sting a little.

ShuBrew

Our final stop was ShuBrew. I had been hearing a lot through word of mouth that this is a place I need to check out, so I was excited that it was a stop on this tour. It was our last stop, but also our first and only stop that currently offers food, which I do recommend. A lot of the places we visited on the way to ShuBrew weren’t offering anything extremely hoppy (my favorite), so by the time we got to ShuBrew I wasn’t only hungry for food, but also for hops! For food, I tried one of each of their three taco options. My favorite was the Das Schwein which was pork, coleslaw, and BBQ aioli on a flour tortilla. My hops craving was satisfied by their rotating tap - a double IPA that evening. Delicious. Definitely check out ShuBrew as soon as you can.

Amanda

Cellar Works Brewing Company

First up on our Butler County beer adventure was Cellar Works Brewing Company in Sarver, PA. Hidden behind some other establishments off of the main road, this up-and-coming brewery has loads of potential. A huge parking lot sits out front where they made mention of food trucks visiting in the future. Inside the building, while still empty, lie great bones for a future brewpub. The husband and wife duo,

along with another brew partner, were there to welcome us and tell us all about how they came to be, the vision for their beers, and what their building will look like. Their style of wild beers and artisanal foods will have a beautiful new home in this future Sarver brewpub.

Butler Brew Works

Nestled among the main drag in downtown Butler was our next visit, Butler Brew Works. Started by three friends with a dream, this brewery already has an exciting vibe - walking into the future hotspot, you don’t need to see more than the steel beam wall framing to know this place will have a lot to offer. Butler Brew Works plans to open within the next several months, has a solid list of unique and tasty beers at the ready, and will open their doors with a full kitchen up and running. Already talking of several expansions after opening, there are plans of a large garage door in the front of the building onto the sidewalk and a biergarten in the back for music and games. This place will be one to visit time and time again to see what they come up with next.

DR Distillery

Driving down the path to DR Distillery you feel like you’re being transported down to the deep South in the best possible way. There’s not a soul around for miles until you make your way into the bar for a drink and are welcomed with open arms and a full glass. Family owned and operated, these folks have served their country well with three combat veterans and four government employees. Not to mention the hearty moonshine and rum they mix up to serve you! While liquor may not be my cup of sweet tea, this place has a warm feeling of being home on the farm while their liquors warm you up from the inside.

ShuBrew

Last but not least, we made it to ShuBrew in Zelienople. Like my other half already said, it was the first stop that offered food, so after three breweries, a whiskey distillery, and lots of driving, we were definitely ready to chow down. I had the 50/50 Burger which was half bacon, half beef, with a side of mac & cheese. That was probably one of the best burgers I’ve had in recent history. I’d like to report on other beer offerings but again, like Joe said, we were thirsty for some hops! We were busy trying new sours, stouts, shines, and experiments all day that when we heard ShuBrew had a double IPA we didn’t hesitate. ShuBrew is a very well-established brewpub that needs no advertising since word of mouth does it justice. I’ll definitely be back – for the food they clearly put a lot of time and effort into, for the beer they pride themselves on, and for the husband and wife owners who make you part of their family the moment you walk in the door.

Conclusion

Reclamation Brewing

Butler is a very lucky town to have two brand new breweries within a block of each other. Just a few storefronts up the street from Butler Brew Works is Reclamation Brewing, which is the closest to opening of the new breweries we visited on the tour. You may have seen these brewers at The Big Pour in the past with some of their beers in the works. While sharing their story of how they came to be, their head brewer listed off some creative names of their future offerings including Downtown Funk (a sour mashed in the kettle), Carry Me Home Double IPA (people’s choice winner at a brew fest in Mt. Lebanon), and Red Headed Hotty (ginger beer made in reclaimed ginger ale kettles). You can tell their head brewer is full of exciting new ideas for beers and styles, making it a brewery to watch when looking for a new beer to get hooked on.

From start to finish this brew tour experience was one to remember. We had an opportunity to see places that are making their dreams become a reality. On the tour, we got to meet some of the current tour guides for PA Brew Tours and some local home brewers as well. As the tour progressed, we noticed that owners from the previous stops were showing up at our next stops. This let us know that the entire Butler area brewing presence is more of a family than a collection of competitors. We had a great time and can’t wait to schedule our next tour. Thanks again to everyone, and cheers!

Homebrewers! Enter the 25th Annual TRASH Homebrew Competition!

October 10th, 2015 at James Street Gastropub and Speakeasy

Three Rivers Alliance of Serious Homebrewers

Enter online and sign up to volunteer at

trashcompetition.org Entry deadline: September 25th, 2015

style profile

Oktoberfest I

Written by Brian Meyer

t’s almost that wonderful time of year when the beer tents go up and the lager starts flowing. Oktoberfest is the annual party that originated in Munich, Germany and is held every fall. Over the course of sixteen days, more than 1.7 million gallons of beer will be served to more than six million people just in Munich alone! This year the official Oktoberfest begins on Saturday, September 19th and concludes on October 4th. Concurrent with the official Oktoberfest, there are countless iterations around the world taking place during the same time. Along with the celebration come Oktoberfest beers. While just about every brewery makes an Oktoberfest-style beer, there are only six true Oktoberfest beers in the world. So, what’s the difference between Oktoberfest beers and Oktoberfest-style beers? Location, location, location!

CraftPittsburgh | Issue 21

Official Oktoberfest Beers

To be an official Oktoberfest beer, only two criteria have to be met. First, the beer must meet the Reinheitsgebot, or the Bavarian Purity Law. If you’re not familiar with this, it basically says that beer can only be brewed with four ingredients: water, barley, hops, and yeast.When the law was enacted in 1487, there were only three ingredients, as they did not know yeast existed until Louis Pasteur discovered it. Thus the beer must be brewed with only these four ingredients. The second criteria, and this is the tough one, is that all true Oktoberfest beers must be brewed within the city limits of Munich. This is why there are only six true Oktoberfest beers, including: • Augustiner-Bräu • Hacker-Pschorr-Bräu • Löwenbräu • Paulaner • Spatenbräu • Staatliches Hofbräu-München In fact, the term “Oktoberfest Beer” is a registered trademark that’s held by the Club of Munich Brewers, which is not surprisingly made up of the six breweries listed above.

Some History

Oktoberfest itself originated with the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig and Princess Therese on October 12, 1810. Every citizen of Munich was invited to the celebration, which was held in fields abutting the gates of the city. In honor of Therese, the fields were named Theresienwiese, or Theresa’s meadow. The celebration began a week after the marriage, starting on October 17th and surprisingly enough, did not include beer. The main attraction at this first Oktoberfest was horseracing, something that continued each year until 1938. Beer wasn’t featured at Oktoberfest until 1818, when breweries were added as major attractions.

Märzen/Oktoberfest There was a time when refrigeration consisted of keeping things in cellars or caves, coolant was a bucket of spring water, and you only got ice when it was winter. Brewing beer requires that after the brewing process is complete, the wort be cooled as quickly as possible. Thus, in the pre-refrigeration days, it was nearly impossible to brew beer in the summer months. This meant there was a “brewing season” that ran from fall until the beginning of spring, with the last beer of the season typically brewed in the month of March, or as the Germans say it: Märzen. These March-brewed beers would be barreled and placed in cold storage over the summer, typically in caves. Since the beers were meant to sit for quite a while, they were typically slightly higher in ABV than other beers of the time. While we may not think a 6% Oktoberfest-style beer is very big, at the time it definitely was. Since these beers were ready to be consumed in the fall, they were ready just in time for the Oktoberfest celebration, becoming synonymous with the event. Märzens, or Oktoberfest-style beers, are known for a rich German malt aroma as well as a malty sweet taste and surprisingly dry finish. A good Oktoberfest-style beer should be a smooth and clean tasting lager with a deep malt character. These beers are not meant to be sweet at all, but instead they are brewed to be less bitter with a complex malt body. Contemporary

Oktoberfest-styles today tend to be slightly lighter in color and body than their historical counterparts, but are still brewed with a similar outcome in mind. Today’s Oktoberfest-style beers can range in ABV from 4.8%-5.7% ABV with some outliers going up to 7% or higher. IBUs are kept low in the 20-28 range, and tend to include all German ingredients like Vienna malt, Munich malt, and German hops.

Commercial Examples With season creep coming in more and more each year, Oktoberfest-style beers are often only available for a short period of time, and can be eclipsed by pumpkin beers pretty easily. Here’s a list of common Oktoberfest and Oktoberfest-style beers available around Pittsburgh: • Penn Brewery Oktoberfest Bier • Hofbrauhaus Oktoberfest • Brooklyn Brewery Oktoberfest • Great Lakes Oktoberfest • Hacker-Pschorr Oktoberfest Märzen The Oktoberfest/Märzen style of beer has a rich history behind it, and a great party each year ahead of it.While these beers don’t have a major hop kick like many popular beers today, they feature the clean, crisp taste of a lager while focusing on the complexity of a malty beer that’s far from sweet.

CraftPittsburgh.com

Brian founded and writes for pghcraftbeers.com and craftbeeracademy.com.

hand crafted

Butcher on Butler Written by Beth Kurtz Taylor

CraftPittsburgh | Issue 21

n a Lawrenceville building with a storied past, Michael Rado is part chef, butcher, and alchemist. He dreams of magical pairings of meat, spices, aromatic veggies, and yes, beer, then goes on to produce incomparable sausages and cut-to-order bacon. Until February of 2014, the space which is now The Butcher on Butler was known to locals as Foster’s Meat. The business was for sale after Bruce Foster passed away in 2012. Chef Rado, a Pittsburgh native with an impressive culinary resume and a love for butchering, had the desire to leave behind the long hours of restaurant kitchens. He lives in Lawrenceville and did not want to see the community lose the local butcher shop. Recognizing an opportunity that enabled him to spend more time with his wife and daughter, he invested in the business.

