CraftPittsburgh Issue #24 by CraftPittsburgh

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

CraftPittsburgh | Issue 24

table of contents upcoming events editor’s letter good wood festival @craftpittsburgh - beer ink rivertowne and darwin collaboration style profile - reinheitsgebot the hoppy couple - roundabout brewery

facing the strange

craft cocktails - spring 57 hand crafted - washed rind cheeses beer geer - artifact metalworks road trip - new belgium, fort collins, co. pgh pizza - fiori’s where dives survive - dee’s cafe have you tried... cooking with beer - insurrection mussels & shrimp home brewing - dry irish stout illustrated breweries of pa - grist house

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6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 12. 14. 16. 18. 22. 24. 26. 29. 30. 32. 34. 36. 38.

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PUBLISHER P•Scout Media, LLC

EXECUTIVE EDITOR Rob Soltis rob@craftpittsburgh.com

MANAGING EDITOR Mike Weiss mike@craftpittsburgh.com

COPY EDITOR Frank Cunniff

CONTRIBUTORS Brian Meyer, Beth Kurtz Taylor, Joe Tammariello, Amanda Stein, Mindy Heisler-Johnson, Hart Johnson, Ian Mikrut, Jack Lake, Nichole Lumadue, Frank Cunniff, Nils Balls, Jack Smith, Will Groves, Dan DeLucia

PHOTOGRAPHERS Tim Burns, Jeff Zoet

COVER PHOTOGRAPHY Jeff Zoet Visuals

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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. Advertisers assume responsibility and complete liability for all content in their ads.

Available Year round

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Beginning Late March

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

March • 5 One Hellofa Brew Tour @ PA Brew Tours • 5 12th Annual Hell with the Lid Off @ Kelly’s • 5 Food Truck Roundup @ The Brew Gentlemen • 6 Ginga Wheat Release Party @ Roundabout • 12 Gratitude Release Day @ East End

April • 2 The Pittsburgh Brewery Tour @ PA Brew Tours

15 - 24

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• 16 Rust Belt Brews & Bites Tour @ PA Brew Tours • 23 Pedal Pale Ale Keg Ride @ East End • 23 Beer Barge @ The Gateway Clipper • 23 Oyster Fest @ Blue Dust • 29 Brewer’s Ball @ Wyndham Grand

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May

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ENJOY OUR FLAGSHIP TRIO YEAR-ROUND.

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• 14 Beers of the Burgh @ TBA • 14 Pints for Pets @ People Natural Gas Field, Altoona

June • 18 Brew ‘n Chew @ Monroeville Convention Center

editor’s letter Spring time & beer tattoos

t’s 62 degrees, the sun is shining, birds are chirping, my neighbor is vacuuming his carpeted front porch and tomorrow it’s suppose to snow. That can only mean one thing, it’s springtime in Pittsburgh. The time we put down the heavy winter ales and emerge from our homes in search of crisp seasonals and outdoor seating. Spring also means Pittsburgh Craft Beer Week. This year is pretty special to me, it’s PCBW’s fifth anniversary and my first year as a board member. It’s a board completely made up of volunteers that love craft beer and want to see it continue to grow locally. Although not as perfect as we’d all like it to be, the goal has always been to make it slightly better than the year before while making sure everyone is having a good time. It takes a lot of people make Beer Week happen, from the board, to breweries, wholesalers, distributors, beer reps, retailers, bars, and you the consumer. So get out there and show your support, celebrate your city and craft beer. That support is what grows this event year after year. To help plan out your week, look for the official printed guide at the end of March and check out the website and download the new mobile app. I also suggest taking the entire week off of work, making sure you’re on good terms with your significant other, and hiring a full time designated driver. The Spring Issue is one of my favorites to put together. This year is no different and we barely had enough pages for everything that’s going on. We have coverage of the Good Wood Festival, a Rivertowne collaboration with Darwin, a few local artists and artisans, Fiori’s Pizza, a spring cocktail, beer tattoos, and some big news from Voodoo. Plus, all our regular favorites like Cooking with Beer, the Hoppy Couple, and Hart’s kind-of famous reviews.

ur enjoy oenu! new m

6 & 12-PACKS, GROWLERS & grub to go!

If you ever have any questions or would like to leave some feedback feel free to shoot us an email. Cheers,

Rob Soltis

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good

wood festival

Story by Jack Lake, photo by Brian Meyer

CraftPittsburgh | Issue 24

he Ubers could be seen flocking to East End Brewing Company on January 16th as an eager crowd of 200 beer lovers formed, waiting for the doors to open up to the promise of pleasurable pours. This year’s Good Wood Festival of Barrel Aged Beer, hosted by East End and Wigle Whiskey, is the second of its kind and is a barrel aged beer lover’s dream. The festival is a chance for local brewers to gather together in one room and showcase the best of their barrel aging programs. What sets this beer festival apart from others, beyond the quality craft brews, is the overall intimacy and inclusiveness of it all.

whiskey barrel, but there are endless opportunities and avenues to explore beyond what, in many minds, is a standard.

Rather than standing in long lines waiting for a two-ounce pour from a distributor’s representative, patrons at the Good Wood Festival politely shuffle around the room receiving hearty pours from the brewers themselves. In this atmosphere, enthusiasts can make connections with the producers and ask questions. For a brewer like Mark Pavlik of Four Seasons Brewing, it’s a chance educate his consumers about the product and receive feedback from a group of people with motives beyond intoxication. “A lot of the patrons that are here, you can tell are more knowledgeable about the beer. They’re asking questions, talking a lot more; they want to know about the beer,” Pavlik, a first-time Good Wood participant, said. “It’s nice to talk to people and get some feedback and have that knowledge behind that,” he continued.

For Church Brew Works and Thompson it was a chance to show off their Belgian-style beers that found their way into wine barrels, adding dark fruity notes complementing the malt and spice to their award-winning tripel. Another experiment that had both patrons and brewers talking was Penn Brewery’s IPA aged in gin barrels. “That kind of stuff is fantastic because it spurs inspiration among other people in the room,” Smith said, mentioning that East End has a few beers resting in gin barrels awaiting maturity.

Sour beers are making up a larger portion of featured beers as well as beers aged in all sorts of barrels.“This is a very unique beer festival. I’ve found that brewers brought their A game in regards to the barrel,” Tiffany Thompson, brewer at Church Brew Works, said. More and more, brewers are experimenting with different styles of beer in barrels that belonged to a spirit other than whiskey.“You can send any beer to a beer fest, but it takes a very good beer to put into a piece of wood and put it out to people,” she said.

This year saw an increase in brewer turnout with a total of twelve breweries participating.The big names like Church Brew Works and Penn Brewing were in attendance, as well as breweries such as Bloom Brew, a small one-barrel production facility in West Newton, PA. Jeff Bloom, cofounder and brewer of this new operation, which is run with assistance from friends and family in the evenings, was ecstatic to be able to pour at this. He says this event provides the chance to introduce their impressive sour fruit beers to Pittsburgh’s craft beer community.

The inspiration captured by events like these and the relationships they create are not just harnessed by the breweries. Through its partnership with East End and the local breweries, Wigle Whiskey is also thinking differently about its spirits. “We see a of these breweries making such interesting things... and you think, if whiskey’s just distilled beer, why aren’t we doing that? So it’s really inspirational and neat to collaborate with some of these breweries that are doing some really creative things in Pittsburgh and thinking maybe we can pick their brain a little bit or collaborate together,” they said. The collaboration between the two groups spawned the inspiration behind Wigle Whiskey’s Brewers Series, including spirits distilled with hops and whiskey aged in barleywine barrels. As attendees shuffled in from the cold they were greeted with blood warming sips of these beer inspired whiskeys.

Not only has the Good Wood Festival grown in the number of breweries in attendance, but also in the diversity in styles of beer and the types of barrels used. “My first impression is that the quality of the beers in the room is noticeably better and that’s the quality of the beer in the Pittsburgh scene; it’s noticeably better every year,” Scott Smith, founder of East End Brewing, said. “There is definitely much more diversity of beer styles out there and people doing experimental stuff,” Smith said. Most of us would easily profess our love for a heavy stout aged in a

The Good Wood Festival of Barrel Aged Beers has quickly become an event that has local brewers marking their calendars and planning ahead in order to showcase their top notch products. Participants in the festival are paid for the beer and labor they bring to the event in either cash or materials. “We can pay them in cash or we can pay them in barrels,” Smith said, “and those barrels are hopefully ones we see show up here (again) as we get more people to participate in our event and create an interest in a scene in Pittsburgh for spirit barrel aged beers as well as sour beers.”

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Hermanos de otra Madre

Photos and story by Ian Mikrut

Rivertowne and Florida-based Darwin Brewing Company collaborate for dual release of Aji Limo Rojo, a Peruvian influenced red just in time for spring training.

Collaboration beers are generally a good time. Obviously for consumers it’s just another reason to get excited and geek out about a new beer. For brewers it’s a chance to mix it up with other companies, combine and share techniques and work creatively on a new beer while fostering the community feel of the craft beer industry. Who wouldn’t want to drink to that?

CraftPittsburgh | Issue 24

But while the beer is just the start for someone walking into a taproom or picking up a bottle, it’s really the end of an often interesting, random journey between those involved.Which would help explain how the idea for a beer named after a Peruvian pepper could be conceived in the Florida heat and released in the middle of Pittsburgh’s coldest month.

