It was time for another
Nationals road trip, once again, Pittsburgh's
PNC Park was our destination in hopes of quality baseball and beer. While driving towards the city,
theCompass Winery, Brewery, Distillery Locator Mobile App informed me of several brewery options in the suburbs with
Full Pint Brewing Company the closest. This is a hop head's paradise, plenty of strong IPAs - even a session version. But give me the
White Lightening, a Belgium Wit, that's spicy and refreshing.
Our group had a rendezvous setup at the
Rivertowne Pour House for a late lunch and beer. Rivertowne has an expansive beer selection and you can find their cans (brewed at
Rivertowne Brewing Export, PA) throughout the region. I stuck with samples of their low abv beers - knowing it was going to be a long day and night. A few favorites were the
Babbling Blonde,
Czech-Mate Pilsner, and the
Home Game West Coast Common Lager. The one exception to the low abv rule was the
Bourbon Barrel Aged Baltic Porter, a high gravity porter aged in used bourbon barrels. Hot, but also creamy with soft vanilla notes.
Pittsburgh is a tailgating town, and even for a night game it starts early; cars started rolling in at 11:00 am - the same time some of the bars opened. My favorite Pittsburgh beers were from
Draai Laag Brewing Company, where a couple are available at the
The Beer Market. This brewery specializes in unique Belgian inspired ales, many of these sours - which nails my current flavor profile. One of these is the
R2 Koelschip,
an American Wild Ale style beer, perhaps not as wild as the name suggests but still some funk, brett, and mildly tart. But my go to beer was the
Geestelijke Farmhouse Ale, on draft, and first fermented using open spontaneous fermentation. The wild yeast strain was later determined to be the Wild Angels strain. This beer is yeasty, tart, with a lemon profile. Next visit to Pittsburgh, I'm hitting this brewery first.
Uber is a great transportation medium for visiting city breweries and it served as well on this day. Four trips cost about $25 total, with the first leg taking us to
Roundabout Brewery. A bartender at the Beer Market had recommended this brewery since they don't sell outside of their tap room and have a New Zealand flair - particularly the meat pies. I tried to remain in the low ABV range and choose the
Berliner Weisse and
Kolsh. The later was quite unique with the use of Lemon Drop hops adding a more citrusy component to the otherwise very clean beer. Their Berliner Weisse nailed the style: tart, light and refreshing with more lemon citrus. My companions went with the IPAs with the Pacific Ring IPA their favorite - brewed with Cascade and new Zealand Nelson Sauvin hops.
Out next destination was
Church Brew Works, and this is a destination, in addition to be a brewery and restaurant. It is located in a 100+ year old former St. John the Baptist Church, a historical building where they kept most of the original interior and exterior intact. It is quite impressive, particularly the stained glass windows, spirals, and altar. And since our group consisted entirely of Catholics, a must visit. The brewery's
Celestial Gold Pilsner and
Pious Monk Dunkel are available throughout the city and at PNC Park, and showcase the German styled leaning of this operation. The hop head in our group went with the
Thunder Hop IPA, brewed with nearly 3lbs of Australian Galaxy and American Chinook per barrel of beer. For me, it was another
Berliner Weisse, this one still citrus but more of a grapefruit flavor than lemon.
Our final stop was the highly recommenced
Wigle Whiskey. It seems that everyone we talked to praised this distillery, so off to the Strip District for us. The distillery is named after Phillip Wigle, who "defended his right to distill in a tussle with a tax collector. He unwittingly helped spark the Whiskey Rebellion, which pitted Pennsylvania distillers against George Washington's troops". As the story suggests, they specialize in whiskey, in particular, rye whiskey using Pennsylvania grown Monongahela Rye. There is also plenty of experimenting occurring at Wigle with the whiskey aged in different oak barrels such as Apple Wood, Cherry, and Maple. Tastings are conducted through various flights of 1 ounce pours of four spirits; and we went with the Aged and Experimental flights. The Aged Spirits flight consisted of the
Organic Allegheny Wheat Whiskey,
Organic Monongahela Rye Whiskey,
Organic Barrel-Rested Ginever, and
Barleywine Barrel-Rested Ginever. We definitely preferred the whiskey over the gin, with the rye slightly ahead of the wheat. For the Experimental flight, we sampled the
Organic Wheat Whiskey Finished with Maple Wood,
Wry Rebellion Whiskey,
Four Grain Whiskey, and another version of the
Barleywine Barrel-Rested Ginever. The Wry Rebellion was a favorite with the spirit based on a lower rye mash and finishing in a once-used Wild Turkey Bourbon barrel. This is a very smooth whiskey, full of honey and vanilla notes. The Maple Wood was also quite nice - with a slightly sweeter profile. The recommendations were correct, Wigle is a must visit.
Cheers to Pittsburgh breweries and distilleries.
Kegg Brewing Company is the most unique nano-brewery I have visited in recent memory. The brewery is located in the basement of a house, located along a narrow country road southeast of Pittsburgh, and with two guard dogs announcing your arrival. And the tasting room area is confined to any open space between the tap lines and the brewing equipment.
That being said, Frank created a half barrel brew house in his basement built around four one barrel fermenters. The raw materials consist of as local as possible grain, hops, honey, fruit and well water as the base. The tasting area? In cold weather, any open space around the fermenters and mash barrels. In warmer weather the garage doors open for driveway sipping.
That may be unique enough for most but the special part doesn't start until visitors begin sampling in the basement and spend the next hour talking to Frank. The diverse beer styles only enhance the conversation. They are not only really solid beers but the range in styles are once again unique. Our tasting started with a Cranberry Blonde Ale, followed by a Winter Ale - based on a red ale, a Coffee Porter, Pumpkin Stout, Coconut Stout, and standard IPA (as opposed to a Hoppy Bolbat IPA and Death by Hops IPA). This IPA seemed a fan favorite and was very smooth with a seamless transition from the drop hopped induce aroma through the dense beer to the bitter finish. I enjoyed the Coffee Porter and the Coconut Stout - the later the result of a flawed attempt to craft a Chocolate Coconut Stout - but I thought was fine as a stand alone. And I think my palate is turning towards coffee flavored beers.