Along with the butcher shop came Mr. Foster’s recipe for his legendary kielbasa and a two-story, brick smokehouse that dates back to the original owners of the establishment, the Ferlan family. I am continuously fascinated with all things related to Pittsburgh’s food history past, so I had to get a look at the brick structure. We wandered to the outdoor area behind the store and when Mike opened the smokehouse door, a warm and comforting smoky aroma wafted into the open air. “That is a 75-year patina of pig fat, kielbasa and cherry wood,” he proclaimed. Cured meats, ham,

and kielbasa spend time in the smokehouse absorbing rich flavor from smoldering cherry wood sourced from Trax Farm. Many have ventured beyond basic smoked bacon to maybe a peppercorn-crusted version. You can find both at Butcher on Butler. But…how about some Siracha or curry bacon? Or, for those of us who love our craft beer, Hop Farm Coffee Porter bacon? Our friends at Hop Farm infuse their porter with about thirty pounds of coffee beans roasted locally by La Prima Espresso. Mike rescues the beer-soaked coffee grinds and slathers them on the pork bellies before curing. The grinds are rinsed off after the curing process and a fresh coat is applied before the bacon is smoked. Rustic slabs of this and other flavors of the decadent breakfast meat hang in a “bacon locker” behind the display case waiting for discriminating customers.They always have at least five varieties to offer. What if you prefer sausage to bacon? Mike brings his chef training (along with an obsession with food history) to the butcher block to create unique sausages in-house. Throw in a supply of top notch local beers, and he and his staff produce new twists on many sausage traditions. For example, Draai Laag Brewery requested a Belgian-style sausage for an event. In his research, Mike found a recipe for Belgian Tripp sausage that contained ground cabbage.

He braised the cabbage in a Draai Laag beer and reserved the cooking liquid. As the pork, spices, and cabbages need an emulsifying agent to create the end product, he added the cooled cooking liquid back to the mixture. To gild the lily, the sausages were cooked in fresh beer and served to the crowd. The same attention to detail went into the crafting of a German Weisswurst. Mike describes it as a traditionally light and airy sausage made of pork belly and eggs. To that mixture, he incorporates Hefeweizen from Hop Farm. You can taste the Weisswurst at Hop Farm Brewing cooked in, you guessed it, their own Hefeweizen. Locals in Lawrenceville, as well as throughout the Pittsburgh area, can still find Foster’s kielbasa - still a huge seller for the business. Mike anticipates producing four to five thousand pounds of it between Thanksgiving and New Year’s when they officially go on “kielbasa lockdown”. Butcher on Butler is, after all, a butcher shop, so you can find a wide assortment of cut-to-order quality sustainable meats, all sourced locally. Butcher on Butler 5145 Butler Street Pittsburgh, PA 15201 412.781.2157 butcheronbutler.com

Our selection is

SCARY GOOD!

S ICE WLEPS R S! K LOSIN & 6-PAC G HUNDREDS OF DOMESTIC, IMPORT & CRAFT BEERS NOW AVAILABLE in over 30 Giant Eagle & Market District CafĂŠs in western PA For store locations or more information, please visit: www.GiantEagle.com/Beer. Not all items available in all locations. Restrictions apply. See store for details.

CraftPittsburgh.com

CraftPittsburgh | Issue 21

the locals

Marta Napoleone Mazzoni martaonthemove.com

Written by Dino Juklo photo by Mike Weiss

Tell us a bit about yourself and how Marta on the Move came to be. About a year ago I had a friend that suggested I start a blog and a podcast. I love to travel and I love food, beer and wine in addition to chatting with people from different walks of life. I started the blog and podcast mainly just to get to know people and to record different things that I was doing, like journal entries. All of a sudden it took off and people wanted to be a part of it.The whole premise is people sitting down and getting to know each other over a few drinks. You are a homebrewer, winemaker, pickler and fermenter. What do you like best about making your own stuff, and what challenges do you run into? My husband and I started brewing a while back. For us, it’s all about the hops, how they reflect in different beers, and how they come out. One of the biggest challenges we face is what to do with all the beer after we make all the 5-gallon batches because we’re already drinking so much beer! We really like making the higher-gravity beers because they last longer and you can age them. It’s fun to do vertical tastings to see how the hops, maltiness, and things like that have changed years after making the beer. The same goes with wine. It’s nice to have something to spoil yourself with in the future. How long have you been involved with T.R.A.S.H.? Do you have any

competitive history, and what can we look forward to in the future? I got involved with T.R.A.S.H. through mutual friends. I remember bringing a bottle of a stout we made to one of the first meetings I went to. I was probably the only girl there. Everyone else had kegs while there I was with this one bottle. One of the reasons I love that group is because they didn’t judge me. They were just really proud that there was beer and that I showed up to share it with everyone. Instead of being critical, they were very supportive. They are one of the groups in Pittsburgh that always represents. I just did a live podcast at Arcade Comedy Theatre, and T.R.A.S.H was there just to support it. They gave out some of their homebrew and encouraged people to try it themselves. That’s what I look forward to with them as a group – inspiring people to make better beers. Out of all the guests you’ve had on your podcast, which stood out the most, and what are some cool things you learned from them? Tom Savini was a big one. Bill Peduto came on and was the most generous and down-to-earth person I could have recorded with. Being the mayor, you would think he would be very stuffy, but he was so nice and forthcoming. It meant the world to me that he took fifteen minutes out of his day to be a part of my podcast. Dr. Shellie Hipsky was an inspiration because she showed me how to hold a fund raiser. I wanted to give back to the community but at the time had no idea how to run a fundraiser, and she was nice enough to show me the ropes. Everyone I’ve had on the podcast has been amazing, so it’s hard to pick favorites. Traveling is one of your passions. Where in the world have you been, and what are some interesting experiences you’ve had? I love to travel solo, so I do a lot of volunteer work overseas. My favorite thing is to bring my recorder and talk to people from different walks of life

about what their traditions are, what they like to eat, what they like to drink, and so on. I’ve actually gotten people that I’ve met on my travels to come to Pittsburgh, such as the French family that is currently staying with us. It’s amazing that they flew all the way out here just to come hang out. They love the beer scene, they love the food scene, and they’re learning about our culture and the way we live just as I did with theirs. I like traveling solo because it pushes you out of your comfort zone. It makes you realize things about yourself that you would have never known otherwise. It’s about breaking out of the regular routine and being open to new experiences. Blogging and podcasting seem to go hand in hand with the grassroots aspect of craft alcohol. What tips do you have for people trying to get their own projects off the ground? The biggest tip I have is to reach out and don’t be afraid to talk to somebody about it. Ask for help. Ask for advice. Second tip would be to go for it. Pittsburgh is relatively inexpensive, and it has the space which puts us years ahead of bigger cities in terms of craft. Get involved with local people, get involved with local groups like T.R.A.S.H. or go to a meet-up and share your stuff. See what people think of it and listen to their opinions. Kind of like with traveling, sometimes you have to just take a chance and see what happens. What are some of your favorite establishments in Pittsburgh that you frequent and want to recommend to others? My ideal day is to wake up, go to Espresso Amano and hit up a brewery. I’m really excited for Helicon Brewing’s opening and so many others. Picking up a growler of Red Star Kombucha at the Pittsburgh Public Market is always on the list. We love getting some cocktails at Meat and Potatoes or going grocery shopping and coming back to the house to cook. I love getting a good steak from Gaucho’s. There are so many options now in Pittsburgh, so it’s easy to keep things fresh and exciting.

CraftPittsburgh.com

arta Napoleone Mazzoni hosts Marta On The Move, a Pittsburghbased podcast and blog. Mazzoni is a homebrewer, winemaker, pickler, fermenter, and member of the Three Rivers Alliance of Serious Homebrewers (T.R.A.S.H.). Her podcast features interesting people and places in Pittsburgh, travel advice, food and drink, and general nerdery. Marta On The Move has appeared on Star 100.7, KDKA News Radio, and Empowering Women Radio.

A Good Time For A Great Cause

By Brian Meyer

CraftPittsburgh | Issue 21

ometimes a very good thing can come from an absolutely terrible tragedy. It’s these small glimmers of hope that help those of us caught up in said tragedies to feel a little better about the world, giving us hope that things may someday get better. I speak from experience on this one, and I wish I didn’t. On January 7th, 2014 my cousin, Captain Sean M. Ruane, died when the HH-60G Pave Hawk he was copiloting crashed during a training mission in England, killing him and the other three airmen on board. Sean and his fellow airmen were members of the 56th Rescue Squadron stationed in Lakenheath, England. On October 11th of last year, on what would have been his 32nd birthday, my family got together to celebrate anyway with a party we knew he’d be proud of while raising money for a worthwhile charity. This year, we decided to have the party again but with a few changes. This year we’re having the second annual Capt. Sean Ruane Memorial Cornhole tournament on September 12th at The Greater Pittsburgh Aquatic Boat Club on Neville Island.We’ll be raising money for a scholarship in his name at his former High School, Montour High. We’re having the party again this year and we’re expecting it to be better than ever. Sean was a huge craft beer fan, and was even a homebrewer. To have a party he’d be proud to have his name on, we’re serving some of the best beer in Pittsburgh at the event, making it into a mini beer fest, with food, raffles, and a lot of fun. Thanks to the huge generosity of just about everyone I know in the beer industry, we’ll have a great beer lineup and tons of beer swag to give away. There will even be a few beer baskets to enter to win, too.We’ll have beer and giveaways from the following amazing businesses: • East End Brewing • Vecenie’s Distributing • Rock Bottom Brewery • Tröeg’s Brewery • Fuhrer Wholesale • Straub Brewery • Helltown Brewing • Beer Express • Spoonwood Brewing • Galli Wholesale • New Belgium Brewery • Grist House Brewing • CraftPittsburgh Magazine • Roundabout Brewery Tickets are available at the event: $30 for beer, food, and entry into the cornhole tournament, and $20 for food and beer only. We’ll have a great time for an amazing cause, and best of all, you get to help throw a party Sean would be proud of. The world of craft beer is like a big family, so if you’re reading this I consider you part of mine. Check out PghCraftBeers.com for more information, and if you’re reading this after September 12th, don’t worry. We’ll have it again next year for sure.

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A vast collection of antique beer memorabilia and delivery trucks from around the country. Check out 1937gmcstreamline.com to follow their restoration of a 1937 GMC Streamline originally used by Rainier Beer as a rolling billboard.

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beer geer

Always BEER prepared with

The Beer Scout Knife By Brian Meyer

Always Be Prepared. This is a motto that any former member of the Boy Scouts should remember well. If you’re like me, you probably spent your formative years learning how to camp, build fires, shoot a bow and arrow, and most importantly, how to use a knife safely and correctly. What was considered prepared when you’re 12 is pretty different than when you’re….well…older. One thing that doesn’t change is the need for a quality knife for jobs large and small, but a tool that is possibly more valuable than a knife is a good bottle opener. If you want to always be prepared as an adult, a good combination of these two would be a match made in beer heaven. The Beer Scout knife from Great Eastern Cutlery and Tidioute Cutlery brings together an amazingly sharp and strong folding knife with a strong and simple bottle opener in a nostalgically beautiful case. GEC looked back to a time when the simple pocketknife was handmade using traditional materials and would last for generations. The idea of a simple yet effective knife and bottle opener that fits easily in your pocket is what the Beer Scout knife is all about.