Rivertowne’s distribution covers Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey, West Virginia, North Carolina and Florida. During a December trip to distributors in Florida the Rivertowne crew stopped in at Darwin Brewing Company, located directly across the street from McKechnie Field where the Pirates play spring training games. Rivertowne’s brewmaster Andrew Maxwell happened to cross paths with Jorge Rosabal, owner and brewmaster at Darwin.The two clicked frighteningly quickly. Seeing them talking about beer looked like the “Did we just become best friends?”

scene in Step Brothers. And in finding how similar their approaches to process are, it only made sense to create something together. “You know I think Andrew is a very creative brewer, which is something that we also strive for in developing some of our brews,” Matt Cornelius, owner and general manager of Darwin, said. Darwin would hold beer pairing dinners and the brewery was born out of that context. “Rivertowne comes from a brewpub-restaurant background which is what we did solely. We started as a restaurant that happened to have brewing equipment on the premises from the prior tenant,” Cornelius said. The culinary background of both breweries gave them even more common ground to go with their approach to beer, which Cornelius describes as being filled with passion, creativity and uniqueness. On one end, Rivertowne already distributes to the local market around Darwin in Florida. For Darwin, it’s a chance to get some exposure with a company from a rising craft beer city, and the Pirates connection certainly doesn’t hurt the timing either. It’s win-win, as collaborations tend to be. “I was really interested in making a beer with basically both of our roots,” Maxwell said. “With the Peruvian influence and that background with the Amazon pepper expertise it was one of those things that was a natural fit in so many ways, but it makes sense to make a red with a little bit of pepper in it. It’s something that I was really curious about,” he said. Two versions of Aji Limo Rojo were created. The Rivertowne brewing team was sent to Florida to brew the lager version on site at Darwin. And when Darwin arrived in Pittsburgh to brew the PA version, a strong-ale style from the same recipe as the lager, the idea of a meet the brewers event came together as quickly as the original collaboration. “The hospitality that the Darwin brewers showed our brewing staff while they were down there, I kind of got the brief idea to do a meet the brewers event which we really haven’t done in a while anyways,” Mike Schmidt, a brewery representative at Rivertowne, said. “Meet the brewers in turn gives a chance... to actually get a little exposure because Darwin doesn’t distribute up here.”

The Rivertowne crew wanted to bring Darwin into a neutral, craft beer focused bar with a real foothold in the local scene. Schmidt said the place that he immediately thought of was Caliente Pizza & Draft House in Bloomfield, who were willing and enthusiastic to host. While the evening served as a chance for both brew teams to loosely interact with the public, it was also a chance to celebrate and take a quick victory lap for both breweries’ even quicker collaboration. A new firkin from Rivertowne was actually on hand, tapped and made available for the evening. Inspired by the type of beers that Darwin typically brews, Urban Pineapple is Rivertowne’s All Aboard Oatmeal Stout brewed with roasted pineapple, maple syrup and dark rum, and was the perfect way to seal the whirlwind weeks that brought the two breweries together. “I love Pittsburgh, I really do,” Cornelius said. “I’m a Midwesterner, I grew up in metro-Detroit and just the way people are, the types of things that they do, the blue collar mentality is something I identify with pretty strongly. So it’s extra cool to be doing something with a brewery like Rivertowne,” he said. For the release of Aji Limo Rojo, Maxwell and Rosabal describe it as a higher gravity beer with a deep caramel character. It was important for Maxwell and Rosabal to balance the sweetness so that the pepper flavor wouldn’t overpower everything else at play. “I’ve had pepper beers where the pepper just goes ahead and it kind of kills and covers up some of the interesting aspects of the journey from beginning to end,” Maxwell said. “And I think this journey is going to start out with just a real nice caramel sweetness and it’ll get sort of biscuity, and then on the side you’ll combine with that pepper,” he continued. Rosabal excitedly explained that Aji Limo Rojo surprises in the way that it kicks back, but not crushingly so. “And I think it’s going to dry it out a little too but not in an overwhelming way,” Maxwell said. For Darwin and Rivertowne, Aji Limo Rojo is the end result of marathon style brewing sessions over the course of a few weeks. “When you start using contradictory terms like dry and sweet, I mean it’s kind of weird but that’s what makes it so damn interesting. I couldn’t be more excited about what we tasted in Florida and what we tasted out here,” he said. On one end, they have two new unique beers to add to both of their diverse portfolios. But while the beer is great, it seems like the connections and friendships forged made the craft beer community in Pittsburgh a little bit bigger.

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“I feel like I have to buy Jorge a Christmas present now,” Maxwell said.

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Aji Limo Rojo was brewed on site at Darwin by both teams as a lager and will be offered there during spring training games for any fans making the trip to McKechnie Field. The strong ale version brewed at Rivertowne was released on February 16th and will be available on tap at both the Monroeville Pourhouse (which will also feature Darwin’s if you can’t make the trip south) and the Brewery Tap Room in Export.

style profile

Reinheitsgebot: 500 Years of Pure Beer Written by Brian Meyer

hen talking about contemporary craft beer, a brewery being open for 20 years is a major achievement. The majority of American beers today weren’t around before the current craft movement, and of the ones that were, most are bookended by the repeal of Prohibition only a little more than 80 years ago. Sure, we know that beer is thousands of years old. Little from those early days is still relevant, with one major exception: the need for a set of guidelines for the ingredients in beer and how the beer is made.While Hammurabi introduced some of the first beer laws as far back as 2,500 BC, these laws applied more to taverns and their owners and occupants. But, there is a set of standards regarding beer that is turning 500 years old in 2016, and believe it or not, they’re still used today. The Reinheitsgebot, or Purity Law, was enacted in the year 1516 by William IV, Duke of Bavaria and restricted the ingredients that could be used in the brewing of beer. This was done for a number of reasons which we’ll get to shortly. What’s important is that the Reinheitsgebot is one of the oldest food regulations still in use today, as it only formally passed from German law in 1987 and is still heavily referenced today. Let’s take a look at what makes up the Bavarian Purity Law of 1516 and see how it still applies today.

The Reinheitsgebot So what exactly is the Reinheitsgebot? In short, the law stated that only three ingredients could be used in the creation of beer, and those are:

CraftPittsburgh | Issue 24

• Water • Barley • Hops

If you’re familiar with brewing it should be pretty obvious that there’s an important ingredient missing from this list, and without it you’ll just have a sweet, non-alcoholic tea. Why isn’t yeast mentioned when they were obviously using it to make their beer? Technically the brewers weren’t adding yeast to their beer as we do today, these early beers were naturally fermented with wild yeast. This isn’t why yeast is left out of the law. The reason it’s absent from the

accepted ingredients is because people in 1516 didn’t know yeast existed! It wasn’t until the discovery of fermentation by Louis Pasteur in 1857, some 300 years later, that anyone even knew yeast were a thing, a living thing, when it came to beer. The law was updated a short time after this to include the fourth ingredient. So, with the basics of the Reinheitsgebot under our belts, let’s cringe at the punishment for breaking it and why it was written in the first place.

Behind The Gebot Making laws to protect consumers from inferior or dangerous products sounds pretty good, right? While this altruistic idea may be enough for some, it’s not the core concept behind the Reinheitsgebot’s inception. This purity law was enacted less to keep beer to a certain standard and more to protect food supplies. Food could easily become scarce in the 1500s and to keep brewers from grinding up all the edible grain, the government enacted the purity law to protect grains like rye and wheat for eating. This left barley free to brew with. Unlike wheat and rye, barley isn’t very easy to digest when baked, making it an ideal grain for brewing. By taking more edible grains out of brewer’s hands, competition for food was lowered and prices were kept reasonable. Purity and quality of the beer was solely a side effect of the food protection. While today we often align the Reinheitsgebot with high-quality beer, its humble beginnings were just to make sure everyone had enough bread.The actual law from 1516 states: ”We wish to emphasize that in future in all cities, markets and in the country, the only ingredients used for the brewing of beer must be barley, hops and water.” See, no lofty mention of beer quality, just protection of important grains. What happened if a brewer was caught breaking this rule? The sometimes tragic, cut-and-dried punishment was complete confiscation of the offending brew, or as the Bavarians put it: “Whosoever knowingly disregards or transgresses upon this ordinance, shall be punished by the court authorities’ confiscating such barrels of beer, without fail.” Finally, let’s examine the Reinheitsgebot today and what it means to the craft beer movement.

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

Reinheitsgebot Today Even today the Bavarian Purity Law that started all the way back in 1516 is still important. At this point, whether or not the law started for purity and quality is mostly inconsequential, as it’s grown to be an analog for qualitymade beer. You’ve probably heard of Oktoberfest, the 16-day festival that takes place in Munich each year. Complete with its own still-popular style of beer, to be a true Oktoberfest beer the rules only start with meeting the Reinheitsgebot standard. The most interesting thing about the Reinheitsgebot is that it can apply to a wide variety of beers. Sure, it typically only applies to German/Bavarianstyled brews, but any beer meeting the 4-ingredient requirement is, technically, Reinheitsgebot-compliant. So, if you see a beer that says it meets the standards set forth in the Bavarian Purity Law of 1516, the message is what you’re about to drink was made using only four key ingredients. In today’s market, being able to make a quality, full-production craft beer that still only uses these four ingredients is in and of itself impressive.

