USA, PA: Cinderlands Beer Co. to open second brewpub in Lawrenceville
Everything about Cinderlands Beer Co. is small and handmade with care: the beers, the food, the snug, lovingly-restored storefront on Butler Street in Lawrenceville, the NEXTpittsburg reported on March 4.
But the beer company will soon open a second brewpub in a much bigger space, formerly occupied by Spaghetti Warehouse, in the Strip District.
Right now, its a pile of bricks and rubble with only a few walls remaining. That was all that was salvageable, says owner Jamie Warden. The rest of the building was falling down. Our goal is to use as much brick and woodwork from it as possible.
The current Butler Street Cinderlands, which opened in late November last year, seats up to 80 or so and is often packed. On warmer days, like a recent Tuesday in February, the front window opens to become a bar with four barstools attached.
The new spot will hold a lot more, with 300 seats. Thats two separate breweries in two adjacent neighborhoods, just 11 blocks apart.
We run through beer quickly, explains Warden. So we can experiment with a lot of new things. Well have several taps that are coffee and tea-inspired and more wild styles, sour beers, farmhouse saisons.
For the moment, their specialty is modern, bright beers, notes Paul Schneider, Cinderlands head brewer.
Beers with a pop to them, he says. Beers that focus on a couple of distinct flavors. Its why theres orange peel and a really bright coffee in Blazing Crude, a stout.
Another stout, Midnight Ramble, features blackberry and raspberry, and layers of espresso and vanilla bean. On the lighter side, theres bright and lemony Gypsy Hollow Gose.
Like most brewers, Schneider started out as a homebrewer. He had a solid career as a high school history teacher in Chicago until a beer blog that he started took off and drew him to the craft brewing scene.
Unlike a lot of brewpubs, Cinderlands food menu, which changes frequently, isnt an afterthought.
Its elevated, but not fussy pub food, says Schneider.
Were going to have ramps, rhubarb, asparagus, English peas, says chef Joe Kiefer, whos excited for the weather to change. I like whatevers fresh and tasty. Who wants to eat carrots that taste like nothing in mid-winter?
Beer turns up throughout the menu in dishes like the spent grain chicharrones made with spent grains from the brewing process or the pastrami sandwich, which features beer bread and beer mustard, along with fontina cheese, soured radicchio and pickled peppers.
Theyve got a nine-course beer dinner coming up, featuring a pig thats been raised on a nearby farm, fed on their spent Cinderlands grains. According to Kiefer: Its going to be a big pig.
As for the brewerys name? Its a nod to Pittsburghs industrial past.
When the furnaces were firing, cinders would blanket the city, says Schneider. Youd go outside and see piles of cinders everywhere, some still burning.
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