PITTSBURGH, PA — Call it a 40-year-old trendsetter.
Craft breweries are the rave in Pittsburgh these days, but it wasn’t that way when the Penn Brewery opened in the North Side’s Deutschtown’s neighborhood.
Back in 1986, it was one of the first ones to open in the city.
Four decades later, the brewery is marking the momentous anniversary by announcing that it now is open every day of the week.
The brewery began with classing lagers and German beer styles, adhering to the strict quality standards of the 16th-century Bavarian Reinheitsgebot purity laws.
Sixteenth-century purity laws? Who knew such things existed? Not your Patch correspondent, but he was born centuries after that.
The brewery lineup has expanded to IPAs and other contemporary styles like chocolate and pumpkin beers.
Penn Brewery’s restaurant serves “ethnic-Pittsburgh” fare including wurst, schnitzel, pierogi, and goulash alongside contemporary Pittsburgh favorites, like the french fry salad, flatbreads, and sandwiches.