Watch This Space...

Something's fermenting; distillation to follow.

See the timer for when we tap the keg and pop the bung.

Happy New Year.

Moving On

There is going to be a major change in this blog.

I'm going to stop writing it...mostly.

I have accepted a full-time position as managing editor of Whisky Advocate magazine, which starts today. Part of the terms of employment were that my writing is to be exclusive to the magazine, so I agreed to stop writing further about beer and whiskey on this blog.

I will still be writing occasionally about personal travel, and since I'm still very much a beer and whiskey drinker, there will be talk about that. But I'll be writing tasting notes and trend analysis elsewhere. An exception was made for the Session Beer Project blog, and it will continue, so there's that.

It's been fun. It's been an education. I thank you all for reading, and I hope some of you will stick around for the next chapter. I'll have some information for you next year about a project I'm currently wrapping up: my first whiskey book, titled Tasting Whiskey, from Storey Publishing, due out next year about this time.

Quick nap before continuing to write more Tasting Whiskey...

The cat's out of the bag...

The rumors you may have heard for months are true: Tom Pastorius is out at Penn Brewery.  Check this local blogger. (Thanks to Brew Lounge's Bryan Kolesar for the link.)

There's not a lot I have to add at this point. I was just in Pittsburgh, and no one wanted to talk about this, except to ask questions: is it true? What happened? Was he forced out? Is it the old owners?

I'll tell you what I know, which is not much. Tom started this business, the first brewpub/craft brewery in Pittsburgh. After some hard work and great beer, he sold part of the business to try to raise capital for much-needed expansion. That didn't go well, and the business almost went under. Tom and some well-monied partners (with some public money as well) managed to get it back before it completely crashed. People were hired, the beer flowed, and the restaurant re-opened. At that point, things get very hazy, and pretty he-said-she-said, so I'm staying out of that. On the far side of that part, we find Tom out of the day-to-day operations of the brewery, not in evidence at all. There will probably be some public bad feelings about this, for obvious reasons.

And yet...the beer continues to flow, good beer. Brewer Andy Rich, two of the new owners, and sales/marketing head Eric Heinauer (who worked for years at Penn) were at my dinner at Bocktown Monday night, very much supporting the beer and promising new stuff. Like what? How about year-round Kaiser Pils, draft now and in 12 oz. bottles in February? How about a rye imperial stout (delish)? How about they bought the building -- something Tom tried to do for years but was never able to do -- and are making improvements already, like creating a new entrance, opening a 2nd floor hall with an awesome iron beam overhead (the Eisenhalle), or re-opening the lagering vaults for a planned barrel-aging program?

My advice -- as always -- is to wait and see before you judge the new owners, the new Penn Brewery. We do owe Tom Pastorius a debt of gratitude; he brought forth a great place, great beers, and some awesome festivals, working against inertia and a constant lack of capital. Great things. And now...it's the next chapter. Read on.