Pittsburgh Craft Beer Week

Some of you might remember that we mentioned that last week was Pittsburgh Craft Beer Week. We were so busy going out and attending events we didn't get around to writing about them. Now that the marathon of beer is over, here's a recap of what we remember happening. This post is going to cover the events we attended through the week. We'll have more posts up soon reviewing some of the beers we drank as well.

Monday

We were lucky enough to get to have one of our close friends, Clare, join us for the evening. We started with heading out to the Sharp Edge Creekhouse for dinner with Finch's Brewing Company. The best quote of the dinner was when Clare asked "What is Craft Beer." (This question prompted my head hitting the table a Dave doing a textbook facepalm.) Finch's is located in the Chicago area, so Clare enjoyed talking to Mike Finch about Chicago. Dave got the special beer dinner that included 3 courses each paired with a beer from Finch's. We also got a rare chance to sample their barrel aged Stache in the Wood. A bottle of their Awesome Cabeza Mexican style lager is now in our queue of beers we need to drink and review. A short review of the beers we tried will be posted sometime soon.

We then made our way over to Rivertowne on the North Shore. They were having a giant Meet the Brewers night. Between the three of us we got to try a lot and meet plenty of really cool people. Jason from Breaking Brews shared his love of both beer and Disney/Pixar movies. We didn't get a chance to talk to all the brewers that were there, but we got to meet the brewer from Draai Laag, as well as a brewer from Penn Brewery who is in the process of leaving the beer industry, but not brewing, to start making mead. I know we're looking forward to visiting him once that gets off the ground. We also got to meet brewers from East End Brewery (who was not a huge fan of all the pictures Clare wanted to take of him) and the Hop Farm, a fairly new brewery. They grow most, if not all, the hops they use. This was a great event and on top of it the Pens won that night.

Tuesday

Philadelphia's own Yards Brewing Company was in town for an event at Hough's in Greenfield (Which is apparently pronounced 'Huffs" for some reason I don't understand). Got some food and played trivia. Let’s just say we are really bad at trivia, like really bad. At least we didn't do too badly at the round that was all about Yards. Hough's is turning into one of our favorite places to go. They have great food and 71 beers on draft thanks to an impressive looking 'tap wall.' Pair that with a nice atmosphere and friendly staff and we'll certainly make our way back there.

Wednesday

We decided to take a break on Wednesday. I was feeling a little burnt out and Dave wanted to play volleyball.

Thursday

We finally made it to Jason's new favorite place, Caliente, to get some Free Will. I had their deliciously sour kriek lambic, which will be reviewed very soon, and Dave had their Chasing the Dragon double IPA. While we were there we overheard another customer saying that this was their favorite place to get pizza in the city. After having their special Philly Cheesesteak pizza, I can see how that could be. Dave griped about it being called a Philly Cheesesteak and having peppers on it, but we both still really enjoyed it. We also got a chance to chat with the brewer from Free Will for a few minutes.

After dinner and a nice chat, we headed toward Independent Brewing Company to meet the brewers from Lavery and East End. Unfortunately the guys from Lavery had already headed home by the time we got there, but we did get to spend some time drinking the collaboration beers from their brewery. While we were there, some fine fellows from Stay Tuned stopped by. We had a great time learning more about their distillery and other endeavors while sipping some of their PathoGin.

Friday

We started our Friday night off at Franktuary, in Lawrenceville, who was hosting Straub. The had a firkin of their IPL infused with mango. We liked Franktuary but the limited menu with mostly hot dogs and poutine along with the fact it's in hipster land makes it unlikely you'll see us becoming regulars.

We made a quick, and by quick I mean grabbed a pint and ran, stop at Caliente in Bloomfield to try a collaboration firkin from Church Brew Works and Apis meadery. Honey I Spiced the Wit was very different, heavily spiced with cinnamon and a nice sweet honey flavor. The firkin aging added a very rounded warm flavor to the brew. With something like this, the spices won't open up until the beer has warmed slightly. We finished off Friday back Hough's for the Great Divide 20th anniversary celebration. They had 20 different Great Divide Brews on tap. This just finalized our love of Hough's. Dave decided to grab the reuben which according to him was "close to, if not the, best reuben I've ever had." It came with chunks of corned beef brisket instead of the usual deli variety. I had the mac and cheese again, and have officially made this my favorite mac and cheese in Pittsburgh. Of course we had a handful of different beers and finished the night with a flight of Yetis.

Saturday

We journeyed out to House of 1000 Beers to try some rare Voodoo Brew. We were discussing some things with Kirt and he admitted to being a big fan of barrel forward beers which really showed in all of the aged beers he made. We got to try The K13 barley wine, Wynona's on cask, Tenacious Wee Scotch Ale aged in Eagle Rare barrels, and the Grande Negro Voodoo Papi in Lairds Apple Brandy barrels. While The K13 was the rarest of the brews, the most interesting was the Grande Negro Papi which is aged with ghost peppers giving it a spicy kick. It was great to see Kirt again and finally check out House of 1000. They have a huge (but not infinite) selection of beers that can be hard to find otherwise.

Sunday

On sunday we decided to make a trip to Caliente for the unofficial end of PCBW bash featuring Stone. We checked out their new downstairs bar and were glad we did. The downstairs has a much quieter, more relaxed atmosphere that better suits our style. While sampling some of the 20 beers from Stone they had on tap, we enjoyed some food and conversed with some of our fellow bar patrons and participated in the debate about the name of the iron horse head mounted behind the bar. (Thor is a much better name than Ginger.) This brought a quiet but pleasant end to the hectic week that was PCBW.

This was a full week; full of fun; full of beer. Thank the kittens it's over. Though I loved every minute of PCBW, there was so much to do and see and taste that it was impossible to do it all. We met a lot of great people and drank a lot of great beer. We're looking forward to doing more of the same all year, just at a little bit slower pace.