Tidioute Cutlery

Located 25 miles east of Titusville, the small town of Tidioute, PA is home to the Beer Scout knife.This special line of Great Eastern Cutlery’s knives focuses on the history behind some of the best knives to come out of Pennsylvania, dating back to the 1890s. The knives in the Tidioute Cutlery lineup look good enough to collect, but are built as strong as pocketknives from long ago.

CraftPittsburgh | Issue 21

The Beer Scout Knife

Built from 1095 carbon steel and a variety of classic handle materials, the Beer Scout knife looks amazing. The idea of a beer scout is a fun one, but the idea pairs with the style and quality of the knife perfectly. Handle materials include various colors of bone, wood, acrylic, wood, and micarta. The knife measures 3.5” closed, has a blunted end blade, and a bottle opener that’s longer than you’d expect in a pocketknife. Both the opener and the blade fold out from the same end, making it easy and comfortable to use. In short, the Beer Scout knife is simple, beautiful, and possibly the best pocketknife you’ll ever own. Thanks to the GEC Beer Scout knife, Always BEER Prepared.

Beer & Benevolence By Amanda Stein

I met one of my closest friends, Andrea Zonneveld, when I began working for the Epilepsy Foundation of Western/Central PA (EFWCP) in 2011. We bonded quickly over our shared losses – I lost my mom when I was 18 and Andrea lost her brother, Mark, less than a year before we met. As a way to cope with the loss and keep Mark’s legacy alive, she created a run/walk team, Mark’s Pack, which raised over $10,000 the first year for the EFWCP Pittsburgh Family Fun Run/Walk for Epilepsy. Her passion was contagious so I joined the Mark’s Pack fundraising efforts and have been involved ever since. For the past few years, all of the funds raised by Mark’s Pack have been allocated to The Zonne Fund (pronounced “zahn-EE” and translates to “sunny”) which encourages individuals and families living with epilepsy to develop the same resilient spirit that Mark had. So much of living with epilepsy focuses on the hardships – taking medication, worrying about when the next seizure will strike, etc. – and sometimes people just need a little reminder to find the fun in life! If you haven’t already made the connection, I am one half of The Hoppy Couple, my other half being my boyfriend, Joe. You may be wondering how beer plays a role in all of this fundraising mumbo jumbo but it certainly does – just you wait! Joe and I were big beer drinkers long before we became The Hoppy Couple. So when we met and got to know each other, he of course learned of my involvement in Mark’s Pack and was excited to be a part of it. Thus began our “Annual Mark’s Pack Rager” event. Our Rager is held in the summer at our house. We buy all kinds of food, snacks, non-booze drinks, and (most importantly) copious amounts of delicious craft beer. We invite all of our friends to join us and instead of bringing more food

or beer, we ask that they bring a donation to Mark’s Pack. Our first three years brought in around $1,500 per event but this year topped them all with a whopping $2,500! Not surprising, since we had a special added bonus to our event this year: two homebrewed beers in honor of Mark. Oh yeah…bring on the beer! Our friends, Chad Sechrist and Bob Fedinetz, began separately brewing beer ten years ago and decided to join their brewing forces to become Steam Burn Brewing (if you want a good laugh, you’ll have to ask the guys how that painful-sounding name came to be).Wanting to involve my love of craft beer into every possible aspect of life, I knew I had to get the guys to brew a custom batch for this year’s Rager. Chad and Bob welcomed the challenge and so was born the Meadow Muffin Porter (6.0% ABV), a robust porter with a hint of chocolate and a mild peanut butter finish - the perfect meld of a rich cup of coffee and a savory Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Andrea has fond memories of her and Mark enjoying their family recipe of peanut butter sauce over chicken satays, so this Meadow Muffin Porter was a tasty way to bring that memory back to life.The Steam Burn Brewing team also made an Apple Pie Ale as a drinkable version of the apple pies Mark loved so much. Chad and Bob, for now, are just two brew buddies having a great time. They brainstorm new flavors, help each other brew new batches, and share ideas for their future brewpub. Their ultimate goal is to open up shop with Steam Burn Brewing for all to enjoy. Right now, I’d say I’m pretty lucky to have this future Pittsburgh favorite as part of my personal beer community before they make it big. You jealous? Yeah, you are. Our Rager this year was a huge success. Everyone loved the Steam Burn beers, tons of money was raised, and lots of laughs were shared. As I sipped on the Meadow Muffin Porter and Apple Pie Ale, I couldn’t help but scan our backyard to see dozens of smiling faces out to support a charitable cause. As Andrea described her first sip of the beer to me, I knew it was the perfect way to summarize my own Pittsburgh beer community:“My taste buds made a beeline for the rich peanut butter and delicate apple flavors that hid beneath the foam. Just for a moment, I felt like Mark was right beside me, smiling at the thought that his memory helped inspire the awesome party, the custom brews, and the fellowship of friends coming together for a great cause.”

CraftPittsburgh.com

ittsburgh has recently been included among the “Most Charitable City” and “Most Livable City” lists by notable publications, and has also been declared the “Best Craft Beer Community in the World” by yours truly. Though the whole city of Pittsburgh could be considered a community, every group of friends and family have their own little community, and surely almost everyone knows a homebrew dabbler, craft beer connoisseur, or general beer buff. Today’s story is a personal one that will give you a deeper insight into my own Pittsburgh beer community as I know it.

Written by Ian Mikrut photos by Mike Weiss

How local brewers are proudly helping to reestablish the neighborhoods they rep As Pittsburgh continues to top lists as one of America’s most livable cities, drawing countless, exhausting comparisons to being the “new” Brooklyn or Portland, it’s really within our own uniquely Pittsburgh boroughs that widespread change and revitalization are occurring. Areas in the Greater Pittsburgh Area that were once avoided or condemned by economic struggles are finally being dusted clean and taken off the shelf, revealing new and rediscovered treasures in our communities. And local breweries are playing a significant role. “I think for a lot of these neighborhoods, these breweries serve as a destination for people to go,” says Linda Nyman, one of the owners of Penn Brewery. Nyman and the other managing partners at Penn have owned it for the last five years, though its extensive history and success as an independent brewery in Troy Hill have essentially paved the way for many present and future local brewers operating in lower income areas. “Truth be told, if you look at where Penn is located, it’s not very likely that people would just happen to just mosey on by,” says Nyman. “This is most definitely a destination type of establishment. You have to know or hear in order to come over here.” More than ever, breweries are becoming major destinations for visiting outsiders. Whenever you visit a new city, breweries offer you the opportunity to experience a product that’s exclusively created there: a literal taste of place. And often times they offer a real glimpse of part of that city that you would have never expected to discover. But it wasn’t always that way in Pittsburgh. When East End Brewing, one of the first craft breweries to set up shop in Pittsburgh roughly a decade ago, opened its first location in Homewood, founder Scott Smith never envisioned guests would visit him at work. In reality, his choice in location had nothing to do with revitalization hopes or desire to bring change to a community. It was a matter of finding the right space at the right price - self-preservation, as Smith put it. “I never expected anybody to ever want to come to the place where the beer was made. That’s just how naïve I was 10, 11 years ago,” says Smith. “I thought ‘Nobody’s going to want to come to Homewood to get beer,’

I didn’t have a sign, I didn’t have any open hours and all I could really sell anyone was a keg.” Not to mention the area surrounding East End’s original location wasn’t exactly a hotbed for new businesses. Smith describes a harsh reality of nefarious activity and crime done pretty much out in the open on Susquehanna Street as just another thing he had to deal with among the other pressures of owning and operating a new business. “It was all on display in that street every day I came into work when we were building the brewery,” he says. “A lot of that, I had to just dodge and step around, and hope it went away, and pick up the garbage off the street, and hope that it didn’t get replaced by more really revolting garbage the next day.” But as East End began taking on a life of its own, Smith recognized a change developing in the area in just a few short years. As he expanded and started selling growlers and holding semi-regular hours, more and more foot traffic from outside visitors began to take hold. And the idea of a warehouse in Homewood selling beer spurred a peculiar, prohibition feel where a guest could get an exclusive kind of product in an unfamiliar, maybe “dangerous” part of town. And in a strange twist of perceptions that Smith jokes as alcohol saving the neighborhood, all of a sudden, Susquehanna Street became less threatening. “What happened was just that the mere presence of people coming onto the street, coming in to get beer, to see the brewery and taste beer, bringing their friends, all of those extra sets of eyes just brought traffic to this otherwise abandoned street,” says Smith. “And so I won’t say that it stopped the crime, but it certainly stopped it on that block. Just by having eyes on the street and a presence there, it brushed it all away.”

Hop Farm - Lawrenceville

Grist House Brewing - Millvale

And though East End has since moved to a new location in Larimer, the lessons learned in Homewood can be viewed as the blue print for the many other changes occurring across various boroughs in the Pittsburgh area. In the last year alone, establishments like the Brew Gentlemen in Braddock, Grist House & Draai Laag in Millvale, Hop Farm & Roundabout in Upper Lawrenceville, and Voodoo’s new satellite pub location in Homestead (to name a few) have helped breathe new life to areas that would have never been a destination otherwise. And in doing so they’re helping to bring new people and ideas to foster growth in the existing communities. “I feel like we’re the covered wagons on the frontier, pushing the envelope to try and close up the gaps in various places in the city because number one, we have an extremely capital-intensive business - the restaurant business can be expensive to you, but add a brewery on top of that, even if the brewery just has a small kitchen, all the brewing equipment is very expensive,” says Smith.“So after you’ve spent all that money and developed all of your brand and everything that goes with it, you don’t have a whole lot to pay for rent. It forces you to the frontier. Which I think is a good thing, ultimately.” Though location choice is often a financial move for breweries or new businesses of any kind, the community surrounding the business is just as vital to its success as anything else. More often than not the community, and in this case, breweries, end up taking on a shared identity. A sense of pride in establishing roots and reflecting all of the good aspects of a particular area, despite any pre-conceived notions of outsiders. For the Brew Gentlemen, Braddock has bloomed into the perfect location to foster their identity as a brewery. The community has long desired to see the area bounce back, and the support the company has received has been vital to its existence. Braddock’s affordability and allowance of

Voodoo Brewing - Homestead

East End Brewing - Larimer

founders Asa Foster and Matt Katase to be as DIY as they wanted were definitely appealing selling points. But maybe even more so was Braddock’s self-proclaimed motto as being a place to provide “unparalleled opportunity for the urban pioneer, artist, or misfit to join in building a new kind of community,” which the Brew Gentlemen have adopted in their mission. Though the prospect of hanging out in Braddock on a Friday night doesn’t seem that out of the ordinary now, a little over a year ago it’d be a tough ticket to sell. “The fact that people here are coming and people are traveling to come here is great, and you know, hopefully we can be a catalyst for other great things to happen in the region,” says Katase. “I mean, this is Braddock; it was the hub of Pittsburgh commerce in its day. It will never go back to that, but it can totally be something else and something cool.”

