Over the past eight years the setup of this column hasn’t changed much: Why beer? Why brewing? Why do you do what you do? But the common theme, from Oregon to Kansas to the Carolinas, is the way that a passion for beer builds and rolls forward on its own momentum.
How a label that one East End employee described as “SpongeBob on acid” made it past the feds seems to stump everyone involved in Illustration Ale, a beer created to to showcase local artists and benefit the ToonSeum, a museum of cartoon arts in Pittsburgh.
For Scott Smith, drinking good beer led to brewing it at home, and making 5-gallon batches in the kitchen ended in Smith quitting his job, emptying his savings account and opening East End Brewing, a production brewery in a dilapidated Pittsburgh warehouse.
