Pittsburgh Breweries: The Ones We Go Back To, and the Ones We’d Skip

Pittsburgh has more than forty craft breweries, which is a genuinely a wild number for a city this size, and the Pittsburgh Brewers Guild does a great job of keeping track of all of them. Their map is the first thing we would point you toward if you want the full picture, and they put out a stamp passport that makes a fun project out of working your way through the list.

What a directory cannot do, though, is tell you where your friends should actually go on a Saturday when they only have one afternoon. That is the part we can help with.

We pulled up the Guild’s list recently just to take stock of where we have actually been, and it turned out we have a lot of opinions. So here is what we honestly think, including the handful we would steer you away from. We left off the places we have never walked into, because we are not going to review somewhere we have not been.

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The Ones We Actually Go To

If you are trying to picture where all of these actually sit in relation to each other, here is the map we would hand you. It only has the places we would send you to, so you can pull it up on your phone while you are standing on a sidewalk somewhere, tap whatever is closest, and go.

Grist House Craft Brewery

Millvale

We’ve been going here for years and is one of our favorite places to spend an afternoon. The beer is consistently excellent, but the real reason we keep going back is the outdoor space. It is enormous and dog friendly, which we LOVE a place where Rome can be included. Grist House is one of those places where you stay 3+ hours because the vibe is so chill, you get caught up in conversation, and the staff is so friendly.

It sits right near the end of the trail that runs up from the North Shore, so you can bike in if you want to make a whole thing of it, (I’ll be honest we don’t bike BUT we see plenty of people do this). The one real weakness is parking, which can get ugly on weekends, but it’s not impossible.

Worth knowing: they have expanded, with additional locations in Oakdale and Butler. The Millvale original is the one we are talking about here.

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Dancing Gnome

Sharpsburg

If you asked Nick to name the best brewery in Pittsburgh, this is the answer he would give you without having to think about it. Dancing Gnome built its whole reputation on hops, and if you like IPAs at all, this is the best tap list on this page hands down. The space is bright and open with a big patio, they have games, and there is usually a food truck parked outside.

One thing to know before you load up the car: it is not dog friendly, even in the outdoor area. We found that out the hard way.

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Two Frays Brewery

Garfield

Two Frays is the kind of neighborhood brewery that other neighborhoods wish they had. It’s small, but they seem to have such a wide variation of drinks, and the taps are always changing. There’s such a big range to it. I can’t believe that they pull it off.

They also have wine and non-alcoholic options, so it’s really nice if somebody in your group doesn’t drink. They can still go and feel relaxed, they’re included, and they don’t have to sit out.

There are also dog treats at the bar, which is super nice. There isn’t a kitchen here, but you are welcome to bring food. There’s plenty of stuff around this area that you could pop in, grab something, and bring it to the brewery with you.

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Lolev Beer

Lawrenceville

Lolev is stripped down and industrial in a way that we find charming and fits the neighborhood it’s located in quite well. If hazy IPAs are your jam, this is a brewery that needs to be on your list because they’re as good as anything else being made in this city

Fair warning that the tap list leans hard toward IPAs and higher ABVs, so if you were hoping for a crisp lager to nurse for an hour, your options are going to be thin.

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Cinderlands Warehouse

Strip District

This is where we go to watch football, and the place is genuinely built for it. The warehouse is big enough that a group of six can actually spread out without shouting across the table at each other, the food holds up, and they run bingo during games, which sounds completely unnecessary right up until you are three beers in and overly invested in whether your card is filling up.

There is a second location up in Wexford if you happen to be north of the city.

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Aslin Beer Company

Strip District

Aslin is the one we point people toward when they’re staying downtown and don’t feel like driving anywhere, because it’s central, reliable, and genuinely easy to get to. It also opens at eight in the morning, since there’s a coffee shop on site, which makes it one of the few places on this list where you can actually start your day.