The Brew Gentlemen - Braddock

The last brewery that operated in Braddock was owned by the Rooney family. These days, locals and visitors alike can enjoy a beer in a glass embroidered with Braddock’s zip code, 15104, in a building dressed with a giant painted mural of General Braddock. “You have a tax revenue-producing business opening in town that’s occupying what would have most likely been a vacant structure,” says Braddock’s Mayor John Fetterman. “You have what I think is [one of] Pittsburgh’s highest rated breweries online and the pride coming from that being located in your community. Every night they’re open, and hundreds of their customers come out and take Braddock in.” Draai Laag - Millvale

CraftPittsburgh.com

Mayor Fetterman loses count of the positives of having an establishment like the Brew Gentlemen in Braddock. Just recently he held important meetings, one with a local foundation and another with young business owners interested in potentially moving to the area. Both meetings took

place on location at the Brew Gentlemen, and Mayor Fetterman explains that neither meeting would have occurred the way it did without the existence of the brewery being there. “Matt and Asa could have taken their show anywhere. They’ve been embraced here and maybe they wouldn’t elsewhere,” says Mayor Fetterman. “The fact that they chose Braddock and have become very successful is a testament to Braddock’s potential and how they run business.” Now think about Homestead. Once a cultural center and bustling red light district in the steel mill heyday, Homestead’s brick-and-steel backbone weathered lean years to again blossom with a new crop of local businesses, artists, and green energy visionaries. That’s where Voodoo Brewery (Meadville), set up a new satellite pub in a more than a century old, 20-year vacant, former municipal building and fire station this past February. “Not too many people buy an old fire and police station that was completed in 1904 and make it a brew pub,” says Jake Voelker, American legend and general manager of the Homestead location. “We knew it would be original and kind of with our flavor.” The huge, monolithic building located on 8th Avenue was occupied by the homeless prior to Voodoo’s purchase and extensive renovation. There the frequently-off-the-beaten-path Voodoo is making waves in a community that has been written off for far too many years to count. “Perception worries me, but you have to understand: there’s more crime on the South Side on any given day than there is in Homestead,” says Voelker. “I get, I wouldn’t say offended, but people make a joke about Homestead, and I’ll be like, ‘Well have you actually checked out what’s going on there?’” Voelker has high hopes for his new neighborhood. Voodoo are members of the community redevelopment committee, sponsoring community days that have included a block party fund raiser for the volunteer fire department. They’ve started initiatives to try to pull in local veterans. Employees at the pub are either residents or have purchased homes in the area and are now living in the community full-time.

Roundabout Brewery - Lawrenceville

Other business owners have approached Voodoo with words of encouragement and confidence in settling in the area. With developers kicking around ideas for future projects, and even more potential business moving in, Voelker predicts tangible change to be visible on 8th Avenue in the next six to nine months, with drastic changes to the community in the next five years. Part of that stems from Voodoo helping to raise property values and instilling confidence in others for the possibilities for businesses to succeed in a continually growing community. “Do I think that we’ve had a lot to do with that? I would say not the ground work, I think that there was a lot of kindling laid for a really long time, but I think that we helped provide the spark to help build that fire,” says Voelker. “So a very minimal place, I don’t want to take a lot of credit. There have been people trying to get private investment in Homestead for the last 20 years, and now it’s finally happening because the market conditions are right. But, you know, it’s turned out to be a really great thing, and it’s turned out to be really good for a lot of people. And given a lot of people a lot of hope.” Once again, location wasn’t necessarily planned as part of a community redevelopment project. Though community always comes into play, getting the right space at the right price often takes precedence. Back in Larimer with East End, Smith admits they didn’t know much about the community prior to moving there other than its centrality to other neighborhoods and destinations. However, after getting to know the area more, East End is making their block the destination for visitors. “We’re proud to be part of a community that we live in. Why wouldn’t you?” he says. “Maybe Larimer has a different reputation, but until you embrace what it is and talk about the positive things you’re doing, that’s never going to change. Own it. Be there.” After East End purchased the new building, Smith found out that Grow Pittsburgh, GTECH Strategies and Marcus Studio were all right within the same block. He says even though they’re not all beer makers, they share a similar vision for running a business in a close-knit community.And that has to start somewhere. Lately in Pittsburgh, it’s starting with beer. After all, the best toasts are among friends.

Penn Brewery - Troy Hill

CraftPittsburgh.com

Pittsburgh’s Gluten-Free Brews W

CraftPittsburgh | Issue 21

By Ben Summers

hile Benjamin Franklin was misquoted when he said “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy” (Benny was a much bigger fan of wine), any beer fan with celiac disease or those on a gluten-free diet will agree that God has such a funny way of showing His love. Gluten, proteins found in wheat that nourish plant embryos and give that chewy elasticity to dough, has become a bit of a buzzword in the last few years. While research on the ill-effects of gluten for those who aren’t sensitive to it are still inconclusive, gluten intolerance is well-documented to produce abnormal immune responses when patients’ bodies break down gluten normally contained in wheat, barley, rye, and other grains. Celiac disease, a rare form of gluten intolerance, results in damage to the lining of the small intestines after consuming gluten, while non-celiac gluten sensitivity can result in many celiac disease-like symptoms, such as fatigue and digestive problems without damaged intestines. Public sensitivity to gluten has led to many restaurants catering to those on gluten-free diets, and alternative pastas, cereals, and baked goods are found on supermarket shelves.

While many people sensitive to gluten’s presence have historically tended to gravitate toward liquor due to abundance, local cider and mead, which are naturally gluten-free, have been making a more prominent appearance in Pittsburgh bars and breweries (check out last September’s issue on Arsenal Cider, Apis Meadery and Rebellion Ciderworks).

And thankfully, Kaliber Brewing and Aurochs Brewing Company’s unique gluten-free brews are giving craft beer fans of all diets another reason to celebrate the craft beer boom in Pittsburgh.

Kaliber Brewing, of Connoquenessing in Butler County, is definitely the most unique brewery in Pennsylvania. And I’d be hard-pressed to find one like it anywhere else in the country. All of Kaliber Brewing’s beverages are tea and honey based, which makes them naturally gluten-free. Other beers have experimented with using tea in beer, like Stone’s Chai-spiced Imperial Russian Stout, but Kaliber’s dedication to tea and honey is unique and pretty exciting. Wolfgang Briggs, a first generation brewer who earned his natural science degree from Pitt and a BS from Clarion, takes the name of his brewery to heart: all of his products are of a unique and high caliber. The brewery’s 14 Hard Teas and their Sailor’s Brew Grog are all brewed with a tea and honey base without hops. While the brewery is still in “stage one” (stage two being “adding a tasting room and upgrading the brewery”), Briggs is delighted with the unique line of teas on Kaliber’s taps and the niche Kaliber occupies. He proudly says, “We are not planning on making any beers such as Pilsners, IPAs, etc.” and instead mysteriously hints that the second product line, which “will be different than the Hard Teas and Grog,” will be gluten-free and just as innovative as their current lineup. Kaliber’s brews are distinctive, but not aggressive, and experimental but friendly. The

Sailor’s Brew Grog, which Briggs said was suggested by a fan who “came up to us and asked us if we had heard of Grog,” with a warming, sweet and citrusy bite, is just waiting to become a cool staple of hot summer days or warmed up as a reward after nippy fall treks. Briggs even claims that one of his long time goals is to get the Grog at PNC Park, saying, “Grog is a sailor’s drink, after all.” Their version of Grog, which is based on the Queen of England’s official Grog Recipe, comes from “the days when sailors would go from port to port, ‘doctoring’ up the water so it would be drinkable. As the voyage would go on, they would add lime juice, rum, brown sugar, orange peel, and cinnamon sticks to their water to make it taste better.” Grog’s molasses head, which melts into an apple/lime taste with a smooth cinnamon finish, is a rare and delicious treat. It’s a bit of a thrill to drink something that you have no idea how it’s going to taste, that you have no comparable touchstones. One of the most attractive parts of becoming a craft beer fan is the seemingly endless possibilities of taste, texture, and flavor in craft, and Kaliber exactly represents those qualities. While Kaliber’s tap list contains recognizable names from your grandmother’s pantry (Green, Raspberry, Orange, Ginger, Peach, Thai, Chai, and Peppermint Tea, as well as the relatively exotic Bananas Foster, Chocolate, Apple, and Cranberry Pomegranate), each drink is new and exciting. I’ve never had an Orange Tea drink, and while it’s similar to what I thought it was going to be, I was surprised and delighted

at the smooth flavor of Kaliber’s craft. Kaliber’s flagship Green Tea (and the rest of its brews) are the perfect grass cutting drink – meaning that after you mow the lawn, the Green Tea would be a refreshing drink to cool off with. Kaliber’s penchant for taste experimentation even leaks into their recommendations for their hosted pairings at the Harmony Inn and suggestions for new customers: Briggs recommends mixing the Orange and Ginger Tea! Everything Kaliber makes are refreshing, gluten-free delights that are at home on the beach, next to a book, or in a thermos to share. While Denver’s Mockery Brewing dabbles in tea-infused hoppy and malted experimentation on traditional styles, it’s safe to say that Kaliber’s tea and honey base brews make it a one-of-a-kind brewery.