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

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

For some Pittsburgh-brewed beers that meet the standard, check out Penn Brewery in Troy Hill and Hofbräuhaus on the Southside-- both are still striving to locally uphold the venerated 500-year tradition.

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

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north park boathouse • historic southside

hoppy couple

Roundabout Brewery 4901 Butler St, PGH 15201

Amanda Location

You’re probably familiar with Lawrenceville if you live in or near the city and probably even have a few favorite spots; I know I do. Roundabout is one of my current new faves along with Hop Farm, Arsenal Cider House, and House of the Dead (have I mentioned I love zombies?). Some other places we’ve heard great things about and are itching to visit are Allegheny Wine Mixer, Atlas Bottle Shop, and Row House Cinema. Lawrenceville clearly has something for everyone.

Beer

I went with a beer flight this visit which offers five 5 oz. pours of their current taps. Two that stood out to me were the Shared Constellation Pale Ale (ABV 5.6%) and Maui Wit (ABV 7.2%) - two beers that I think embrace Roundabout’s innovative New Zealand style. The Shared Constellation Pale Ale features Aussie Galaxy hops and NZ Wakatu hops and is deliciously crisp with citrus notes. The Maui Wit is a Belgian wheat beer with ginger and anise and, while I’m admittedly not a huge fan of anise, it was actually a great flavor that complimented this beer.

CraftPittsburgh | Issue 24

Atmosphere

This visit to Roundabout marks our one-year writer-versary! One year ago on Valentine’s Day we visited Grist House for our first article and this V-Day we enjoyed Roundabout - certainly a tradition we can get onboard with. Since, like Joe said, we like a more personal experience when visiting new locales, we decided to beat the weekend crowd and hit Roundabout right when they opened which gave us the chance to soak up our cozy and welcoming surroundings

and chat with the owners. Their taproom can get pretty packed (and rightfully so since their beer and food are so flavorful!) but it’s a great community that always makes room for friends, new and old.

I had was their Long Black Stout (ABV 6.5%). This delicious stout features strong coffee notes which come from local coffee distributor, Zeke’s Coffee. Be sure to try both if you visit.

Food

I would describe the overall look and feel of Roundabout as modern featuring nice long wooden tables, meant to be shared with other guests, lined with those awesome stools you might remember from your high school shop class. I noticed some unique modern art hanging on the walls as well. Roundabout is on the smaller side so plan your stop accordingly. We arrived at noon when they opened and were the first people there. The Hoppy Couple enjoys getting a more intimate experience while doing recon. However, by about 1:00 PM the place was hopping with people tasting beers, buying flights, and enjoying their Saturday afternoon.

Husband and wife duo, Steve and Dyana Sloan, started Roundabout together after working in a few other breweries and they make a great team. Dyana is a New Zealand native so their brewery pulls from some of her roots such as the aforementioned hops. Another NZ hat tip is their food. “Little Round Pies” are to NZ as pierogis are to PGH so I had a combo of the two: the potato pie stuffed with potato, leeks, and cheese and topped with a perfectly flaky pastry. So decadent. We also shared the Nibbles Board which had two types of locally made goat cheese, coppa secca, and pickled veggies. Mmmm cheese...

Joe

Location

Roundabout Brewery is located in the everpopular neighborhood of Lawrenceville, slightly east of downtown Pittsburgh. Lawrenceville has changed immensely over the last five years and has become a home for all things craft: beer, food, and entertainment to name a few. Within a few blocks of Roundabout there are some other great breweries and satellite taprooms such as Hop Farm and Full Pint, so spending an afternoon drinking your way down Butler Street is an easy endeavor. Parking is limited to on-street which was no problem for us.

Beer

I primarily stuck to two of their beers while we were there, with a few sips of what Amanda tried as well. The first was their Hyer PA (ABV 7.3% ) which is an IPA brewed with Gem, Rakau, Mosaic, and Citra hops.This IPA packed a punch both in taste and alcohol content. These four hop varieties came together to form a delicious citrus flavor with a nice body. The other beer

Atmosphere

Food

Roundabout’s food is definitely something to write home about. They source most of their menu items from another local eatery called The Pub Chip Shop located in the Southside of Pittsburgh next to Piper’s Pub. While we were at Roundabout, I decided to try their lamb “Little Round Pie.” These pies are New Zealand style savory pies with a short crust pastry and savory filling topped with a puff pastry. It was fantastic! They also offered some sausage rolls made with sausage from Parma Sausage Products which were wrapped in a flaky pastry and also delicious.

Conclusion

Roundabout has been with the ‘Burgh since 2013, so if you haven’t heard of them or visited them yet it’s about time you do. Their beers change often, their food goes fast, and their events draw a crowd. Steve and Dyana hit a homerun with this NZ-inspired PGH hotspot so make time in your schedule to pay it a visit (or two!).

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Facing the Strange By Ian Mikrut

Voodoo Brewery’s founder is stepping away after ten years and the company plans to move forward as an employee-owned business, the first brewery of its kind in Pittsburgh.

CraftPittsburgh | Issue 24

Voodoo Brewery has never been the type of company that colors between the lines. From expanding its Meadville location to include a satellite pub in an abandoned municipal building in Homestead, to creating some of the more unique new beers in the local craft scene, Voodoo prides itself on taking the road less traveled. Last year already brought the success of being able to brew more, distribute to every county in Pennsylvania (and two new states in New York and New Jersey), new packaging designs, the Foodoo food truck, and all the accolades and buzz in the beer community to back it.

However, Voodoo’s biggest move to date comes with the news that owner and founder Matthew Allyn is stepping away from the company to pursue new avenues and spend more time with his family. With Allyn’s departure, the small group of additional owners (brought on in 2012) are moving forward as an employee owned business. “We’re a group of young motivated people in the craft beer industry and so are our employees,” Jake Voelker, partner and manager of the Homestead location, said. “So motivated in fact that we’re going to make them our business partners because we want

them to continue to grow with us. Not over the next nine months, over the next decade. And maybe two decades who knows, I don’t know what that’s going to look like,” he said. The news is both surprising and phenomenal. With over 23 years of brewing experience, Allyn founded Voodoo ten years ago and was obviously instrumental in its growth. Particularly in bringing on the current leadership of Voelker and brothers Curt and Matteo Rachocki. But with the bottom line being that Voodoo is now employee-owned, it feels more like a parting gift and assurance that Voodoo plans to continue to build upon its foundation, literally from the inside out. “It really is the most neutral thing in the world... Matt wanted to do some new things and the combination of myself, Matteo and Curt, we’re really ready to take this thing to the next level. And it’s a really positive thing,” Voelker said. Though the decision to become employee-owned was easy for Voodoo, implementing an employee stock ownership plan isn’t like flipping a switch and going to work the next day. The crew at Voodoo has been working towards this transition over the last year despite just announcing it to their employees. Since ESOPs are regulated by the federal government, that involved bringing on advisors to help guide them through the legal and financial process, filing and submitting all the necessary documentation to the government to make everything legitimate. How it works in Voodoo’s situation is that 60% of the company stock is being gifted to employees at Voodoo. “In our industry it can often be tough for a business to give people huge salaries, but this is a way that I can look the people that work for me in the eye and say ‘hey let’s build this thing,’” Voelker said. What’s made available to employees is stipulated by the government on a scale based on role, responsibility and duration of employment. Obviously a new hire isn’t going to get 10% of the company, but the opportunity to work and achieve partnership is made available to everyone on a non-discriminatory basis, from busboys to bartenders. “Let’s move into the next era of Voodoo Brewing Company and we’re going to take care of you as we go throughout that process,” Voelker said. The past couple of years or so has seen a few large national breweries like Deschutes, Harpoon, Left Hand, New Belgium and Odell make the jump. Often it’s a statement of commitment to employees and consumers that a company is in it for the long haul, almost an assurance that Anheuser-Busch won’t be swooping in for a buyout.

Voelker noted that Voodoo looks up to those companies and that they’ve served as an example of the type of success and growth going employee owned can bring. He describes the growth problem that smaller craft breweries can run into. For Voodoo it was a matter of figuring out where they could grow from what the last year has brought. “I think there’s potential for it to become a trend. I have goosebumps talking about it, that’s how it feels physically,” he said. “This is a move that myself and my business partners as entrepreneurs, we made a bold statement. Not only are we the only people in this area to do it, but in addition we think we’re probably the smallest in the entire country,” Voelker said. Given the difference in scale between Voodoo and those other notable companies, don’t necessarily expect every local or small owned brewery to make this move anytime soon.

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Losing a founder after a decade of growth will affect any company. Especially one who has had as much influence as Allyn, who Voelker described as being both a mentor and close friend and put a lot of belief into the team assembled today. With growth comes change, but for Voodoo their roots and where they come from are just as important as where they go from here. “Voodoo from the beginning has always been about making really creative things,” Voelker said, “... whether that’s beer, or the artwork that we have hung up in our spaces or whatever that may be. I think as long as we stay true to just being creative and having fun, I don’t worry about that too much.”