On the beer side, this is where to go if you want variety, and it’s a genuine paradise if you’re a sour lover. Order the Volcano Sauce while you’re there, because it is far and away my favorite sour of any brewery in Pittsburgh. There’s pinball and an arcade too, if you’re the kind of couple that gets competitive about that sort of thing, and that same setup makes it an easy call when you’re wrangling a big group or meeting up with friends who have kids in tow.

We’ve never actually eaten here, mostly because there are so many unique local spots within a few blocks, but almost every time we’re in the Strip we’re stopping in for at least one pint… or three.

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Southern Tier Brewing Company

North Shore

Southern Tier sits right between Acrisure Stadium and PNC Park, which makes it our default answer for before or after a Pirates game. There’s both indoor and outdoor space, it’s about a five-minute walk from the gate, and they open earlier than most places on summer weekends, so you can get there well ahead of first pitch.

We love this one enough that we’ve actually made the pilgrimage to the original brewery, which sits in Lakewood, New York, in the Southern Tier region the name comes from. The beer to plan around is Pumking, their imperial pumpkin ale at 8.6%, and most places that pour it will rim the glass with brown sugar and cinnamon, which pushes it straight into chef’s kiss territory. Any time we’re on the North Shore we’re stopping in for a pint, game or no game, because the staff is great and the indoor-outdoor setup means you can pick your vibe depending on the weather.

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Spoonwood Brewing Co.

South Hills

Spoonwood is out in the South Hills, which means crossing a bridge and going through a tunnel to get there, and if you know anything about Pittsburghers, you know we don’t cross bridges casually. It sounds dramatic right up until you hit the traffic, at which point it stops sounding dramatic. It’s worth it, though, and we’re going to be honest with you: come here for the barbecue. The beer is good, but the food is better, which is not usually how this goes at a brewery. Most of the places on this list lean on rotating food trucks, so what you eat depends entirely on the day you show up. Spoonwood has a real kitchen, and the barbecue is there every single time.

What we actually do is pair it with Trax Farms and turn the whole thing into an afternoon, which works differently depending on the time of year. The sunflower festival in late summer and the pumpkin patch in the fall are both worth the drive on their own, and then you go eat barbecue afterward, which is a pretty hard day to beat. One thing to know if you have a dog: Spoonwood runs Pups ‘n Pints on Tuesday evenings during the warm months, when you can eat out in the yard with your dog, but Trax Farms doesn’t permit pets at all. You can do one or the other with a dog along, not both, which is why Roman sits this particular day out.

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The Leaning Cask Brewing Company

Springdale

This one is outside the city proper and we want you to drive out there anyway, because it is one of our favorite places in the whole region and almost nobody who visits Pittsburgh ever hears about it.

The beer is really good, which matters, but what sets The Leaning Cask apart is that there is always something on the calendar. They put real thought into their events rather than just throwing a food truck out front and calling it a night, and you can tell somebody there genuinely cares about giving people a reason to show up.

It is also dog friendly in a way that goes well beyond tolerating your dog in the corner. We took Roman to their holiday party and he got his picture taken with Santa Claus, which is exactly the kind of thing we mean about the planning. That photo is still one of our favorites.

They also run a free 5K fun run on the fourth Sunday of every month, which is exactly the kind of thing we mean. Check their calendar before you drive out, because odds are very good there is something happening.

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Cobblehaus at the Falls

Mercer

Cobblehaus at the Falls is a proper drive, a little over an hour north of the city, and we’re recommending it to you anyway, which should tell you something. The taproom sits on a bluff above Springfield Falls, a twenty-foot waterfall, and the building has these big glass walls, so you can sit inside with a beer and just watch it for as long as you want. The beer leans old-world German and Belgian, so expect hefeweizens, Belgian styles, and a rotating handful of pale ales and IPAs, and we’ve yet to order badly here.

