A NOBLE PIZZA PIE

Bringing New York to Calgary

Mike Lange isn’t your typical guy who loves pizza. After a long personal “pizza journey,” the proprietor of Noble Pie Pizza has made it his mission to bring high quality New York-style pies to the people.

Lange started making pizza at home like anyone else would, in a conventional oven with store-bought crust. Eventually he started experimenting with homemade crusts, reading up on the work of the world’s most celebrated pizza chefs and paying visits to the great pizzerias of New York whenever he travelled to that city to visit relatives. Lange even spent seven months moonlighting from his day job to work evening shifts at Posto Pizzeria and Bar just to better understand how a commercial pizza kitchen works. To say that pizza became a passion would be an understatement.

After years of treating his family, friends and anyone else lucky enough to be invited over to his home on pizza night, Lange went public with his pizza in August when he launched Noble Pie, a pop-up pizzeria that operates two nights a week out of the Eighty-Eight Brewing Company, a new ’88 Olympics-themed craft brewery in the southeast industrial area on the outskirts of Ramsay. Starting small was an intentional choice.

“Eighty-Eight is an amazing place to launch something like this,” Lange says. “Just to get my name out there and be exposed to a captive audience that’s right in my target range.”

For now, Lange is just doing two different kinds of pizza each weekend. He always serves a classic pepperoni with aged mozzarella, banana peppers, Grana Padano and Pecorino Romano that he calls “The Roni” ($5 a slice or $35 for an 18-inch pie), plus either a rotating special or a cheese and spicy honey pizza dubbed the “Sweet Cheesus” ($4.50 a slice or $32 for the pie). He personally sources all of the ingredients, makes all of the dough, assembles and bakes all of the pies, cooking them in a counter-top pizza oven in the back of Eighty-Eight’s upstairs tap room. It’s a lot of work but, inspired by the great pizza master Dom DeMarco of Di Fara Pizza in Brooklyn who handmade every one of his restaurant’s pizzas for almost 50 years, Lange refuses to cut corners or even entrust anyone else with his product.

Lange also tops his New York-style (that is, large floppy cheese and tomato sauce-laden pieces that can be folded in half ) pizza with uniquely high-quality toppings. His button-sized “cup and char” pepperoni is specially imported through Ezzo, an Ohiobased company that specializes in high-end, collagen-cased sausage that curls and singes around the edges as it cooks. The dough is fermented for two to three days, which is why he can’t simply whip more up when he sells out for the night.

“I won’t rush any of my techniques, ever,” Lange says. “I want to do it right. I’d rather have a business where I’m limited in my capacity than to do a factory train of 700 pizzas a night.”

Noble Pie Pizza is located on the second floor of the EightyEight Brewing Company, 1070 2600 Portland St. S.E. It serves pizza on Friday and Saturday nights from 5 p.m. onward. For more information, visit noblepiepizza.com.

Keeping up with the explosion of Calgary craft breweries is a Herculean task — several new spots have opened over the spring and summer, many of which also offer food. Red Bison Brewery (111, 3016 10th Ave. N.E.; redbisonbrewery.com) opened in the early spring, with a menu full of panini sandwiches, charcuterie plates and other beerworthy snacks. This summer saw the opening of Elite Brewing and Cidery (1319 Edmonton Trail N.E.; elitebrewing.com), a military-themed brewery that offers a selection of pub grub at both lunch and dinner time, as well as weekend brunch.

For something a little more niche, Prairie Dog Brewing (105D 58th Ave. S.E., prairiedogbrewing.ca) opened near the Chinook LRT station this June. That tap room doubles as a Texas-style BBQ joint, with a selection of meats smoked in-house. Alternately, the Marda Loop Brewing Co. (3523 18th St. S.W., mardaloopbrewing.com) does not have a full menu, but it does have a fryer and serves Kennebec potato french fries with a selection of signature dipping sauces. Finally, for an extra dose of fun, check out the Revival Brewcade (1217B 9th Ave. S.E.; revivalbrewcade.com) in Inglewood, which features retro arcade games as well as an array of salty bar snacks, sandwiches and nostalgic desserts.

Let’s move from beer to coffee: local coffee brand Analog, a favourite of Calgary coffee lovers thanks to the popular Analog Cafés at 17th Avenue SW., the Calgary Farmer’s Market, Southcentre Mall and Bow Valley Square, now has products available at Calgary Co-op stores. Analog fans can now buy both bags of freshly roasted artisanal coffee beans and cans of cold brew coffee at all of the city’s Coop locations.

I’d rather have a business where I’mlimitedin my capacity than to do a factory train of 700 pizzas a night.

PHOTOS: JIM WELLS Mike Lange, of Noble Pie, inside Eighty-Eight Brewing company with two of his custom pizzas. The Roni, foreground, features triple pepperoni and banana peppers. The “cup and char” pepperoni is imported from Ohio. The second pizza, called Sweet Cheesus is a five-cheese pizza drizzled with Mike’s Hot Honey Drizzle from Brooklyn, N.Y.

Inspired by Brooklyn’s pizza master Dom DeMarco, Mike Lange insists on personally creating each pizza, from start to finish. He carefully selects every ingredient and refuses to entrust any part of the process to anyone else. “I won’t rush any of my techniques, ever,” he says. “I want to do it right.

Mike Lange drizzles Mike’s Hot Honey Drizzle on a Sweet Cheesus pizza, fresh out of the oven. His Noble Pie pop-up pizzeria serves handmade pies Friday and Saturday nights inside Eighty-Eight Brewing company in the southeast industrial area on the outskirts of Ramsay.