East End Brewing Creating A Beer For Each Of Pittsburgh's Over 90 Neighborhoods

PITTSBURGH (Newsradio KDKA) - When it comes to what makes Pittsburgh such a special place to live, it’s the neighborhoods at the heart of it all.

To celebrate all 90ish neighborhoods in Pittsburgh, East End Brewing is debuting a new series of beers entitled “You Are Here”.

The first brew is “Allentown” and imperial Shandy Ale at 7.5 ABV. It is brewed with locally sourced tea from Prestogeorge and lemon juice.

It’s appropriate that the first beer is “Allentown”. East End’s longtime partner Commonwealth Press is opening their new warehouse in Allentown on Saturday where the new beer will be available from 5 to 11 p.m. and will also be available in Allentown from 7 to 11 p.m. at the Allentown Night Market.

“Allentown” will also be available at the Taproom in the Strip District and the Brewpub in Larimer. Each beer that follows will also be available at the two locations.

“This project is a wonderful way for all of us here at EEBC, as well as our GOOD BEER Fans to more deeply engage with our Pittsburgh home, neighborhood by neighborhood, beer by beer.” explains Scott Smith, owner of East End Brewing. “It also lets us get out into the neighborhoods to do more pop-up style can releases, further engaging with the community partners and incredible people we have come to know and respect in Pittsburgh over the last 15 years of brewing here. Pittsburgh has always been our home, and I hope people will take this opportunity to get out of their comfort zones and explore it a bit more deeply.”

Honestly, this is kind of big news. Starting June 1, we're changing some of how we schedule and brew beer, which means more new beers coming your way. As we thought about how to name all these new brews, Scott decided it was time to start an idea that he'd been thinking about for a while: naming a beer after each of the 92 neighborhoods in Pittsburgh. Yep, you heard us. Over 90 new beers. The first beer up is an Imperial Shandy, an ale brewed with locally sourced tea (from Prestogeorge) and lemon juice. The last Shandy we did was several years back, so we bumped up the ABV to 7.5% for this hefty but delicious beer that tastes like summer. We decided to name the first of these ALLENTOWN, after the location of Commonwealth Press, who've been our longtime design partner. Dan Rugh came out to christen the beer during the canning run (and approve the taste of the brew). Allentown Imperial Shandy releases on Saturday June 1 as well, at our taproom and Brewpub but also at TWO locations in Allentown! We'll be serving it at the Allentown Night Market, a local festival with vendors, food, music and beer from 7-11pm. And we'll have some at the Commonwealth Press Warehouse Grand Opening from 5-11pm, both on Saturday as well. And finally, when Dan was here, we had him pick from a growler that has the names of all the remaining neighborhoods, and for the next neighborhood beer, he picked...well, watch the video! . . . #eastendbrewing #youareherebeer #pittsburgh #pittsburghneighborhoods #allentown #allentownpgh #shandy #imperialshandy #pghbeer #pittsburghbeer

A post shared by East End Brewing (@eastendbrewing) on May 30, 2019 at 10:47am PDT

East End will also be changing it’s regular brewing schedule to accommodate the neighborhood beers.

The second beer that will be released after the “Allentown” brew is all out will be Overbrook and Smith tells KDKA Radio’s Lynne Hayes-Freeland each of the over 90 brews will be different!

“Every time we do a new beer it’s going to go through a whole recipe development process and taste panels, determination of what the flavors we have to have in the beer and if they make sense for us and then we’ll be ready to go,” said Smith.

Smith says each neighborhood’s brew will be selected at random by “a different local celebrity, business partner or all-around cool Pittsburgh person.”

Smith adds the process that is expected to take three year or so will take them through neighborhoods they are unfamiliar with and that it will be a great learning experience!

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