It’s genuinely magical in the wintertime, which is not a sentence we ever expected to write about a brewery. There’s a fire going, they bring in live singers and run events through the season, and there’s just something about sitting warm behind that enormous window watching the falls half frozen with snow coming down. It’s one of the most underrated places we’ve been in this part of the state.

Two things to plan around:

1. They don’t have a kitchen, so bring your own food or check whether a truck is on the schedule;
2. Sort out your driver before you leave, because you’re well outside rideshare range out here.

If you want the beer without the drive, the original Cobblehaus is in Coraopolis, much closer to town, and it’s where the beer is actually brewed. We haven’t been to that one ourselves, so we can’t speak to it, but the tap list overlaps. Mercer is the one you go to for the view.

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Pittsburgh Brewing Company

Downtown pop-up

We cannot write this and leave out the people who make the most popular beer in Pittsburgh, Iron City. IC Light lives in our fridge. If you are not from here, IC Light is a straightforward light pilsner and it is what people around here actually drink, at the ballpark, at the bar, at somebody’s cookout. IC Light Mango is genuinely refreshing in summer and is a must-try.

The regular Iron City, which some people around here call Iron Heavy, is harder to find on draft than you would expect for a beer this woven into the city.

Which is the reason to go downtown. Pittsburgh Brewing has a pop-up taproom on William Penn Place with the full lineup on tap, and it is an easy walk from most of downtown and from PPG Paints Arena. We like it, and getting Iron City poured properly rather than cracked out of a can is a different experience.

One honest note: get a draft, not a six-pack. Their packaged prices there run well above what the same beer costs at any bodega a block away.

Also worth knowing, the actual brewery is out in Creighton, about forty minutes northeast of the city, and they run tours and events out there rather than a walk-in taproom. We have not made it, and the honest reason is that it is a long way to Uber and we do not drink and drive, so we have never quite figured out the logistics. If you have a designated driver in your group, the tour is supposed to be good.

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Depends On What You Want

These are the ones we can’t give you a clean yes or no on, and that’s not us being wishy-washy about it. Every place in this section is doing something well, but whether that something matters to you depends on what you’re after that particular day. A few of them pour beer we really like in a location that’s kind of a hassle to get to, and a few are the reverse, a genuinely great place to sit where the beer is just fine. If the beer itself is the entire point of your trip, work off the section above. If you’re picking somewhere to meet up with people or spend an afternoon in a specific neighborhood, these earn their spot.

Strange Roots Experimental Ales

Millvale

Strange Roots is exactly what the name promises, which is both the point and the caveat. They make funky, sour, experimental beer, the outdoor space is great, and it sits right by the trail.

But if you are the person who orders a pilsner every time, or if your idea of a good beer is a cold Miller Lite, this is not going to be your brewery. That is not a criticism of them at all, it is just a mismatch, and we have watched it happen to people we brought along.

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Eleventh Hour Brewing Co

Lawrenceville

Eleventh Hour is in a genuinely cool spot, and if we’re being honest, most of why we end up here is that we can walk Roman down to it. They brew across an enormous range, everything from crisp lagers to hazy IPAs to fruited sours to barrel-aged stouts, and it rotates constantly, so what’s on when you walk in is a bit of a roll of the dice. Some visits we find something we love and some visits we don’t, which is a mismatch between us and a very wide tap list more than it’s a knock on them.

What they’re unambiguously great at is the room itself, and they run a standing rotation of some of the best food trucks in the city. If you’re already in the neighborhood with a dog, absolutely go. If you’re driving across town, there are places on this list we’d send you first.

East End Brewing Company

Larimer and Mt. Lebanon

We know people who love East End, and we’re not trying to talk anyone out of it. Both of their taprooms are out of the way for us, and their beer is on the shelf at pretty much every distributor in the city, so when we want it we just buy it and drink it in our own backyard.

If you live near Larimer or Mt. Lebanon, it’s an easy stop. If you’re crossing town for it, you can get the same beer a lot closer to wherever you already are.