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In terms of what growth is going to look like with Voodoo now, it’s hard to say. “We would love to do more things, but I think that myself and a lot of other brewery owners are managing appropriate growth,” Voelker said. Voelker and the Rachockis are obviously confident in their team and new business partners. Right now that includes brewing a lot of new, different beer and maintaining a strong community presence. In large part the ESOP has brought an influx of enthusiasm and ideas for everything Voodoo can be doing better from its new partners, who have an even greater investment in its success now.Time will tell what that physically manifests itself into. “Most craft breweries today, if you wanted to take out some type of sizable loan and open up a few retail locations and a huge brew house it probably wouldn’t be that hard to do. But for us, it’s seeing what those next steps are and making sure that they’re right while maintaining perfectly what we have now,” Voelker said.

VECENIE D

The process is long, many small companies wouldn’t even qualify, and for breweries just starting up an ESOP obviously cuts hard into an owner’s takeaway. But at the same time many other companies who have reached a ceiling in their initial growth may see this as an opportunity to grow in new ways. Something Voelker described as managing growth while allowing the fluctuation of ownership to happen naturally.

craft cocktails

Spring 57 Excuse me for one second while I go on a bartender rant.

I don’t normally do this. I love my guests at the bar. I love each and every one of your special little faces. I seriously do! But please, I implore you; don’t yell “Yeah! Shake it!” when a bartender is shaking one, or more likely two to three drinks. Every time someone yells “Shake it!” at me, I envision going to their job, walking calmly up to their desk and shouting, “Yeah! Collate it! Collate that report!”

CraftPittsburgh | Issue 24

Shaking drinks is just another part of my job. It just so happens that Tom Cruise’s character in Cocktail and I do the same job. Shaking drinks isn’t meant to be flashy or showy, we’re just trying to get you the best drink we know how to make.

To that end, let’s talk about how and why we shake drinks as opposed to stirring them. The reason you shake drinks, and shake them as hard as possible, is to create both dilution and texture. True, you also create dilution by stirring, but much less so than when you shake due to the unpredictable, abrasive motion of the ice inside a shaker.

just like whipping egg whites to make meringue. The tendency to create and maintain foams in a liquid is why we shake certain drinks and stir certain drinks. Drinks that get shaken have ingredients that help us create bubbles. Those ingredients are things like dairy, fruit juices and most commonly, citrus. I know you don’t think of citrus juice as being foamy, normally, but do an experiment next time you make brunch. Fill a Champagne flute most of the way with sparkling wine, then add orange juice. Looks like a pretty good Mimosa, right? Now do it the other way around; OJ first. Looks like a pretty big ass mess, right? The wine explodes everywhere because the OJ increases the viscosity and foam-producing capabilities that are already in the wine. One of my favorite ways to accentuate the texture created by shaking is to top a cocktail with a carbonated ingredient like sparkling wine in our Mimosa, or, more frequently, beer.The rise in popularity of tart beers such as gose and Berliner weisse proved great for the beer cocktail scene because those beers mimic some of the acidity of sparkling white wines and the slight bitterness of good tonic waters. As we normally do around 485 words into this column, let’s get to a recipe…

Spring 57:

So both methods of chilling a drink add a desirable amount of water. They both render a cocktail cold and crisp and ready to drink. What we’re left with as the primary difference between shaking and stirring, is texture.

¾ oz Wigle Barrel-Rested Ginever. ¾ oz Mahón gin, or similar American-style, not very juniper forward gin. ½ oz freshly-squeezed lime juice. ½ oz honey syrup (equal parts honey and hot water). Hop Farm Bluliner Weisse, to top. Lemon peel, to garnish. Straw, to garnish. We’ll get to this in a sec.

When a cocktail is shaken, and I mean shaken hard, you’re not only diluting and chilling the drink, you’re using the motion of the ice and liquid to aerate the drink. You’re whipping air bubbles into the drink

Add all ingredients to a shaker. Add ice. Lots of ice. More ice than you probably think is appropriate. No such thing as too much ice here. Shake. Shake harder. Seriously? Come on. You should be making a face

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because you’re shaking so hard. Now imagine doing that for 8-13 hours. That’s what your friendly neighborhood cocktail bartender does five days a week, 50 weeks a year. I just wanted you to know that. Tip your bartenders, folks. Once you’ve pulled a muscle from shaking so hard, strain the drink over fresh ice (again, a lot of ice) in your favorite glass and VERY GENTLY top with beer. Garnish with a wide swath of lemon peel and a straw. Why do I insist you drink this through a straw? Think about it. You just expended all that energy creating bubbles. Why would you go popping those fragile little guys by picking that drink up and tipping it towards you just to take a sip? When you drink through a straw you move the drink around less. That helps maintain more of those bubbles that caused you to need surgery to correct your nascent case of tennis elbow.

Wigle’s Ginever is a Dutch style of gin that tends to be maltier, earthier, and less juniper forward. Mahón (which is imported to the US by a local company, Purple Valley Imports) is a Spanish gin that is extremely lightbodied, citrusy and floral. By using both of these gins in the same cocktail we can get the best of both worlds. Using all Mahón in a cocktail with other strong flavors and you tend to lose the gin. Using a genever in a cocktail and you run the risk of losing the other ingredients. In summation: shake your drinks really hard, and you like gin even if you don’t know you like gin. Gin, more than almost anything else in the whole world, tastes like spring time. Shaking the ever-loving crap out of cocktails, more than almost anything else in the whole world, makes you feel like an old-school, badass bon vivant.

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A quick note about gin now that we’ve covered shaking. You may be wondering why this recipe calls for two different gins. Gin is a big, wide world; one of the most diverse spirit categories. There’s a gin (and a gin cocktail) out there for everyone. There are even gin drinks out there for you folks who say, “I like everything except for gin.” You like gin; you just don’t know it yet.

hand crafted

washed rind

Cheeses By Beth Kurtz Taylor

Sasha Davies writes in The Cheesemaker’s Apprentice: All of these foods—cheese, wine, beer and bread—start with the same basic ingredients, and with the addition of craftsmanship, science and carefully honed techniques, those ingredients are transformed into a spectacular range of products. When the worlds of these artisans converge, our local food landscape broadens to include the fruits of their collaboration. Goat Rodeo Farm & Dairy, a 130-acre home to Nubian and Alpine goats north of Pittsburgh, is producing earthy, luscious cheeses. Their offerings are predominantly made of goat’s milk but some also contain cow’s milk from neighboring Le-Ara Farms. The cheesemaker meets the brewer and great things, like Bamboozle cheese, happen. It is a washed-rind or smear-ripened cheese, which are more commonly referred to as a “stinky” cheese. This type of cheese is easily identified by the hue of its rind, which can vary from pink to reddish orange. Both are due to the presence of the Brevibacterium linens (or B. linens), a bacteria introduced to the surface, that creates the rind.

CraftPittsburgh | Issue 24

India Loevner and her family own Goat Rodeo, which currently has approximately 100 goats, 50 of which produce milk. More kids are due in May. The family started with a few goats on their farm, made cheese as a hobby, then grew their passion into a business. Matt Rychorcewicz, Goat Rodeo’s cheesemaker, came to the farm after curating the cheese programs for both Allegheny Wine Mixer and Roundabout Brewing. He completed a cheese making course through Penn State and came on board at the dairy. They offer an impressive variety for a business that has been selling their cheese for less than a year. Fresh Chèvre, Stampede, an aged goat and cow’s milk cheese, and the above-mentioned Bamboozle, a washed rind cheese with an interesting twist, are a few on their current menu.

Most familiar washed rind cheeses, such as Muenster or Limburger, are rinsed in a saline solution containing the B. linens as they age.This is done to control unwanted fungal growth, but a new regime of cultures evolves due to the washing. The interior of the cheese can range from soft and oozy to hard enough to grate. B. linens are contained in the yeast sediment that falls to the bottom of fermentation tanks during the beer making process. Matt sources the product from Roundabout Brewing in Lawrenceville and uses it to wash the rinds of their Bamboozle cheeses. So far he has used the byproducts of both the brewery’s Belgian-style Gui and Ginga Wheat. The cheese definitely has a pungent aroma, but on the palate it is a bit subdued, yet still hearty, with a medium creamy

texture.The variety I sampled was washed with the Ginga Wheat making the rind a pale orange-ish brown.A lot of what wafts across the olfactory senses comes from the rind, which many prefer to cut away.The rind also may have a crystalline texture, again a matter of preference. Recently I had more at home paired with Business Casual, an imperial red ale from The Brew Gentlemen. Perfect! Hitting the market in July 2016 will be another unique washed rind variety, Cowboy Coffee. Matt will introduce the B. linens by washing the cheese with Perpetual Blend Espresso from Commonplace Coffeehouse during their six-month aging process. I’ve recently picked up Goat Rodeo cheeses at the East End Food Co-op and The Pennsylvania Macaroni Company, plus they are on menus all over town. Check the farm’s website to find other outlets. Also, the Loevners are finishing up a beautiful event space on-site and are breaking it in this spring. Contact Goat Rodeo for more information. If you want to venture out and try more beer washed cheeses, check with Alix Wiggins of Wheel and Wedge. You can find her at The East Liberty Farmers Market on Saturday mornings and Ariba Wine Bar, Thursday-Saturday evenings running their cheese program. In addition to the products from Goat Rodeo, she also occasionally has other washed rind cheeses including Humble Herdsman, an Italian-style whole milk Tomme washed with hard cider, from Parish Hill Creamery in Vermont. Sourced from Newbury, PA, Wiggins is hoping to offer some of Kestwick Creamery’s variety of cheeses washed in Tröegenator or Mad Elf from Tröegs Brewing Co. during Pittsburgh Craft Beer Week. Follow her on social media for details and be on the lookout for cheese and beer pairing events, “Moos and Brews,” that she offers locally.

beer geer by Beth Kurtz Taylor

Artifact Metalworks G

CraftPittsburgh | Issue 24

rowing up in a Southwestern Pennsylvania family of outdoorsmen, Jared Ondovchik learned to handle a hunting knife at a very young age. For many years, he carried one with him that was a gift from his grandfather. Over time, he developed an interest in metal forging and explored the craft while working alongside smiths who were part of the Industrial Arts Co-op. The group, housed in an abandoned industrial site in Hazelwood, created “The Carrie Deer” on site at The Carrie Furnace and “The Workers” installation at the South Side Works. Somewhere along the way, Jared sadly lost his heirloom knife. The misfortune inspired him to further his knowledge of metalwork by incorporating blade forging into his repertoire. The word scrappy can describe this gentleman on a variety of levels. New to blacksmithing and short on funds, he crafted his own coal forge from a frying pan and an anvil out of a recycled piece of railroad track. He needed coal to fuel the forge, so he foraged for it around the Hazelwood site. Much of his work then and now begins as pieces of found or scrap metal.