Doug & Ryan - Aurochs Brewing

Kaliber Brewing - Connoquenessing

Company.” Even the brewery name references admired objects lost and regained; Bove stated, “One of the reasons the Aurochs went extinct is that they planted wheat and barley fields, which is partially the reason why a lot of the gluten-free grains went out of favor as well. The Aurochs’ horn also was used for drinking beer back in ancient times.” Just like the resurgence and reintroduction of real Aurochs into their ancient grazing lands through genetic invention, Aurochs Brewing is built on old traditions newly revived by innovation and vision. Similar to Kaliber, Aurochs Brewing is a worldclass brewery that is also uniquely Pittsburghian. Aurochs was founded on the unique mix of hard work, down-to-earth directness, tradition, and innovation. Bove said, “our goal in starting this brewery was to brew gluten-free beers that could be enjoyed whether you are gluten intolerant or not. Drinking a beer is a social experience, and selfishly, we do not want to feel left out. We continue to push the boundaries of glutenfree brewing so that we can make this dream a reality for as many people as possible.” Aurochs’ ambition and innovation is in every sip, and their connection to Pittsburgh is in their blood and business. They brew with naturally gluten-free grains, such as millet and quinoa, which only a handful of breweries in the world use to brew. The whole team was raised in Pittsburgh and has relationships with the close-knit Pittsburgh craft community. Bove praised the camaraderie in the Pittsburgh beer scene, saying “so many of the breweries have been willing to share their knowledge with us as we have been getting our brewery off the ground. We’ve gotten help from East End, Roundabout, Church Brew Works, North Country, and Draai Laag, to name a few. The camaraderie does not stop there. In fact, Emily teaches brewery yoga at Copper Kettle Brewing Company.” On all accounts, Aurochs has succeeded to meet their goals. Bove stated, “Our initial goal was to

be able to drink great tasting craft beer that is naturally gluten-free and to be able to share that experience with as many people as possible.The good news is that we feel we have created a great tasting product as we have been selling out of beer every week. The downside is that there has not really been enough beer to supply the Pittsburgh community. We are in the middle of an expansion that will allow us to significantly increase our capacity and be able to provide more beer for Pittsburghers. This increased capacity will significantly increase our ability to collaborate with some of the other businesses in the city that provide great tasting gluten-free food and beverage options.” Bove apologized that the construction has halted beer production for the summer, but promises that the citrusy, fruity White Ale, robust Amber Ale, and Pale Ale, Session IPA, and Brown Ales are just as good to drink on a mid-fall bike ride as they are on a hot beach. Aurochs and Kaliber set out to be a bridge for others to share in what they love. They built upon a passion for craft beer that could be extended to those who normally cannot order anything other than water, cider, or distilled liquor. It’s apparent that the passion they share would be sustained even if they didn’t own a brewery – you can imagine the team brewing and sharing their brews with friends in backyards, garages, and tailgates, sharing their brews for the sole purpose to bring people together. Pittsburgh should count itself blessed that Aurochs and Kaliber are willing and happy to share their brews with everyone, especially those who wouldn’t normally be able to have a beer. Gluten-free brewing is a cause for celebration for all craft drinkers! Gluten-free brewing, whether using tea or other naturally gluten-free ingredients, means that everyone has another brewing technique to explore, another realm of beer to try, and more friends who you can share a beer with during a barbeque or over a spectacular goal or play.

CraftPittsburgh.com

Another exclusively gluten-free Pittsburgh brewery, Aurochs Brewing, is named after an extinct type of bull immortalized in prehistoric cave paintings and admired by ancient painters for their brute strength and gigantic size. Cofounder, Ryan Bove said that for the brewery’s small team, which consists of himself, Doug Foster, and Emily Bove, dedication to brewing naturally gluten-free beer was born out of their passion for craft beers, their friendship, and a lasting sympathy for gluten intolerance. Doug explained, “We started brewing glutenfree beer after Ryan got really sick (losing 30 pounds, heart palpitations, digestive issues) and had to start following a gluten-free diet because of a severe gluten intolerance. Doug and Ryan have been friends since high school, and Doug has been a celiac since early childhood. Doug helped Ryan transition to a gluten-free diet, but Ryan still longed for the variety and quality of craft beers that he had known before getting sick. He had loved and lost, and that lit the fire, which sparked the creation of Aurochs Brewing

Lucky Strikes stocked in the cigarette machine, and unruly dudes cheering on Starling Marte, I could already feel the afternoon turning around.

It felt like Indecent Proposal, except I’ve always thought Pittsburgh was a lot prettier than Demi Moore in an abstract sense. Four days after the Thrillist Media Group picked me up as a correspondent, they propositioned me with recycling a Pittsburgh version of their 2013 feature, “These are Chicago’s 13 Bad Decision Bars”.The fuzzy, post-coup glow of a 31-year-old dad getting hired as a nightlife writer went cadaver cold as I read complaints about bars open until 4 AM, bars where patrons can still smoke, and Wrigley Field being referred to as a “urine-scented failure-temple of baseball.” People here deal with smoking outside sometimes. Nobody puts up with talking that way about the Pirates. Judging by his Gmail profile picture, my new boss was a well-adjusted, baby faced, go-getting professional from Chicago. Maybe he’d understand that slightly spinning the article for our regional demographic was an insightful suggestion. I’ve never actually met the guy. “What if I gave you thirteen dive bars here, with all the crazy anecdotes, but let me spin it like— ‘Pittsburgh: Where Dives Survive and Only the Strong Get Awesome?’” I asked over the phone. I tried to be a team player.

CraftPittsburgh | Issue 21

Then, like plenty of upstanding and talented Pittsburghers before me, I got fired and went to the Rock Room.

Fortunately, at the time I was dropping off cases of Shaq Cream Soda at the Adult Orphanage house for Polish Hill’s annual Pig Roast. There were 45 minutes of happy hour left, and I was only a block away. For the money, for the money, I’ve never had a better shrimp basket between 4 and 6 PM. The shrimp basket pairs nicely with anything from the well-stocked craft case, but between 4 and 6, domestics are in unabashedly higher demand, as the bottles and rotating craft tap aren’t on special. Which is okay there’s got to be a saturation point for how much special you can cram under a tin ceiling. With at least one pinball machine always set for 50¢,

Beer and basket in hand, I stepped in the back. In a wash of alcohol, wellearned tinnitus, and warm nostalgia, I couldn’t help but reminisce about the first time I walked into that back room. It was pierogi night, I was 22 and on my last spring break from college, and Ron (a now-deceased exotic dancer who could pass for a starved Glenn Danzig marionette) and his dancer girlfriend were cutting a speckled green tile rug to the entire Rocky Horror Picture soundtrack cued up on the jukebox. A cordial Miss Brandy, a sweetheart to this day, welcomed me by insisting that I feel her hard-as-granite bicep. There was a spot where supposedly a wire was exposed close enough to the floorboards that on a rainy day, you could shock someone by sticking your feet in the puddles under the table and poking the person next to you. I also met my future wife, who was unfortunately saddled with Ron and his girlfriend squatting in her living room and doesn’t remember meeting me for the first time. Which, again, is okay - there was only a mere shadow of my full-grown, mighty beard. We wandered up the street to a house party and I decided I was definitely moving here. Maybe the wire has since been fixed, or maybe it was just static electricity from jamming too many punks with too few showers in a vinyl booth, but the days of casual humorous electric shocks are long gone. There’s even a modest stage where everyone from the Holy Mess, to edhochuli, to ed fROMOHIO played wish-you-coulda-been-there sets on the floor. Still, don’t mistake growth for domestication. The beers are cold, the graffiti and stickers are more entertaining than artwork most Southside bars pay for, and the pierogies are still 15¢ on Wednesday nights. Bring earplugs if you need ‘em, quit whining about the smoke for a few hours, and, if only for a night, embrace the cultural heritage of getting awesome in a dive bar in Pittsburgh.

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cooking with beer

Braised Red Cabbage with Bratwurst By Mindy Heisler-Johnson

’ll have you know that as I sit and type this recipe out, after I have just eaten for dinner the awesome that I am about drop, it is 90-freakingdegrees. It is a special kind of torture to have to cook some of your very favorite fall food when the weather takes an unreasonable journey into OMGITSHOT. Oktoberfest. It’s an excuse to make and eat all of the things Nana used to make for our Sunday family dinners. See, Nana was German. Nana liked to cook. We liked to eat. It really did work out perfectly for all of us. Now, I can’t claim these were authentic German feasts, I am pretty sure layered Jell-O salads with floating fruit cocktail in them aren’t traditionally German, though they are delicious in a very 1978 kind of way. But I can say that a bevy of more-traditional-than-not German dishes were part of our weekly family suppers. What an opportune issue to share a few!

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German food isn’t terribly complicated. Now, that doesn’t mean it isn’t delicious, it just isn’t real fussy. It is perfect for family-style meals and is easily adjusted for a few or a crowd. I used Penn Brewery Oktoberfest to add some malty depth to braised red cabbage with bratwursts and spaetzle. It doesn’t really get much more Oktoberfest-y than that! And though neither dish is very complicated, they are remarkable when put together. Especially with a lil’ bit of mustard.

A few notes on the recipes: The cabbage can be made without bacon for a vegetarian version that is quite tasty, though I do love the bacon. This style of spaetzle is a dumpling style.There are many different types of spaetzle, this is the one my Nana made and is still my very favorite. These two sides are good with roasted pork - loin, tenderloin or of the pulled variety, any kind of sausage, chicken, potato pancakes...go nuts, it’ll all taste awesome.

Penn Brewery Oktoberfest Braised Red Cabbage with Bratwurst 2 Tbsp. butter 6 raw bratwurst - I used Parma Sausage Brats 3 or 4 slices thick-cut bacon, cut into strips 1 large white onion, julienned 2 or 3 cloves garlic, smashed & chopped 2 Tbsp. Kosher salt

generous amount fresh ground black pepper 1 large head red cabbage, julienned (3-4 lbs. roughly) 1 bay leaf 1 allspice berry (optional) ½ cup granulated sugar ½ cup red wine vinegar 12-oz. bottle Penn Oktoberfest Heat a large pot and melt the butter. When it gets foamy, add the brats and brown evenly on all sides. Remove from the pan and add the bacon. Cook the bacon until it is crisp and rendered out. Add the onion & garlic. Stir until the onion begins to soften and the garlic loses the raw smell. Season with salt & pepper and cook until the onions just start to take on some color. While the onions cook, julienne the cabbage. Add it to the pot and let it start to wilt and cook down. Add the bay leaf and allspice. Cook until the cabbage starts to soften. Add the sugar, vinegar, and beer. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and let the cabbage cook for 2 to 3 hours over medium heat, reducing the liquid and cooking the cabbage. Add the brats back in for the last half-hour to heat up and cook through. Taste and adjust with more salt, pepper, or vinegar. The cabbage makes all of that vary. Remove the bay leaf & allspice berry before serving.

