Traveling to Pittsburgh in 2 weeks

Howdy,

As the title says, I will be traveling to Pittsburgh in about 2 weeks and staying for 1 week and I'm looking for some good breweries to check out while I'm down there.

I would prefer more of a brewpub setting where I can bring the lady and child along, but a night out by myself wouldn't be so bad either!

I'm also open to other suggestions from anyone living in the area that knows of some hidden gems in the town that are worth checking out.

Thanks in advance!

Church brew works - if only for the novelty of it. http://www.churchbrew.com/

[I wasn't too wild about their beers]

MC

Misplaced_Canuck said:

Church brew works - if only for the novelty of it. http://www.churchbrew.com/

[I wasn't too wild about their beers]

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That seems.... interesting. I'll put that down as a possibility.

Church Brew Works, Penn Brewery, Rock Bottom, and Hofbrauhaus are all brewpubs within city limits. All have excellent food and good beer for the most part. CBW is the most interesting environment. Penn and Hofbrauhaus are somewhat traditional German settings.

Rivertowne Pourhouse, North Country Brewing, Draai Laag, and Full Pint are brewpubs outside the city. Rivertowne food and beer are eh. NCB has fairly good beer but the environment and food are superb. It is quite a hike from the city. I believe Full Pint is serving pizzas from scratch and their beer is very very good. Draai Laag is a nano that just opened up their pub but I believe they're only open certain days. Their beer is outstanding. Also, Beaver Brewing is a nano outside the city that may or may not have food as of now.

East End, All Saints, and Helltown are the local production only breweries. All have outstanding beer. All Saints and Helltown are a little bit outside the city limits.

There are so many hidden gems in Pittsburgh. Are you interested in must eats, must sees, must drinks or all of the above?

Also, Church Brew Works was named "Best Large Brewpub" and "Best Large Brewpub Brewer" of the year for 2012 at the GABF. They also won gold, silver, and two bronzes at GABF 2012.

All Saints just opened up a nice tap room and started selling pints. The beers they have on now are not their best, but are still good.

Church Brew Works has some great food, and a good dunkel, other than that meh.

Helltown didn't have much set up as far as a taproom when I last saw but that was a while back. IMO the make the best beer in the Pittsburgh area.

There's also a meadery if you're interested. I don't think they have anything on-site, but they have a list of bars that carry it. It would be something to check out if you end up going to Rivertowne.

jags0401 said:

There are so many hidden gems in Pittsburgh. Are you interested in must eats, must sees, must drinks or all of the above?

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Thanks for all that info, ill check out as much as I can, especially the new guys since I'm planning on opening my brewpub early next year.

As far as the hidden gems go, I'm definitely looking for anything and everything the city has to offer. I really like going to the places that are not really well known that will be well worth the visit. Even if it's just a ma and pa shop.

cider: http://www.arsenalciderhouse.com/

Wigle Whiskey https://www.wiglewhiskey.com/

Sharp Edge (top Belgian beer pub) http://site.sharpedgebeer.com/


this is decent:
http://beeradvocate.com/beerfly/city/14


hidden gems? I guess it depends on what you like. There are a lot of comfortable local bars. If you like German style stuff, check out Penn Brewery or Hofbrauhaus. Piper's Pub in the South Side district is a nice Irish pub (they have Laurel Highlands Mead there too, and its good). There's a kagillion bars to walk to from there.

There are brewery bus tours too. A few different ones I think. Here's one. There's a tour scheudled for Friday the 21st.
http://pabrewtours.com/calendar/

Check out Hough's in the Greenfield neighborhood. They have bout 50 beers on tap, loads of bottles, and usually two or three beers from the attached nanobrewery, Copper Kettle Brewing. My favorite brewpub in the City.