Pittsburgh Postscript

The Pittsburgh trip I'm telling you about -- Red Star, Church, East End, Full Pint, an' 'at -- is, of course, not complete. It's because there are two huge holes in it: Iron City and Penn.

I stopped and stared at the big, silent Iron City brewery Wednesday morning when I was visiting Church Brew Works: the huge graphics coming off the walls, the little sign still saying "Beer Gear Shop." The silence. The cold breeze with none of the huge smell of malt.

When I came off I-279 onto E. Ohio Street Tuesday afternoon, I looked over to Penn, saw the tower, and it hurt to know there was no point in driving over there. No more gleaming brewery, no more schnitzel (no more turkey sandwiches, Sir), no more aromatic glassfuls of Dark. No more gemütlichkeit.

I talked it with a knowledgeable insider who requested anonymity. "You tell me," he said. "How do you kill a successful business, a successful brand, that fast?" Indeed, I said; with Iron City it took repeated cycles of criminal management -- literally (pretty good summation of the whole story, only a couple small errors) -- to do it. We laughed softly, ruefully.

Iron City is being brewed at Latrobe, Penn is being brewed at The Lion. I haven't had any of the 'new' Penn, but I did have a bottle of Latrobe-brewed Iron City. I drink Iron every time I visit Pittsburgh, just something I do, and to me, this tasted just like it always has. But in both cases, it doesn't really matter whether the beers are accurate renditions of what the beers used to be. What matters is what their regular drinkers think, and it's already clear that they are not pre-disposed to think they're the same.

Will something be worked out to return Penn to the brewery, or to a new brewery in Pittsburgh? There was an article in the Tribune while I was out, how Tom Pastorius was trying to round up money and investors to put a deal together...but I don't give it much of a chance. Don't get me wrong: I hope for the best, my fingers are crossed, and if it were to be done -- and done right -- it would have to be with Tom. I cannot imagine his despair in watching the crowning accomplishment of his life crumble and fail, just as I cannot imagine anyone else being able to successfully revive Penn. But there are just too many things against it right now.

If the brewing of Penn does not return to Pittsburgh soon -- and I have no idea how that might happen -- the brand will disappear. Iron City? I'm afraid there is nothing that can save the brand at this point. A terrible waste of heritage -- in both cases -- a terrible waste of years of hard work, a terrible waste of potential.

Hard thoughts on a Saturday morning. I grieve, truly.

Maybe I'm burying Penn too soon. Thanks to a reader for this link to a story in today's Trib; the Urban Redevelopment Authority has authorized a $300,000 loan to Pastorius and his partners. Good news, and while the bottling line is gone, the brewhouse is still intact (I'd thought it was gone, and that's a big plus). But...they still have to buy the business back from Birchmere Capital, and then successfully buy or lease the building again, and that's not going to be easy at all. My fingers are still crossed.

Last Day for Pittsburgh-brewed Iron City

The last Lawrenceville-brewed batch of Iron City beer will be made today. Production will be moved to the City Brewing (no connection) facility 40 miles away in Latrobe, the brewery that once made Rolling Rock...before that iconic Pennsylvania brand was bought by Anheuser-Busch and production was moved to Newark, NJ.

I don't see any way for Iron City to win this. They can't afford to keep brewing in Lawrenceville -- the brewery needs more improvements than sales will allow -- they won't do well as a contracted brew in Latrobe -- the only mainstream beer I know of that ever pulled that off is Pabst, and Pabst was already a national brand, and had to go through the fire before emerging as an unlikely success.

We've lost another pre-Prohibition brewery.

Iron City Brewing moving to Latrobe

Just heard that Iron City Brewing is going to be moving brewing operations to City Brewing's plant in Latrobe, the former Rolling Rock brewery. Canning ops had already moved to High Falls -- er, Genesee, in Rochester (it's so tough to keep up with these name changes), and now it appears all other brewing will be done at Latrobe.

What's all that mean? Well, for the beer itself, not much. That's a good brewery, good staff, they'll make IC taste like IC.

Outside the beer in the bottle, it gets a lot more ... complicated. For one thing, job losses: Latrobe is much more efficient and automated (which will, of course, make brewing and producing beer more efficient and cheaper, and probably more consistent, though the Lawrenceville plant does pretty well on that). For another, money: Iron City owes Pittsburgh a lot of it, still, and most of the debt structure depended on Iron City staying in their Lawrenceville plant. Are they going to skip town? (Probably not, because they're keeping their headquarters in Lawrenceville, but that's going to leave them with a ton of debt.)

But the big deal is...what the hell's Iron City when it's not made in Pittsburgh? It's not your hometown beer any more, is it? A reporter just asked me how I thought things would go for Iron City, and I asked him in return, have you seen much Stoney's lately? Deracinated (consider it a free Word-of-the-Day) beers just don't do well; Rolling Rock's another example that's too close to miss.

I'm not optimistic about this. Iron City's current management has not proved up to the admittedly big job of stopping the brand's slide. I don't know how they're going to convince people that they should buy Iron City again because now it's not made in the Iron City. A bigger job. At this point, it looks like they're planning to Kalmanovitz the brand into the graveyard.

The Pabst Miracle may be their only hope: any bicycle messengers need a new cheap beer?