The result? This self-taught artist can barely keep up with the demand for his diverse assortment of knives, jewelry and, what our readers will find interesting, bottle openers forged from interesting finds including old wrenches, a metal wagon wheel, and railroad spikes. By frequenting yard sales, Trader Jack’s, and bartering with other artists, he accumulated a myriad of metal objects. Reclaiming the pieces and giving them new live, Jared remarked that aesthetically and ethically it is “really cool”! The pieces come with a built in patina that can’t be easily reproduced. Area chefs are able to work with Jared to come up with aesthetically beautiful knives that are specific to their needs. He recently fashioned herb chopping knives with a Mezzaluna-type curve as companions to a wooden cutting board created by a local woodworker.Turning a broken file

or chunk of a wagon wheel into a chef’s knife is a time intensive process. To shape the blade alone, it may take upwards of six hours of pounding the forged metal. He often will weld a piece of steel to the blade to strengthen it, again a time consuming technique. There seems to be no limit to his creativity, and his work is worthy of the title “artifact.” When opening a bottle of premium craft beer, it stands to reason that the implement used should be made with the same amount of care and attention to detail as the beverage. Most of the found objects that Jared recycles have many years of oxidation and distress that, to some degree, come off in the forge. He then wire-wheels what remains to achieve a clean working surface. From there he may twist a handle, or make precise cuts to produce a stacked cube effect. He seems to let the metal speak to him, creating organic designs. To produce the head of the opener, a flat spot is forged and then Jared beats a cold metal punch through the steel to achieve an opening. The circular shape is pounded around the beak of an anvil to make a functional opener. The openers he forges out of old metal files are fired until the rough surface smooths out from the heat into a patina that resembles snakeskin. Since the early days in Hazelwood, Jared has moved his studio twice. Currently he shares space with another metalsmith, Glen S. Gardner, in Point Breeze’s collective studio, The Mine Factory. Gardner has worked in the field for over 40 years, which in turn provides Jared with an expert mentor. Plus, he now has a much safer propane fueled forge. Aside from his custom orders, Jared sells his wares at many artisan exhibits around the city and occasionally participates in public demonstrations of his craft. Keep up with his work by following his Facebook page and on Instagram @artifactmetalworks.

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ROAD trip Story and photos by Nichole Lumadue

New Belgium

Fort Collins, CO

t will be three years in May since I left the comfort of the Pennsylvanian Appalachia to settle in the West. Destination: Wyoming, a state where cattle outnumber humans by more than half and highways close regularly due to extreme winds. I nestled into a college town just north of the Colorado border. Almost immediately I discovered this region had more to offer than the idealized mountain ranges and bison herds seen on calendars.They made beer. Good beer. And I happen to be a fan of beer. And New Belgium Brewing Company happens to brew some of my all time favorites.

CraftPittsburgh | Issue 24

New Belgium Brewing Company was “born on a bike seat” in 1989... well, the idea anyway. Jeff Lebesch conceptualized his brewing model while touring Europe on a bike that would later become the trademark for one of NBB’s most recognizable beers, Fat Tire. The beer itself was actually born in his basement. Lebesch and his co-founder Kim Jordan (now CEO) knew they had created something meaningful when they began receiving local praise for NBB’s first two brews; a Belgian-style dubbel named Abbey which has become the most award-winning NBB beer to date, and the iconic Belgian influenced amber ale, Fat Tire. With the addition of Belgian brewmaster Peter Bouckaert, beer enthusiasts like myself can now sample almost 36 styles of beer throughout the year.

It was early Tuesday afternoon when I arrived at the brewery. The New Belgium brewing facility, or “The Mothership” as they like to call it, has been located on the outskirts of Fort Collins, CO since opening its doors in 1991. Currently they are working to expand the Fort Collins facility for more beer tasting and brewing awesomeness. I pulled into the temporary parking lot and followed the giant signs that encouraged me past the expansion construction, through a group of blissfully tipsy visitors on a guided tour, and towards the entrance of the tasting room, AKA: the Liquid Center. It was Tuesday, how many people could really be enjoying a beer (or four) on a Tuesday afternoon?

Quite a few, to my surprise. The room was bumping! The atmosphere was alive with subtle laughter, conversation, cool music, and the smell of beera-brewing. Nobody knew it was Tuesday; and if they did, they didn’t care. With an expected 200,000 visitors from around the world in 2016,Tuesday is deemed an ideal day to beat the thirsty crowds. I meandered through the bustle to meet Penelope, my Mothership hostess for the day (a walking wealth of New Belgium knowledge) and began my tour. The ambiance throughout the brewery was consistently upbeat. The public tours and tasting stations throughout the facility added to the buoyant attitude of the employees… or should I say, owners! NBB is 100% employee-owned making it super easy for employees to become invested in their trade. And if that wasn’t reason enough to be stoked to go to work, the entire facility is tripped out with lively music, ping-pong tables, a climbing wall, bikes to ride downtown for lunch, and other employee activities to keep enthusiasm high. Visitors have an opportunity to sample some of NBB’s most accomplished brews throughout the tour itinerary. From seasonal picks like the Accumulation white IPA; collaborative brews like the Salted Caramel Brownie brown ale inspired by a partnership with Ben and Jerry’s; and NBB staples like 1554 black lager, Ranger IPA, and Sunshine wheat. NBB literally offers something for every palate. One of my favorite stops was burrowed in the foeder room where visitors are able to taste NBB sour beers in the making (a before and after tasting, if you will). The giant wooden barrels contain the foundation from which La Folie (a sour brown ale) and Le Terroir (a dry-hopped sour ale) are eventually prepared. Enter: Oscar (the base beer for La Folie) and Felix (the base beer for Le Terroir). Both equally able to pucker your face, but each one arranges an individual blueprint for the final two deliciously distinctive beers. That rings us to the Thunderdome, where tasty brews meet glass bottles for your drinking pleasure. With an average grain-to-glass timeline of about

two weeks, NBB is producing over 945,000 barrels of beer a year and bottling over 600,000 bottles of beer a day! It was here that I got my first taste of NBB newest seasonal creation: Side Trip, a Belgian-style pale ale that hit the stores this season. Oh, and thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a slide! Each tour ends with a trip down a slide that leads visitors back to the Liquid Center to continue exploring brews, grab a sixer to go, or sample some local grub. The facility does not have an onsite kitchen. However, NBB invites local food trucks to post up outside of the Liquid Center entrance and permits visitors to bring their munchies inside while enjoying a beer. New food trucks are hosted regularly so be sure to check out the variety of goodies when you visit. Although NBB now distributes to 28 states (plus D.C.), the Mothership has decided to spread her wings. North Carolina, here they come! With a new brewery currently under construction in Ashville, NBB will soon be able to offer the same unique opportunities to even more states. From the original 5-barrel system to the current 300-barrel facility in Fort Collins, NBB has worked to reduce emissions, waste, and energy use and plans to carry that mission to Ashville. Natural light is used throughout the facilities and solar panels collect solar energy for brewery operations. The steam given off by the boilers is also collected and used to heat the next batch of beer. Pretty sweet, right?! On top of that, the company invests in the community by commissioning local artists for brewery artwork and hosting fundraising events and partnerships with non-profits and environmental sustainability education programs. All this dedication has earned them the honor of becoming a certified B Corporation recognized to meet rigorous social and environmental standards. Look for the Ashville location to open in spring 2016! I highly recommend touring one of New Belgium Brewing Co. locations for yourself, I can assure you that I will return to The Mothership in the near future.Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll thank me later.