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The Ones We’d Skip

These are all real businesses run by real people, and taste is taste, so take this for what it is, which is our experience rather than a verdict. But if you asked us over a beer where not to bother, this is what we would tell you.

The Church Brew Works

Lawrenceville

The building is kind of cool, but it helps to know what you’re standing in. It was St. John the Baptist, built in 1902 for Lawrenceville’s English-speaking Catholic congregation, and the diocese deconsecrated it in 1993 during the parish consolidations.

The Church Brew Works sat empty until 1996, when it reopened as a brewpub. The original stained glass and vaulted ceilings are still intact, the brewing tanks stand where the altar used to be, the bar is built from salvaged wood off the old pews, and the old parish school out back is where they bottle.

If you’re do decide to go, their popular beers are the ThunderHop IPA or the Pious Monk Dunkel.

Hop Farm Brewing Company

Lawrenceville

Hop Farm has all the pieces of a place we should love, with the pool tables and the big room and plenty of space to settle in for a few hours. It has just never come together for us across a handful of visits, and when you have several other brewing options nearby, it is hard to make the case for staying.

Trace Brewing

Bloomfield

We really want to love Trace, and that is what makes it frustrating. It is in a great location, but the beer just is not that good, and the experience inside has not been great for us either. If you look through what other people have written about it, you will find we are not the only ones who feel that way. We would rather point you somewhere else.

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A Couple We Can’t Send You To

We are not going to review places we have not walked into, and we have not made it to all forty.

Brew Gentlemen in Braddock is the one that stings, because their beer is genuinely excellent and we would have put them near the top of this list. Their taproom is only open for private events now, so there is no longer a way for you to just drop in. If that ever changes we will be first in line.

The other gap that bugs us is Hazelwood, because there is a cluster forming down there that almost nobody talks about. Abjuration, Abstract Realm, and New France are all on the same block of Lytle Street, with Hazel Grove nearby on Irvine. That is a walkable brewery district hiding in plain sight, and we will report back once we get down there.

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How We’d Plan a Crawl

The nice thing is that these cluster together, so you can hit two or three at a time.

Millvale and Sharpsburg is our favorite of the bunch. Grist House and Strange Roots are close enough to walk between, and Dancing Gnome is a short drive from both, which means you can get the best beer in the region and the best beer garden in the region in the same afternoon.

Lawrenceville and Garfield gives you Lolev over on Butler and Two Frays on Penn, both of which are proper neighborhood spots. If you want a truer sense of how people here actually spend a Saturday than anything you will find downtown, this is where we would send you.

The Strip District is the easy answer if you are staying downtown and would rather not deal with parking twice, because Aslin and Cinderlands are both right there. You can add the Pittsburgh Brewing pop-up on William Penn Place if you want an Iron City on draft before a game at PPG Paints.

The South Hills is really a Spoonwood trip, and we would build it around Trax Farms so you have a reason to make a whole day of it.

One thing to watch: a lot of these places are closed Monday and Tuesday, Grist House and Strange Roots included, so check hours before you drive anywhere midweek.

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What to Eat While You Drink

Get a Pittsburgh salad at some point. This is a steak or chicken salad that shows up buried under a genuinely absurd pile of french fries, and you eat the whole thing with ranch. We’re aware of how that sounds. It’s also one of the great regional foods in this country, and I will argue about that with anyone who wants to go. Most of the places on this list serve some version.

Do not leave without eating pierogies. If you are only going to try one Pittsburgh thing while you are here, we would make it this one. They are on menus everywhere and we have genuinely never had a bad plate of them.

On Primanti Bros., we are a house divided. Nick grew up here and would happily eat one every single week. Courtney did not grow up here and tolerates them at best. Our real advice is that you should try one once, because it is a legitimate piece of this city’s history, and then you can decide which one of us you side with.

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One last thing. A few of these are a real drive, and a couple are well outside rideshare range. Please sort out a designated driver before you head out.

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