Spaetzle

2 cups all purpose flour 2 eggs 2 tsp baking powder 2 tsp salt ½ cup milk

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl. Combine the wet ingredients in separate bowl. Form a well in the center of the dry mixture and combine until it makes a loose dough. Turn the dough out on to a floured dinner plate. Boil a pot of salted water. When the water boils, use a spoon to flick little strips of dumpling dough into the boiling water. Hold the plate and use the edge of a tablespoon to cut and flick the little dumplings, about the size of malformed gummi bear, into the boiling water. Cook for 3 minutes, they will float & poof up some. Remove from the water with a slotted spoon and get into a bowl. Toss with some butter if you want, though they are perfect as-is.

VECENIE D

MPANY CO

TRIBUTING ISSINCE 1933

2015

VECENIE DISTRIBUTING CO. 140 North Avenue, Millvale, PA 15209

412.821.4618  beersince1933.com

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Western Pennsylvania’s Premier Wholesaler of Regional, Craft, Imported Beers and Specialty Sodas

Now Proudly offered in Western Pennsylvania by Vecenie Dist. Co.

12 oz. Cans

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“See why we were on the cover of Beer Advocate Magazine” Visit us at the Steel City Big Pour

VECENIE D

FALL FUN

brewer sit-down

Curt Rachocki Voodoo Brewing Co. 215½ Arch Street, Meadville, PA

Photos by Kelly Gorney Photography

Each issue we sit down with a local professional brewer and ask them the same eleven questions. Our goal is to have an interesting mix of characters with varying backgrounds and experience.This issue we talked to Curt Rachocki; Partner, Head Brewer and Director of Barrel Aging at Voodoo Brewing. AGE? 29 HOMETOWN? Saegertown, PA HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN BREWING? Professionally for 5 years.

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BACKGROUND? Like most brewers, I started out homebrewing about 10 years ago during college. I was a double major in biochemistry and psychology at the University of San Diego and then Pitt with aspirations of attending dental school, hopefully at Pitt as well. Sometime later I met Voodoo founder Matt Allyn who was looking to replace his recently departed brewer with someone who had a more formal education in brewing science. He gave me a few-days crash course in operating a full-scale production brewery and then told me “You’re a smart kid, you’ll figure it out”. It was a very fragile time for our company back then, and I was deathly afraid of making a mistake that we couldn’t recover from. It was a lot of weight on a very green brewer’s shoulders, but the initiation by fire was ultimately the best thing that could have happened to me. The faith and trust Matt put in me from day one by turning over an entire brewery and giving carte blanche to a 24-year-old is something I still think about a lot. We’ll do over 2,500bbls this year and it’s still just me in the brewery by myself. I’ve yet to be able to put the trust in someone else to do what I do like he did in me.

FIRST CRAFT BEER YOU DRANK? Although I couldn’t be sure, I’ll assume it was a Sierra or Sam pilfered from the fridge some time long before I should have had one. IF YOU WERE TO BUY A CASE OF BEER RIGHT NOW, WHAT WOULD IT BE? I rarely buy full cases, but I did just have one of my San Diego friends ship me a fresh case of Alpine Nelson. It’s one of my all-time favorites. GUILTY BEER PLEASURE? I still really like Mickey’s grenades.They’re delicious and fun.

FAVORITE MUSIC TO BREW TO? It’s almost exclusively hip hop and surf rock these days, the beer really seems to like it. FAVORITE PITTSBURGH BAR? It really depends where I am, I have my spots I like. But you can usually find me at Carson Street Deli, House of 1000 Beers or Kelly’s. Oh wait, I mean Voodoo Homestead.Yeah.Voodoo Homestead. IF YOU WEREN’T BREWING? Truthfully, I really don’t know. I’d be lying if I said I thought this is what I’d be doing if you would have asked me 10 years ago. But now that I’m five years into it, I can’t imagine doing anything else. I’ve become quite fond of wearing board shorts, a tank top, and flip flops to brew in every day, blaring whatever music I feel like and working 14+ hour days, 6-7 days a week. WHAT’S YOUR DAILY CARRY?

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have you tried... Written by Hart Johnson, photo by Tim Burns

1. Wyndridge | 10 Point Ale 4.8% - Blonde Ale - wyndridge.com Hailing from the outskirts of York, Pennsylvania we have this week’s newest addition to your local beer shelves. I could go on with this boxing pun, but I’m not really good at that sort of thing. However, if puns are your thing, boy oh boy is Wyndridge right up your alley. Hunting puns on a craft beer from Mid-State Pennsylvania. What a time to be alive. Anyway, what is a golden ale? Think something that bridges between a lighter Pilsner and a more bitter pale ale. There’s a fair bit of sweeter malt flavors here, butterscotch candies, a little bit of toffee, much like you’d find in an English or American pale ale, but without all the pesky hops. Well, not *all* the hops, there is enough bitterness to keep it from being too sweet, and there is a lovely floral hop flavor tidying up the finish.

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Recommended if you like: Rivertowne - Babbling Blonde, Thirsty Dog Labrador Lager, East End - C.R.E.A.M. Ale, Flying Dog - Tire Bite, Spoonwood - Working Class Hero

2. Penn Brewery | Oktoberfest 5.5% - Oktoberfest-Style Lager - pennbrew.com So it was July 2015 and I’m staring darts at cases of pumpkin beer that were probably brewed in May of 2015. Like a lot of cases. And then the bartender & I strike up a conversation about the early onslaught of pumpkin beers. And so I say to the bartender, “Ya think you’re gonna sell all that?” And the barkeep says, “No idea, I kinda think Oktoberfest is

gonna be bigger than pumpkin beer this year.” That’s a strong statement. But I’m in. #Oktoberfestbierday2015 every day, all September & October, who’s coming with me? Penn Brewery never disappoints in the German lagers. Their Oktoberfest has long been modeled after those beautiful Munich classics, but with the benefit of freshness, you get much more malt flavor and complexity. Toasted grains and slight hints of fresh-baked sugar cookies, a waft of candied apple, and a flash of spicy German hop bitterness. A nice alternative to your standard amber lager of choice. Recommended if you like: All Saints - Oktoberfest,Victory - Festbier, Ayinger - Oktoberfest, Sly Fox - Oktoberfest, Paulaner - Oktoberfest

3. Dark Horse | Dekoorc Eert Ollopa 6% - Single Hop IPA - darkhorsebrewery.com It’s just Crooked Tree Apollo spelled backwards. Good, we’ve got that out of the way. Crooked Tree is Dark Horse’s flagship IPA, a straightup midwestern classic IPA. Then every year they make a few batches of Crooked Tree with different hops. I dig it because it’s fun to watch Yinzers try to pronounce Dekoorc. And the beer is pretty tasty, too. The Apollo hops are bold and well-suited to IPA-styled beverages, lots of bright hop aromas, passion fruit, papaya, pine sap, and a little hint of fresh-cut grass. Crooked Tree falls into the slightly sweeter IPA and since that’s the base structure of this beer, the same is true. Which makes this a good choice to slyly convert that “all IPAs are bitter gross bitter stuff” friend we all have. Recommended if you like: Bell’s Two - Hearted Ale, Lavery - Dulachan IPA, Sly Fox - 360 IPA, Lagunitas - IPA, Grist House - Fire on the Hill IPA

4. Roundabout | The Commoner 3

and caramel candies. Borders closely on being too sweet, but there’s a little hint of roasted grain dryness and a kiss of hop bitterness to keep things in check. To Railbender, the beer that saved Erie!

Sometimes you’re out and about and the magic man behind Roundabout Beer says “Hey, you should come down and try the new Commoner, it’s made with…” and that’s all you can remember. I know he said some hop. And a malt. And then you go and get a growler of it. And he tells you about it again. And you forget. Again. Because you’re a Muppet. “Hi, my name is Hart Johnson and I’m a Muppet.” But the beer is delicious! Brewed using only one malt variety and one hop variety, most breweries choose to chase after the IPA dragon with these little experiments, boldly bludgeoning beautiful malt with copious amounts of hops. This little guy is an exercise in balance - toasted, honey-coated malt lays the bassline for minty and slightly melony hops. Slightly bitter in finish at first, until the sweet, honey-like malt comes back around.

Recommended if you like: Belhaven - Wee Heavy, Rivertowne - Scottish, Hoppin’ Frog - Outta Kilter ‘Wee-Heavy’ Scotch Red Ale

5.4% - Single Hop, Single Malt Ale - roundaboutbeer.com

Recommended if you like: Anchor - Steam,Troeg’s - Pale Ale, Great Divide - Denver Pale Ale, Full Pint - All In Amber

5. Lakefront | New Grist Pilsner 5% - Gluten-Free Pilsner - lakefrontbrewery.com

Remember when it was cool on the internet to be “first” in the comment section? Oh man, remember when comment sections weren’t the worst place on the internet? Focus. Back to beer. Lakefront is first on a lot of things, I’ve talked them up before, but this was the first gluten-free beer brewed in the United States. Back before they could even call it glutenfree, because at the time, calling it gluten-free implied a health benefit... other than being gluten-free? I don’t know, alcohol laws are weird. Anyway, brewed with sorghum & rice in lieu of malted barley or wheat, this is a very light lager, virtually no hop bitterness. There’s a light green apple sweetness, almost green apple candy, from the sorghum.