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PGH PIZZA

Fiori’s 103 Capital Avenue, PGH 412.343.7788 by Dan DeLucia

hen you enter Pittsburgh from the south through the Liberty Tubes, you are greeted with a grand view of the city. On the occasion that you leave the city via the same route, you will be greeted with arguably the best pizza shop Pittsburgh has to offer. Three-quarters of a mile ahead on the left at 103 Capital Avenue sits Fiori’s Pizzaria. It’s been there since the Steelers were well on their way to building a dynasty. Like our Steelers, Fiori’s has been doing it right since the late 70s. I grew up on the East side of town, and as such was raised with a very different pizza allegiance… but that’s another story. Thanks to some friends from the South Hills, I’ve seen the light. I’ve been making up for lost time. I eat a ton of Fiori’s. Almost every time I cross the Mon River is an excuse to stop and grab a pie. If you’ve never been to this place, drop what you’re doing and go right now. Seriously. Let me start by saying that even the best pizza parlors are prone to dishing out a bad pie once in a while. Everyone has an off night. That said – I have never once had a bad pizza from Fiori’s. I attribute this phenomenon of consistency to the crew. It’s always the same guys working behind the counter. The dough man up front throws and sauces the pies, slides them to the topping guy. He in turn hands them off to the oven guy. Behind them are one or two more men building subs, salads, and pasta dishes, and then finally another one or two working the registers. We’re talking about five to seven people working in a space the side of a walk-in closet. It all works. They’re like a finely tuned assembly line that would make Henry Ford jealous.

The cheese blend is spot on. It contains just the right amounts of soft, mild, sharp and firm.The pizza comes out of the oven a round golden masterpiece. That first bite is nirvana. All the sweet and salty flavors come together in a dream of warm and chewy pizza supremacy. I eat it plain. A customer favorite is pepperoni and yellow peppers. I’ve taken a spin around the menu and everything is incredible. If you dinein, there is sometimes a wait but usually you can grab a seat within a few minutes.They get the tables cleaned off pretty quickly and the place is always very clean in general. The food comes out fast. I like to get half a steak hoagie with my pizza because, well it’s the best in city. Imagine that. They’ve got this red steak sauce… just try it. I better stay on the pizza. Tonight I ordered mine ahead for carry out. Get there early so you can watch their magnificent operation in action. Sometimes I like to take mine to go and eat it at the bar next door, Slick’s. It’s a great little dive. I took my pizza home and washed it down with a few cold Coors Banquet beers. That’s how my South Hills buddies do it. If by chance there’s any Fiori’s left to become tomorrow slices, they’re great heated up in a pan for breakfast. Crack an egg on it. Leftovers are a very rare occasion, I assure you. Everyone has different tastes, different flavors that they look for in a pizza. Regardless, Fiori’s seems to be a common favorite among people that I talk to. See for yourself. It always comes up in “best pizza in Pittsburgh” conversations. The food is amazing and prices are right. The staff is quick and friendly. You always feel welcome. Take a date, your friends or family… or just grab some pies to go for the game. Fiori’s has a motto: “We fix you up.” Let ‘em fix you up.

So let’s get to the bottom of this extraordinary pie. The crust is perfect: thin and lightly crisp on the bottom, soft and chewy on the inside. There’s a faint sweetness to the crust and a light dusting of flour and an occasional bubble. It’s the only vessel worth carrying the delicious sauce atop it. This sauce is sweet. I’ve never had anything like it. I’ve heard rumors of the various “secret” ingredients that go in the sauce to make it so sweet. I’ll be honest; whatever it is doesn’t concern me. Just keep doing it. The sweetness is coupled with a nice slight herb finish. It ties the pie together perfectly.The sauce is so good they sell it in three different quantities to go.

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The place is a classic parlor. They’ve got those vintage pressed wood booths, and old metal plates. There’s a pinball machine, and nice big TV over the cooler stocked with locally made paper iced tea pints. I doubt much has changed at Fiori’s over the last 35 plus years. Thankfully so, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. It’s always packed, and they’re open every day. They even stay open late on Friday and Saturday, which is great after a night out. I’ve heard stories of people asking their cab drivers to make a detour to Fiori’s before being taken home. Sounds plausible.

an expanded selection of pool tables, ping pong, or karaoke, while the Southern Tier 2X IPA and Dee’s other craft bottles start flying out of the cooler.

hen I catch myself wishing The Smiling Moose was still the kind of bar I could feature, I start to remember the nights the background music was so loud that I’d load in my gear for a show and then sneak up the street to Dee’s Cafe for a beer. Quiet, or quiet dignity, aren’t exactly the right words to compare Dee’s with the rest of the East Carson Street bar sprawl-- but there’s definitely a lived in, understated cool. Plus, they have urinals that go all the way to the tiny tile floor like an old movie theater, or maybe a noir fiction bathroom. It’s an occasional worthwhile trade: giving up the expectations of a Sheetz standard of public toilet luxury for the appeal of seeing an endangered species in the wild. Opened in the 1950s and owned by William Martin and later his daughter since 1980, Dee’s continues to serve reasonable drinks to three generations of billiard hall devotees in a signature, lightly smoky atmosphere. Famous for Pittsburgh’s best competition pool tables, world ranked for selling a lot of Pabst Blue Ribbon, and with nights dedicated to pool leagues, art shows, and karaoke, it makes sense the interior horseshoe of Dee’s Cafe seems a lot bigger than it looks from the outside. Maintaining a coexistence between the regular regulars, pool sharpshooters, college students, bikers, randos, and pregaming Southside spray tan-imals takes a lot of floor space. Pudding shots help too.

CraftPittsburgh | Issue 24

After kicking off her shift, like every shift, with Kenny Loggins’ “Danger Zone,” bartender Michelle Miller explained what drew her to Dee’s a decade before stepping behind the taps. “It’s not a meat market bar, it’s not a Southside bro-bar-- I love dive bars and as a woman, especially a younger woman, I felt really comfortable coming here for a happy beer,” she said. She wasn’t, and isn’t, drinking her “happy beer” alone. Even at 2:00 PM in some of the winter’s worst weather there was one other guy sitting at the bar, certainly looking happy enough-- and he just rode a bicycle through a snowstorm and past dozens of other bars for a few High Lifes and a shot of Jim Beam.

Six months ago, Michelle originally took on a few shifts at Dee’s to supplement her income as a nanny. “I’d worked in an office too, but they just won’t let you swear as much,” she continued, swearing in a sweetly endearing manner. More recently, this “proud, third generation Irish-assed bartender” has decided to call Dee’s her full-time, “forever home” with shifts split between the marathon-length bar greeting the entrance and the selectively open, newly-remodeled second floor. “The first floor is great and it’s not really going to ever change, we’re where the weirdos still come, but I like working the upstairs-- it’s kinda like a secret lounge,” Michelle said. Thursday through Sunday nights the second floor hosts

Hayden Fisher, Dee’s Cafe’s newest and youngest employee, also fell into working at his favorite bar. A mixed media artist and billiards contender, Hayden is an ardent student of the game and already a member of one of Dee’s three competition pool teams. Working there part time was a natural next step after becoming a regular. I noticed Hayden must be on staff when he, unfortunately, had to deal with two bleach blonde early-twentysomethings who insisted on resting their out-on-the-town heels on one of the downstairs pool tables. “Everyone that works here, everyone, they work here because they really love it. It’s not just for the money with them-- and nobody half-asses it,” he told me over beers. After breaking down the cost of a pool table resurfacing, let alone the cost of repairing table rails (the parts you lean on, which, as it turns out, also need periodic replacement and are even more expensive), I thought Hayden employed a surprising amount of restraint and tact. In his case, it’s more of a green felt altar than gaming surface. Still, I don’t know if any logical breakdown of expenses or a heart-toheart on pool hall decorum would’ve swayed these young women from responding with, “Fuck you! Are you even from Pittsburgh!?” I’m not sure what it says about me or the concept, but this wasn’t the first time I’ve had an obnoxious patron beat me to a question on a fact-finding visit to a bar. Then again, to be fair, she also provided the only major first-hand conflict of the entire series. Further, maybe it was straining believability all around to have visited this many great dives and conveniently missed out on running into a single complete jagoff. It’s a city, maybe not a big city, but every city is bound to have a few. Introduce a brief, engaging moment of trouble: check. At least if I’m drinking on the job, it’s nice to know there’s someone there to do the work for me.

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

1. Ithaca Beer Co. | Nut Brown Ale 5.4% - Brown Ale - ithacabeer.com

Ah yes, the Nut Brown Ale, the veritable springboard for launching people headfirst into the world of beer that “doesn’t taste like beer.” You say you don’t like beer and you like rum and coke? Here drink this sweet talking brown nectar and tell me all beer tastes gross. Beer is too bitter? Meet my dark friend over here and they’ll make you forget all about all those bitter feelings. Brown ales are all about rich, sweet malt, just a hint of a trace of a kiss of bitterness maybe. One of the first “me-too” beer styles of American Craft Beer, every brewery in the 90s was tipping their hat to the wonderful Samuel Smith Nut Brown with their own versions. Ithaca has been fine tuning this one since 1998. Deep mahogany brown in color, a little ring of off white foam and aromas of cocoa powder, soft toffee and subtle butterscotch. Rich on full on the palate with sweet malt flavors of malt chocolate, lightly roasted coffee beans and toasted pumpernickel bread.Yes it is called a Nut Brown ale & no actual nuts were used in this particular beer, but there is a definitive toasted almond like flavor in the finish. All through the magic of malt. Recommended if you like: Hop Farm - One Nut Brown Ale, East End - Fat Gary, Alesmith - Nut Brown Ale, Rivertowne - Maxwell’s Scottish

