UnCapped

from 72 HOURS Oct. 6, 2022

Food

Pittsburgh Brewers Guild

In this episode of the UnCapped podcast, host Chris Sands talks with Jen Walzer, social media chair for the Pittsburgh Brewers Guild, about the craft beer community in the Pittsburgh area. Here is an excerpt of their talk.

UnCapped: So many cities have canceled their Beer Weeks, so it’s pretty cool that Pittsburgh is carrying on with that. It’s fairly new, right?

Jen Walzer: It is and it isn’t. Pittsburgh had a Beer Week, and I think it was on the verge of extinction. Towards the end, it pretty much became just a bunch of tap takeovers at local bars, which is fine, but the Pittsburgh Brewers Guild kind of revitalized it and took it over, and it’s really now a Beer Week ran by the breweries, which is really fun. Each brewery has a feature event of the week. In Pittsburgh we now have 47 breweries on the guild, so we can have up to 47 events.

UnCapped: When a Beer Week becomes just a tap takeover or something barely different than a normal day at a bar or restaurant, that is when the Beer Week tends to stop existing.

Walzer: That’s exactly what was happening here. And we wanted to add a few new elements, like finding a sister city to partner with each year brings a new element and just shows how friendly the beer atmosphere is. Last year, we did a collaboration with Asheville. … This year, Cleveland.

UnCapped: How old is the Pittsburgh Brewers Guild? It’s not super old, right?

Walzer: Right. The Pittsburgh Brewers Guild was started in 2017, so almost five years.

UnCapped: I’ve always thought the beer scene in Pittsburgh kind of lagged a lot of other areas by a good five to 10 years. Once it took off, though, it took off very strong.

Walzer: Yeah, that’s exactly how we feel, too. And it’s just not stopping. We’re seeing more and more breweries opening all the time. Right now, we’re at 47 in the guild; by the end of the year, I’m sure we’ll be close to 50, if not at 50.

UnCapped: What would you say is the No. 1 thing in the Pittsburgh area that breweries would want to see change, from a legal standpoint, or are you able to operate pretty much how you’d like to?

Walzer: Things have really loosened up here, as far as our brewery license and what you can do with it, and I think that’s why you’re seeing a big increase in Pittsburgh. I think we’re all just happy to come out of COVID and be able to operate and have our doors open. For the most part, everything’s working good. I now have a brewery in city limits, so I’m having a lot of fun dealing with that, because there’s a lot more red tape.

UnCapped: Is the Pittsburgh area having trouble with CO2? From what I understand, while it’s definitely a national issue, it seems to be more localized for whether or not it’s a huge issue.

Walzer: None of us have hit that level yet. We’re all very concerned about it. I know for us, personally, it had us take a step back and see what we could do in our production side to recapture and reuse and that kind of thing. I think it’s making us all very conscious about how we’re doing things.

This excerpt has been edited for space and clarity. Listen to the full podcast at fnppodcasts.com/ uncapped. Got UnCapped news? Email csands@newspost.com.