8. Magners | Irish Cider 4.5% - Dry Cider - usa.magners.com

One of the many, many differences you’ll find between the drinking cultures of Great Britain and these United States is cider. Across the pond cider is a big deal, but all too often like Natural Ice is big deal here. There are many, many versions of overly sweet, flavored cider to be had, the same could be said about much of the American cider market also. But, Limeyland also sports the king of cider. Dry Cider. Fly away to another world with me, a British-ish pub of sorts, a pub that showcases some sort of actual foot-ball, where there once was an English Dry Cider on tap permanently. And all was well. Until one day, the English Cider Company decided this English Dry Cider was rubbish for the American market and these silly americans wanted, nay, needed a sweeter cider with twice the calories. And this was a bad idea. Because cider should be dry, it should be refreshing, it shouldn’t be killed with sulfites, backsweetened to hell. Dry and tart with notes of farm grown apples, a nice undertone of moist oak. And dry. Thank the heavens dry. Because cider shouldn’t taste like you’re trying to drink applesauce. Recommended if you like: Jack’s - Hard Cider, Ace - Apple Cider, Angry Orchard - Traditional Dry, Crispin - Original, Arsenal - Fighting Elleck Follow Hart on Twitter, not Twiiter. @MoarHops

Recommended if you like: Omission - Lager, Dogfish Head - Tweason’ale, New Planet - Pale Ale

6. New Belgium | Snapshot 5% - Wheat Ale - newbelgium.com

A long, long time ago, perhaps maybe even a time period that some may say a certain someone was “underage”, a beer was consumed that set into motion a thought process that led down a rabbit hole of beer. We’ve all had that beer, that jumping off point, that beer that opens up the eyes to the world beyond 30-packs, Zima, and 40-oz. bottles. Mine was New Belgium Sunshine Wheat, and man oh man, did I love that stuff. Flash forward *mumbles* years, New Belgium is The Google of New American Beer. And hey, look at that, they’re in Pittsburgh now! Snapshot reminds me a lot of fuzzy memories of sunshine, hazy yellow, bright nose of fresh cracked wheat, juicy citrus, and fruity yeast. Flavor is all refreshment, light and crisp, with a little bit of soft spice from grains of paradise and coriander, all wrapped up with a little bit of tart lactobacillus. Recommended if you like: Full Pint - White Lightning, East End - Witte, Wittekerke, Unibroue - Blanche De Chambly, Brew Gentlemen - White Sky

7. Erie | Railbender

Everything I know about Erie I read on the side of a beer label. I wish that was a cute joke, but it’s the sad, sad truth. Apparently they have trains there, who knew! Well, ok, Erie Brewing started off life in Erie’s Union Station, so the long flagship Railbender is a homage to *reads more of the label* those who laid the rail! Always a fan favorite, you and everyone in Pittsburgh knows at least five former Erie-ans that will tell you the tale of how a giant bottle of Railbender plowed the entire city of Erie during the Great Blizzard of August 1995. Lake-effect snow is weird, man. A big, malty, red ale, chock full of rich and sweet malt flavors, red licorice, toasted pumpernickel bread,

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6.8% - Scottish Ale - eriebrewingco.com

home brewing Written by Jack Smith, photo by Malcolm Frazer

BROWN RYE IPA

AN OCTOBER TWIST ON THE HOPPY AMERICAN ALE

ay, friend. Are you looking for something different to drink this fall? Tired of the same old maple brown ale, robust porter, and Munich Dunkel recipes you’ve been brewing for years? Well stay tuned, we’ve got just the thing for you!

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What would you say if I told you that you can make an IPA that’s anything but? Recently everyone has been stretching the limits of the definition of IPA. Purists whinge & wince. But not you. You know that you can make some pretty interesting (and tasty!) stuff if you wander off the path. Hey, the BJCP agrees as well. I mean, have you seen the IPA category in the new 2015 beer style guidelines? No? Well go have a look…

Are you back? Did you see that “Specialty IPA” category that lets you modify your IPA with descriptors like Belgian, Black, Red, White, Brown, Rye, etc.? Let’s make use of this newfound freedom to create an IPA for autumn - one that’s the color of fallen leaves with flavors and aromas that follow suit. Let’s make a Brown IPA. Let’s add complexity and make a Brown Rye IPA. Let’s get crazy and call it a Harvest India Brown Ale. Coming up with a malt bill for this is pretty simple - aim for about 1.065 OG, make judicious use of a couple types of crystal malt for body & flavor complexity, then add in some dark

malt, such as pale chocolate, to push it towards the toasty, “harvesty” flavors. Finally, throw in some rye and call it a pillow party (recall from previous installments of this column that rye lends a certain pillowiness to beer). The selection of hops is critical if you want to stay true to plan and make an autumnal beer. It’s tempting to reach for your typical IPA hops. You know, the American “C” hops like Cascade, Chinook, Centennial, etc. Or some of the modern tropical fruit hops like Citra, or any of the ones coming out of New Zealand. Sure, you can make a fine Brown IPA with these. But you want to make a Harvest India Brown Ale, right? You need hops that taste like fall. You need woodsy. You need herbal. You need earthy. You need Northern Brewer, Mt. Hood, and Columbus. Yes, that last one is an American “C” hop, but it’s well known to give a certain “herbal” aroma when used late in the boil or as a dry hop. A little dankness will play nicely with the woodsy/cedar/crushed leaves/herbal notes you get from Northern Brewer and Mt. Hood. What follows is my recipe for a Brown IPA that I love to drink when that Great Pumpkin special is showing on TV, it’s no longer warm enough to sleep with the windows open, and I can’t seem to stay ahead of the leaves covering my driveway. Brew it now, drink it in a couple months. Cheers!

Hops

30 g N orthern Brewer (10% AA) @ 60 minutes for roughly 35 IBUs 8gM t. Hood (5.75% AA) @ 60 minutes for roughly 5 IBUs 30 g M t. Hood (5.75% AA) @ 30 minutes for roughly 10 IBUs 28 g M t. Hood (5.75% AA) @ 10 minutes for roughly 4 IBUs 28 g C olumbus/Tomahawk/Zeuz @ flameout, steep for 20 minutes for roughly 10 IBUs 28 g C olumbus/Tomahawk/Zeus, dry-hop following your normal dry-hop procedure

Mash 60 minutes at 150F. Kind of a low mash temperature to keep this beer from being too heavy. It has a high OG and a lot of crystal and rye malt. Mashing low prevents it from becoming heavy or cloying. Mashout at 168 if you have the ability and enjoy that sort of thing. Lauter & sparge as you do.

Yeast/Fermentation Wyeast 1728 Scottish Ale @ 64F until done, about 2-3 weeks. You could use any clean

yeast. Chico (WLP001,Wyeast 1056, Safale US05) is typical. I prefer the hint-of-ester character provided by the Scottish yeast as compared to Chicoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s almost lager-like cleanliness.

Suggested Pairings This beer is very hoppy, but not in the citrus/ pine/resin/tropical fruit way traditional for IPAs these days. The hop character of this beer is very woodsy (think cedar, seasoned firewood, crushed leaves), somewhat earthy (imagine the smell of the forest after rain), and herbal (dried mint, hint of tarragon, that sort of thing). The accompanying malt is similar in nature - moderately dark & brooding, suggesting caramel, toffee, and chocolate, with a pillowy spiciness from the rye. This beer plays well with hearty autumn food. Roast pumpkin and sage pasta or risotto. Crimini & sausage hand pies. Or try it with some traditional Bavarian food, such as sauerbraten. Teach those malty German lagers a thing or two about putting beer together with food. (It also goes great with that stock pile of Halloween candy your kids think is all theirs!) A homebrewer since 2002, Jack Smith is a Certified BJCP Judge, president of TRASH, and an active member of TRUB. Follow him on Twitter @whenyeastattack

SAMHAIN GRIM Harvest India Brown Ale Batch Size: 5.25 gal. Boil Time: 60 minutes OG: 1.067 FG: 1.014 ABV: 7% IBU: 65 SRM: 18 Difficulty: Easy *Assuming 70% brew house efficiency

Grainbill 8 lbs. North American Pale Ale Malt (3L) 3.5 lbs. Rye Malt 1 lb. Crystal 80L 1 lb. Crystal 40L

8 oz. Pale Chocolate Malt (200L) *Extract Brewers: Replace the Pale Ale Malt with 5 lbs. light DME. Replace the Rye Malt with 2 lbs. wheat DME (not quite the same as rye, but as close as you can get with extract). Steep the remaining grains in 1.5 gallons of water at 150F for 30 minutes, drain, then add your DME and additional water and boil as you typically do.

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8 oz. B iscuit Malt (to balance all the bodybuilding malt with a bit of dry crispness)

brew science Photo and Story by Gregor Bender

he first thing that I explain on every tour as a brew guide for PA Brew Tours is that beer is an agricultural product. Making beer can be divided into three stages: growing, malting, and finally, brewing.The first stage happens at the farm with the grain and hops being grown in the field, then harvested and dried. Hops are ready for brewing after this stage, but grain requires another step on its journey to becoming beer. The second stage for grain happens at the malt house which is where the raw grain is transformed into malt, and is the focus of todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s article. It is not until these first stages are complete that we can move onto the third and final stage of brewing beer at the brewery.

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Almost any grain can be malted and transformed into beer, but we will focus on barley, as this is the most common grain used in beer making. Barley is a grass that uses solar energy and the materials of the soil to develop its seed head atop a long stem. The job of the seed is to store the energy of the sun along with all genetic information necessary for growing a new plant, which produces more seeds and continues the cycle. I like to think of the process of making beer as a way of hijacking this reproductive cycle and instead transforming the plantâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stored energy into food for yeast. Unmalted grain is very hard and full of starch which is inaccessible to yeast. The malting process makes this stored starchy energy available by utilizing the natural sprouting process.

The first job of a maltster is steeping the grain in multiple stages of water for a day or two. This increases the moisture content of the grain from about 10% to 45%, simulating a rainfall in nature and stimulating the seed to begin the germination process. At the end of this stage, the grains will have formed a little tail called a chit. Over the next 4 to 5 days, the grain is stirred and allowed to continue to germinate. The chit grows into an external rootlet (culm), and a sprout (acrospire) begins to develop inside the grain. Chemically, many enzymes are being activated and new ones are being created that convert the stored long chain starches and proteins into smaller chain carbohydrates and amino acids. This process is referred to by maltsters and brewers as modification and is usually allowed to continue until the acrospire reaches about 75-100% the length of the grain. At this point germination is halted with the addition of heat and air to dry the grain out (kilning). After kilning, the finished malt is tumbled to remove the brittle dry rootlets in a process known as deculming. If they were left on, the rootlets would contribute an unpleasant grassy characteristic to the finished beer. Malt has been described as the soul of beer, providing its color, body, and alcohol content. The process of kilning the malt can produce a wide array of flavors and colors, depending on time, temperature, and moisture content. When malt is dried with low heat, it produces a

pale base malt that, when used alone, produces a straw-like color and light flavor (imagine a Pilsner). Higher temperatures can produce darker colors and more roasted flavors. Biscuit, Vienna, Munich, and brown malt are good examples. Think of an Oktoberfest, and you have a good idea of the flavors these malts can produce. Other specialty malts are used in smaller quantities and include crystal malt (toffee or caramel), chocolate malt (deep roasty and bitter), black malt (mostly used for color but also contributes an acrid burnt flavor), and smoked malt (can be smoked with various woods to produce rauchbier). The malting process usually occurs at a malt house, and is considered a separate stage from the brewing process. But I know of at least one farmhouse brewery in the region that grows their own grain and malts it in-house. Sprague Farm in Venango, PA makes some amazing seasonal estate ales where all the steps from farm to glass are done under one roof. In the next article of brewing science, we will talk about how the brewers use the mash to reactivate the enzymes produced in the selected malts. The art of brewing is to create a wort with exactly the right proportion of sugars and proteins for the yeast to flourish and produce a beer with just the right body and flavor for us to enjoy. Gregor Bender is a brew guide for PA Brew tours, home brewer, BJCP certified beer judge, and former pharmaceutical research scientist.