2. Fuller’s Brewery | 1845 CraftPittsburgh | Issue 24

6.3% - Strong Ale - fullers.co.uk

Originally brewed in 1995 to celebrate Fuller’s 150th Anniversary, 1845 has become a yearly celebration of glorious English malt. While fairly low in alcohol to be considered a Strong Ale in these United States, consider that Fuller’s utilitarian Chiswick Bitter is a mere 3.5% ABV and yeah, 6.3% is still stronger by my math. Flavorwise, most people might consider this closer to what we call a Scotch Ale over here, real heavy on the malt with firm hop bitterness yet very little hop flavor or aroma. Deep orange in color with tan head that looks like it was scooped atop the glass by an old timey soda jerk. Nutty and marzipan aromas, you can almost feel the sugary aromas. Rich and full bodied, I mean really rich and really full bodied, almost viscous, like

someone tried to make a milkshake out of a fruit cake and a bottle of rum. I don’t care that this is *only* 6.3%, it’s a sipper. Recommended if you like: Thirsty Dog - Twisted Kilt, Founders - Dirty Bastard, Heavy Seas - Winter Storm, Roundabout - Rusted Route,Yard’s - ESA

3. Coronado | Bobble Head Red IPA 8.0% - Red IPA - coronadobrewing.com

Full disclosure, I will literally buy any beer that calls itself a Red IPA. I know, I know, the grandfather of West Coast IPA says crystal malt and citrusy hops don’t mix, but until he gives me a couple hundo a week to tell my tastebuds else, I’ll drink what I want and when I want too. And hey, while we’re at the full disclosure moment, breweries could throw IPA on anything right now and most of us would buy it. Because they are and we are. Alright, enough industry rambling. This is damn fine looking beer, deep garnet red and all those sweet dextrinous malts have laid a sweet pillow of creamy head atop the glass. Little hint of sweet malt on the nose before the spring pine and pineapple hop aromas dominate. Velvet on palate, sweet caramel and candied apple sweetness before the pungent pine and mango hop flavors take over. For years I’ve personally struggled to find the “pine” hop flavors, the finish on this is exactly what I’ve always thought I never tasted. Pine. Like a candy coated Christmas Tree. Recommended if you like: Victory - Hop Devil, Green Flash - Hop Head Red (RIP), Lavery - Imperial Red Ale, Grist House - Camp Slap Red

4. Spoonwood Brewing Co. | Smoke & Oats

5.5% - Smoked Lager - spoonwoodbrewing.com

“You and I are among the 30 people in the world that like smoked beer,” she said when I ordered this. Sure, I love a good smoked beer, but come on, there have to me more of us than 30. At least 45. I don’t get the hatred anyway, what’s wrong with a beer that tastes like bacon, or kielbasa or some other delicious smoked foods? Smoked flavors may be all the rage in porters and stouts, but over in Bamberg Germany, the smoke goes into the lagers, the hefe weisses and the bocks. Spoonwood

over there in the fairy tale land of Bethel Park have taken inspiration from that Northern Bavarian town to create Smoke & Oats. Pours a deep amber color with meringue-like off white foam. Subtle smokiness on the nose from the Beechwood smoked malt with lesser notes of caramel and red fruit. Rich creamy mouthfeel from the added oats, the smoke surely dominates the flavor profile but the slightly sweet character keeps things from swaying into the acrid territory. It’s almost grilling and smoking season, choose your growler wisely and become one of the few, the proud, the smoked beer enthusiast. Recommended if you like: Schlenkerla - Helles, Stone - Smoked Porter, East End - Smokestack Porter, Dark Horse - Fore Smoked Stout

5. Church Brew Works | Millennium Triple 9% - Belgian Style Triple - churchbrew.com

Lost in the sea of a new brewery opening every other week in this fair city of ours are the ones that got us here. Penn, Church & East End blazed the local trail long before any of us knew what a food truck roundup was.What’s that you say, nothing exciting from them? Well, obviously winning a Bronze Medal at the 2015 Great American Beer Festival is much lamer than your Employee of the Month Award at Dollar Bank. So I’ll just write this for myself then. Fine. That’s fine. Belgian Triples are a style I love to hate mostly, too many of them end up too boozy, sweet and tough to drink. Dry and drinkable is a tough thing to manage with 9% beer. Church absolutely nails it. Deep golden pour with lots of that sticky, rocky white foam. Candied peach, fresh cut hay and caramelized banana aromas bounce out of the glass. Light and spritzy on the tongue, slight herbal hop bite up front fading into candy sugar, ripe tropical fruits and fizzy carbonation to clean up the finish. Fantastic stuff. Recommended if you like: Unibroue - La Fin Du Monde, St. Bernardus - Triple, Fat Heads - Head Trip, Victory - Golden Monkey, Hitchhiker - Avenue of Giants

6. Arcadia Brewing | Porter Rico 5.5% - Coconut Porter - arcadiaales.com

Love it or hate it, 2016 is the year of fruity craft beer. Tangerine IPA, Watermelon Gose, Grapefruit Radler, Blueberry Stout. I can’t wait for the first “What Fruit Flavored Craft Beer Are You?” Facebook meme. Someone get on that, it’s gold Jerry! Anyway, Oskar Blues made noise last year with Death By Coconut, an over the top coconut and chocolate porter. So naturally, there’s room on that bandwagon. Whereas Oskar Blues went decadent candy bar in a glass, Arcadia has taken things to the drier side. Big whiff of a freshly cracked coconut when you pour it, a few hints and suggestions of dark chocolate and roasted malt too. Just an impressive display, like pureed coconut flesh with a light dark chocolate crust, some slight bitterness mid palate. Over the top coconut. Love it or hate it. Recommended if you like: Oskar Blues - Death By Coconut, Ballast Point Coconut Victory At Sea, Spoonwood - Witchtripper Porter

7. Penn Brewery | Märzen Sure everyone loves to talk about the German Beer Purity Law of 1516, but what about the 1553 decree that beer couldn’t be brewed between April 24 & September 28? No one wants to talk about that silliness, do they. Born out of that limitation was the Märzen Bier. Originally brewed strong enough to be cellared and consumed the entire summer and the remnants drained at end of summer festivals that pre-date Oktoberfest. Times have changed, instead of limiting when you can buy beer, glorious leader state of Pennsylvania just says you can’t conveniently buy beer. Ever. That’s another article for another time. The Märzen lives on, though probably lighter and weaker than it’s predecessor. Penn brews theirs as a celebration of Springtime activities, St. Patrick’s Day, Mardi Gras and the return of green earth. Much like their Oktoberfest, Märzen is true to their German heritage, deep amber color, toasty German malts and a clean snap of herbal German hops. 2016 also marks the 30th Anniversary of Penn Brewery and they do have that nice little Biergarten for proper outside enjoyment. Is it Spring yet? Recommended if you like: Hofbrau - Oktoberfest, Sierra Nevada - Oktoberfest, Victory - Festbier, Duck Rabbit - Märzen, Sly Fox - Oktoberfest

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5.5% - Märzen - pennbrew.com

cooking with beer Insurrection AleWorks, The Invisible Swordsman

mussels & shrimp By Mindy Heisler-Johnson

Start your prep…

s the newest brewery within three miles of my house, Insurrection AleWorks has become a regular stop for The Husband while out running Sunday errands. On one of those random 60° Sundays he brought home a growler of The Invisible Swordsman, a citrusy, dry saison/farmhouse style ale. One sip and he was headed back out for some mussels, shrimp and fennel. This style, and this one in particular, taste like spring to me. Time to lighten and brighten things up a little. If you can get your hands on this Saison or a similar one at Insurrection, please do, but if not any dry, not heavily hopped saison or farmhouse ale will be a perfectly delicious substitution. The bright citrus and grassy wheat notes are what you are looking for. This is a dish that is impressive once finished, but honestly, outside of a little knife work, pretty easy to prepare. The very most important part is to NOT over cook your seafood. I show you how in the procedure, cooking the mussles and shrimp perfectly then finishing your sauce; follow it and what you will end up with a dish you’d be happily served at your favorite restaurant. You can pair this with sides for a meal for four or just the seafood for a somewhat gluttonous feast for two. The sauce amounts will work for up to twice the seafood, so feel free to play around with amounts of seafood.

CraftPittsburgh | Issue 24

You can also play around with the kinds - clams are delicious and would be added for a couple minutes before the mussels we added to the pot, fish would be cut into chunks and poached with the shrimp, crabmeat added at the very end just to be warmed up and not obliterated, crab legs steamed last while the sauce reduces. The steamed seafood pot idea is a versatile one, and this particular beer sauce divine with just about any fish or shellfish you can think of. 2lbs mussels, cleaned 1½lbs 16-20 shrimp, peeled & deveined* 4 Tbsp butter 1 bulb fennel, julienned 1 sweet onion, julienned 1 clove garlic, minced Salt & black pepper Juice of 1 orange, fresh squeezed Juice of ½ lemon, fresh squeezed 12oz Insurrection AleWorks Saison 4 Tbsp butter, softened * If peeling your own get 16-20, if buying pre-cleaned get 21-25. Same difference. 34

• Clean the mussels - place in a bowl with cold water and agitate well. remove all that float to the top and remove and beards (stringy stuff on them) and place in a clean bowl lined with paper towels. Pick through any that don’t float. If they are whole, sealed and smell fresh debeard and add to the cleaned bowl. Discard any broken shelled or open ones. Always buy the freshest possible mussels and use as soon as you can. In a 2lbs bag I usually lose less than 6, most to breakage. • Peel and devein your shrimp. Also place on a towel to dry. And for the love of humanity remove the tails. No one wants to deal with that while eating. • Remove the fennel fronds (save them for garnish if you want), cut the bulb in half, remove the core (like cabbage) and julienne. • Julienne the onion, mince the garlic, juice the orange.

