SO MUCH TO SAVOR
National beer museum on tap for Pittsburgh
Thousands of Bostonians flocked to Pittsburgh last week to watch the Patriots beat up the Steelers at Heinz Field, right at the scenic confluence of the city's famed three rivers.
New England football fans discovered along the way that this once gritty old steel mill town has transformed itself into a scenic, thriving and sophisticated food-and-drink city that, if local entrepreneurs and city officials have their way, will soon be home to Brew: The Museum of Beer — basically, America's national beer museum.
“Pittsburgh is the perfect location because it's such an accessible city,” said beer museum co-founder Joe McAllister, who sat down with the Boston Herald the day after the game at the Penn Brewery, a Germanstyle beer hall in Pittsburgh's Deutschtown neighborhood. “Forty-five percent of the U.S. and Canadian populations are within 500 miles. We also have strong support from city officials and the beer community.”
Pittsburgh is not only conveniently located, its history offers a perfect microcosm of the history of American beer, said McAllister, an accomplished psychologist who previously founded the Autism Center at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh.
The British army brought English-style ales to Fort Pitt in the 18th century, in the earliest days of the city's settlement, while an influx of German immigrants in the 19th century led to an explosion of small local brewers and sparked America's taste for lagers.
Those small breweries in Pittsburgh were killed off by the combination of Prohibition, consolidation and the World War II-fueled transformation of American food production in the 20th century into a homogenized, continent-wide economy. But with the craft beer revolution, small new breweries have opened all across Pittsburgh in recent years, as they have in most major cities around the country.
Those breweries have helped spark Pittsburgh's recent ascension into a coveted culinary destination. In fact, just last year, Zagat named Pittsburgh its No. 1 American food city of 2015.
“You can go epoch by epoch and the story of beer is fascinating, dating back to the very beginnings of civilization then to the craft beer renaissance of today,” said McAllister. “Beer deserves a museum to tell that story.”
The hard work remains ahead. McAllister and his team are still negotiating for space in Pittsburgh and raising millions in funding. Joe Six-pack can support the project through a crowdfunding campaign (go to brewmuseum. com for more information). But the crew hopes to open Brew: The Museum of Beer by 2018.
In addition to exhibits telling the 10,000-year-old story of beer, the complex will feature its own pilot brewery and restaurant — much of the concept inspired by the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin, which just so happens to be Ireland's No. 1 tourist attraction.