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It had been another long day. He leaned back too far in the chair, daring Destiny to take him over backward. She didn't, and he smiled having cheated her one last time. He didn't know it, but it wouldn't be his last opportunity to do so before the sun returned from the other side of the world to char him all over again. He stood up and went to the book closet at the opposite end of the room. He opened the stainless steel door and entered the access code. Once inside he closed the door behind him and made his way to the rear compartment. He lifted his hand, palm out and chest high, to feel for the Bio-I.D. pad that would allow him, and only him, to enter the inner chamber where the article of his attention tonight lay on a luminous blue pad. Standing in front of the article a person is quickly taken by the sense of mass it conveys despite its modest size. It is inside of a rectangular box of about 14 inches across and 8 inches deep. The box is made of a metallic material but a closer look reveals it to be made of an almost fleshy metalized film with a fine pore-like texture to it. He has never opened it and most others who know of its existence hope that he never will. It is said to contain the Law, or something like the Law. At first thought, knowing the actual text of the Law would seem to make the meaning of life here on Earth clearer and possibly even purposeful. However, after a long argu-ment, some of the world's greatest thinkers concluded years ago that given human nature, knowledge of the true nature of the Law, no matter what it was, would quickly render life as we have known it, meaningless. Only chaos and suffering could result. Now, after decades of stew-ardship of the Law, he had determined his course of action and tonight and no man or petty tyrant would keep him from his rondesvous with destiny. He closed his eyes and removed the lid, setting it aside. He opened his eyes and squinted at the glare from the article. He reached in with both hands, cradled it in his palms, and lifted it out of the box. Holding it in one hand, he brushed it up and down against his shirt to shine it up a bit before raising it to his face. Opening his mouth slightly and wetting his lips, he placed it between his front teeth and, with a wet crunching sound, bit a noisy tangent through the article and chewed. Sensing a familiar flavor spreading across his tongue he decided that; Yes, sometimes an apple is just an apple..."I have come to this edge tonight for a reason". She thought as she stepped over the scupper and onto the brick knee wall. Twelve stories up and there would be no mistake about it. As if in a dream, her center of gravity moved out and over the edge of the building. The lights of the taxis and busses below swirled together with the reflections in the wet pavement and the figures of New Years Eve revelers party-bound for champagne. Above this noisy street scene, the only sound she could hear was the satiny rush of air by her ears as she slipped past the 11th floor windows. She seemed to be falling slower as she took in the smell of the air and the beauty of the lights. A peculiar lightness came over her and all of the weight that had pressed on her seemed lifted from her. Falling turned to floating. Dying became living. Some-thing resembling regret came to her now as she almost hovered by the lonely old guy's window in 7D. She had never actually met him and now wished she had. Slowly, she stretched out her long pale arms and faced the world below for a moment, and then turned towards the stars. Slowly, she rose upward. Lightness turned to stillness as she lofted back past the clothes hung out at apt 9A, and then to optimism as she passed the flowered boxes outside of 11C. Her arms still outstretched, she looked back down at the New Years Eve scene and laughed out loud. Her hair played in silly curls around her face and joy streamed down her cheeks. Her toes gently touched back onto the knee wall at the roofs edge. Eyes closed and smiling, she wrapped herself in her own arms and squeezed until she felt herself returning at last. Down from the roof now and falling awake, she turned over in her bed and smiled. She knew this would be the last time she would have this dream of falling. Falling again now, this time asleep, she the pictured the faces of every person she had ever known and vowed to dream a new dream of life for a life in the new year...Slowly, the forensic pathologist peeled back the thin film of skin that covered the bloody pulp of a skull that lay before him on the examining table. Only hours earlier the stuff he was working on now was a living human being. Reduced by a speeding semi to a viscous meatloaf, the fetid pile of toad slime showed no sign of life. The only remnant that might suggest the prior inhabit-ants identity was the single bugging eyeball. It seemed to twitch left and right from time to time. The pathologist looked shook it off and returned to the dissection. It was a curious sequence of events that landed this load of slop in the morgue. The lucky victim was skulking down the street with an air of aggressive paranoia when a semi-truck driver, who was digging out a wad of ear wax with a screwdriver swerved onto the sidewalk and caught our hero on the undercarrige of the cab. cab.After scraping him along screaming for 50 yards or so, our hero came loose and was pureed under the balance of the 16 wheels that follow the truck cab. For most people this might have been enough, but not for our little scum -bag. He was still alive and blinking out of that cue-ball eye socket. As chance would have it, an airliner crashed moments later on the very blinking spot where he lay, thoroughly lacerated. If that wasn't enough, a passing freight train derailed and accordianed itself onto the pulpy mess. That very train was transporting a circus car. The impact loosed a Grizzly Bear that meandered over and began lapping and chewing on our hero. For him it had been a very bad day indeed, because just then, the whole mess erupted in flames and burned for days on end. Choking back a good belly laugh, the doctor put away his scalpel and invited our hero's former girlfriend out to dinner... I drive mostly back roads far from the lights in the part of the night just ahead of the dawn. It is a world between worlds, maybe the upper or maybe the lower world. You could argue about which is which, but for me, the intersection of a back road and three a.m. is a sanctuary. A vector where no God rules and a man can move freely. Just like this morning, far from the visual stench of eastbay refineries and gas station lasers, I saw the new comet low in the northeastern sky, pure and alone. It had stolen the sky from lesser stars that for centuries had only too carelessly occupied the spot. I drive on through this scene and later past four baby skunks who are following a parent into traffic. Past the deer-like street folk caught for a moment in my headlights, past dark houses and blinding semi's. Through all of this stuff I am driving, and although I am tired of driving, I keep my eyes on the road. The tank is on empty, but I never stop to refill. Maybe I'll pull over and rest, if I can just get over this hill. I'm sick and tired of driving. When, after you roll past the detritus of some poor son-of -bitch's bad judg-ment in the fast lane, in the dark, alone with the man, and bleeding to death in red and blue moonbeams, don't you have to wonder if the repo-man from the movie was right when he said that 'the more you drive, the stupider you become'? So how is it now that we're all out here together, dedicated road warriors, driving, jockeying for the whole-shot, and no one is certain where to or where from. Grinding down the sharp edge of our I.Q.'s like the disintegrated retreads we dodge in the lanes. Until I hear different, I'll meet you in the number one lane when I have to, and on the narrow back roads when I can. Out here, far from the lights... Hello Salvatore Dolly Pardon hymn number 24 hours in a Doris Day Care center of the universe, as we know it. Even with large records and whey com-panies have Miss Muffet sat on a blender of several shades of blue and seen grazing out on the range over the Prairie Avenue Book Stories where out past there are several more than their mothers would have us believe. Meanwhile on the international scene with outside the studi-o-my-gosh, it's with Ives, Weburn, and Krenick, together now for the first time in a concerted effortless motion to over- rule the prosecution on a point of law the size of my grandmothers little cucumber dressing in front of an open window. Never-the-lesster the molester is available for a limited time to problem solve in four dimensions and run amok that can remove even the nastiest stains with Piquancy and Aplomb, the famous Danish explorers. Closer to home is where the heart wrenching is it true, time after time has a way back into the past, cut them off at the past, past- your-eyesed milking it for all it's worth, although more evidence may, or may, not be forth-coming to a theater near you? After all for one and one for after all may seem to satisfy even the heartiest appetite for that chocolately good-ness and the promise of bread. And you may ask yourself; Self, what does all this have to do with beer? In a word of wisdom to the wise from one who nose hairdo you really believe in the way back down the mountain grown coffee cop car doughnut piss anvil head life story of a veteran of foreign adven-turless women who can peel back your scalp with only a weasel? Is it any coincidence? Don't you have to wonder what it all has to do with Beer? Well? beer? Well?... In the beginning, there were ales. As far as anyone knows, the first beers made were 'top fermented', which is longhand for 'Ale'. Sometime before the 1860's, beers became popular that were made in northern Europe with a bottom fermenting yeast strain that liked the colder temperatures. Because they had to spend weeks aging before they tasted their best, they were known as 'Lager' beer. Lager is the German word for 'storage'. Since they had to sit a while, they took up more time and space and as such were harder and more expensive to make. But they were crisp and light and you could slam them down if you wanted to. Where ales are meaty, lagers are sinewy. Where ales are street, lagers are 'haute couture'. Where an ale might hit you over the head and take your wallet, lagers donate to charity and adopt stray cats. While an ale might steal your car or try to date your daughter and keep her out all night for who-knows-what purpose, a well-bred lager would offer to clean your house while you're on vacation and leave fresh scones and coffee for you when you return. Now, don't get us wrong, ales can be a lot of fun to hang out with when you're in the right mood, and if you have bail money on you. But what's wrong with livin' uptown from time to time, on a nice street, where the doormen all wear those funny uniforms, the air smells of flowers, and lagers rule the Earth... Although the table in the cafe on Grant Street at which they sat was round, the man and the woman from up north sat on opposite sides of it. Something had come between them. The sun sang it's final strains in the western sky as the cold blue song of the moon rose in pitch and even the waitress could not help these two doubting lovers. Together they read their menus separately. Two as one, one as two. Their pitifullittle scene brought only cruel amusement to the bartenders with the sweat stained armpits who smoked the cheap cigars and wagered on the misery of lovers like these. They had seen it all before and felt only contempt. The two wept openly now and still they could not decide whether it would be Pale Ale or I.P.A. with the entree and if there would be Gnarlywine for dessert. They all felt the loneliness of love and the tragic tyranny of beer... Well, well, well. The head brewer stood opposite the massive brewing vessels that were his to command. His mind raced through the possibilities. What is the temperature of the malt in the grist case overhead? Was the hot liquor tank up to temp? Would the ambient temperature affect the final mash temperature? Should he compensate for the delta temp by running a little higher mash-in temperature? A single degree in either direction would have a life changing effect on both the brewer and the brewee. The beer could be too sweet if a degree high, or too mild and dry if a niggling degree too low. The character of the future beer that this batch would be hung in the balance. The brewer drew a bead on the temp-probe, the mash tun waited, and the world held its breath...

PETALUMA, CALIF. & CHICAGO, ILL. www.LAGUNITAS.com