Start cooking in a Dutch oven or large saute pan with a lid. Have your serving vessel ready, a slotted spoon or spider and a spoon to stir. This takes less than 15-20 minutes from start to finish. Make sure your sides are ready or going to be ready in this time frame. Roasted or boiled potatoes, jasmine rice, roasted broccoli - all delicious! Crusty Bread for sauce sopping - required! Melt the butter over medium high heat and add the onion. Cook for three minutes, until it starts to soften and smell sweet. Add the fennel and cook for two minutes then add the garlic, season with salt & pepper, and cook until the fennel and onions are sweet smelling and taking on a little bit of color. Add the mussels and toss to coat with the vegetables. When the pan is hot again add the beer and juices, stir it all up, turn the heat to high and cover - letting the mussels steam for four minutes. Check at this point and see if they are starting to pop open, if not cover for another two and check again. As they open - this is when the are cooked, you HAVE TO save them from over cooked rubber and get them out- remove them from the pot and place in the serving dish with the slotted spoon, leaving as much juice in the pot as possible. Discard any that do not open of their own accord at this point. Cover with a piece of foil to keep warm. Bring sauce back to a simmer. Add the shrimp, season withz a touch more salt and pepper and poach at a simmer - letting the sauce reduce while the shrimp cook. As the shrimp cook remove them from the pot and place with the mussels. Bring sauce back to a hard simmer. Let the sauce reduce until the bubbles thicken, then whisk in the remaining 4 Tbsp of softened butter - thickening the sauce. Pour over the cooked seafood. Devour with some sides or just a loaf of crusty bread!

e s i t r e adv

! R HEE

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home brewing Written by Jack Smith, photo by Malcolm Frazer

Black Stuff The

BREWING DRY IRISH STOUT

CraftPittsburgh | Issue 24

ast March after we published a homebrew article declaring that you should brew schwarzbier (black German lager) instead of Irish stout for St. Patrick’s Day, we received literally some number of letters about it. “Dear so-called Craft Pittsburgh, how can you publish an article in March about brewing black beer and not write Irish Stout?” So that got us thinking: how hard could it be?

It turns out that brewing a good Irish Stout is both rather simple and quite tricky. The beer is a simple session ale made with few ingredients, but like so many classic styles the difficulty lies in getting the proportions right and dialing in the processes. There’s nothing wasteful about the malt bill. Three ingredients: base malt for fermentables, flaked barley for body, roasted barley for flavor and aroma. No crystal malts, no chocolate malt, no black malt, no adjuncts, no nothin’. The best base malt I have found for this beer is Stout Malt from the Malting Company of Ireland. If you can’t find it, other British Isles cultivars work pretty well - Maris Otter, Golden Promise, Halcyon, what have you. Hop aroma and flavor are very, very low - if detectable at all. Use whatever British-like hops you have on hand - EKG, Fuggles, Challenger, even Willamette - and only as a bittering addition. Avoid using any American or New World hops; they’ll seem out of place in this beer. WLP004 or Wyeast 1084 (Irish Ale Yeast) is the obvious choice to ferment

this beer. It’s the Guinness strain.You can sub out any relatively clean fermenting, highly attenuative English, Scottish, or American strain if you can’t get your hands on Irish Ale Yeast. But do yourself a favor and just pick up some Irish yeast for this beer. It is in the mashing process that this simple beer goes awry for many brewers. The flaked barley, being unmalted, requires a protein rest. Then we want to produce a highly fermentable wort as the beer needs to ferment to dryness. This calls for a step mash. I’ve found rests at 120F and 150F to be perfect. On top of that, my recipe calls for two pounds of roasted barley. That’s a lot! Dark roasted grain is very acidic. When you add this much to your tun it drops the mash pH well below the desirable range for healthy starch-tosugar conversion. You could offset its effect by adding an alkali to the mash: Some people like slaked lime. Some like baking soda. Others use calcium carbonate. Getting the amount of any of those correct is tricky and the compounds you add could alter the flavor of the beer negatively. To keep it simple, I do what Guinness does - leave the roasted barley out of the mash. It doesn’t need to be mashed. It’s only in the recipe to provide flavor and aroma - that dark-roasted, coffee-like character this style is known for. So, don’t mash it. Steep it separately. Make “coffee” from it and mix the coffee into the wort in the fermenter just before you pitch your yeast. By

doing this, you can forget about all the tricky and annoying carbonate additions necessary to offset the roasted barley’s acidity. Note, though, that the remaining grains (base malt & flaked barley) probably don’t have enough acidity to bring the mash pH low enough. A high mash pH is much simpler to fix than a low one - just add acid. 10% phosphoric acid is available at all homebrew shops. To keep things simple, add it at a rate of ½ tsp per ten gallons of strike/sparge water if you’re using distilled or reverse osmosis water. Your mash pH will fall nicely in line around 5.3. If you are using city or well water, you’re on your own to figure out how much to use. I use RO; it makes things easy.

some of the gummy, gelatinous beta-glucans that might cause a stuck mash. 150F is a mediumlow saccharification rest temperature. Used in conjunction with the 120F rest it produces a highly fermentable wort that will yield a dry beer.

Once the mash is done you’re home free. Boil, chill, blend in the roasted barley “coffee,” ferment, serve. If you have a nitro setup, even better! I don’t have one, but this beer does just fine with plain old CO2. Sláinte!

Yeast/Fermentation

Irish Stout

Batch Size: 5.25 gal. Boil Time: 60 minutes OG: 1.043 FG: 1.010 ABV: 4.33% IBU: 36 SRM: 45 Difficulty: A dvanced (all grain) / Easy (extract) *Assuming 60% brew house efficiency

Grainbill

7 lbs. Irish Stout Malt 2 lbs. Flaked Barley 2 lbs. Roasted Barley (steeped separately) *Extract Brewers: Replace the Stout Malt and Flaked Barley with 4.5 lbs. Extra Light DME. There’s no extract substitute for flaked barley, so your beer won’t have quite the same soft body as the all-grain version, but DME provides a bit more body than the equivalent mashed base malt so things even out somewhat. Steep the milled roasted barley in a muslin sack for 30 minutes at 150F. Remove grain sack from pot, allowing all the good stuff to drain into the pot before discarding. Turn on the heat and add your DME. Boil, chill, top up with water however you normally do.

Hops

50g EKG (5.7% AA) @ 60 minutes

Mash, Boil, Steep

Two-step temperature mash with rests at 120F for 15 minutes and 150F for 60 minutes, then ramp to 168F for a mash-out before sparging. If you mash in a cooler, dough in at 120F at one quart per pound, then add enough boiling water to raise it to 150F after 15 minutes. Hold for an additional hour before sparging. The protein rest at 120F breaks down some of the bigger proteins, creating more smaller head-forming proteins. It also aids in lautering by breaking down

As mentioned above, WLP004/Wyeast 1084 is the best yeast for Irish Stout, but you can sub out any English, Scottish, or American strain that ferments relatively clean and is known for moderate-to-high attenuation. Even though this is a small beer, I still recommend making a yeast starter – because making a starter makes every beer better. ¾ of a liter if you have a stir plate, or 1.5 liters if you don’t. Aeration/Oxygenation: Aerate or oxygenate well using your favorite method – plenty of oxygen helps promote healthy yeast growth and reduces lag time. For a small beer like this, I go with 45 seconds of pure O2. Fermentation, aging, conditioning: Pitch at 64F and allow it to free-rise to 66F. Hold at 66F until it’s nearly done fermenting – about three or four days after the krausen first shows up, then raise it to about 70F and hold it there for about a week or three. This ensures the beer ferments as dry as it can and allows the yeast to clean up all the crap it produced during fermentation – diacetyl, acetaldehyde, etc. Chill the beer down to 32F for a couple days to crash the yeast & trub out of suspension, then package and serve as you normally do.

Suggested Pairings

This beer has some very well known pairings and they didn’t become popular for no reason. So grab yourself a big helping of beef stew in a trencher, pair it with a proper 20-ounce pint of your homemade black stuff, and tuck in. Then, the next day, drink it with a reuben or pastrami sandwich. And on the third day, have a big bowl of Irish stout ice cream that you cooked, cooled, and churned back on the first day. If you plan ahead, you could have a multi-course meal: Irish onion soup, stout-braised beef & cabbage, and chocolate stout lava cake, all made with and served with your delicious beer. A homebrewer since 2002, Jack Smith is a National BJCP Judge, the president of the Three Rivers Alliance of Serious Homebrewers, and an active member of the Three Rivers Underground Brewers.

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ST. JACK’S GATE:

While the wort is boiling, put the crushed roasted barley in a muslin sack and steep it separately in two quarts of 150F water for a half an hour. After half an hour, remove grain sack from pot, allowing all the good stuff to drain into the pot and rinse with one quart of 170F water before discarding the sack. Bring this “coffee” to a quick boil and then cover and chill it.Add it to the fermenter just before you rack the main brew into the fermenter.

Follow him on Twitter @whenyeastattack 37

Introducing a beer for arborists, LUMBERJACKS and ANYONE WHO LOVES AN IPA. Piney Spruce Distinct Bitterness

Find Pinedrops IPA near you with our beer Finder at Deschutesbrewery.com