Pittsburgh, PA

I'd suggest anything by Draai Laag.

 

Personally, I would suggest avoiding Draai Laag. They mostly make really bad weird pretentious beer under the guise of being "wild by design". At best, each bottle is a high risk proposition. So if you're a gambler or you like weird & gross, by all means rolls your dice with DL.

If you can get into the city, Fat Heads, Brew Gents and Voodoo IMO are musts. Haven't had any Dancing Gnome yet, but am hearing good things.

 

Actually Draai Laag is pretty outstanding, Pittsburgh or otherwise. Really unique and refreshing tart to sour saisons, and some funky. Nothing over the top. Cru, Nanabam, and Indig #1 were definitely the most worthwhile of the 10 or so we had there this month. I think they could continue their growth and do truly great stuff.

Brew Gentlemen has a really unique atmosphere and is all about the hazy, pillowy IPA, but...you probably get quite enough of that in NE. If not, definitely a must.

I have a ton of friends that told me I missed out by not going to Dancing Gnome, so...I think you should go there and report back

I'd avoid Voodoo personally. They're pouring almost exclusively light, pale beers and pretty basic Belgians--which, imo doesn't fit with their branding in any way, shape or form. To them, it's not "stout season" so they won't have anything close to what you've heard about them on draft. Plus the building is scuzzy af.

 

I haven't been impressed with anything from Draai Laag that has made it to distro over here near Philly.

Everything I have had from Brew Gentlement has been fantastic so check them out.

 

@kbuzz is giving you solid advice. Fat Head's, Voodoo, and Brew Gents are highly recommended. Dancing Gnome is solid. Roundabout is consistent as hell and pretty good. Hitchhiker has gotten a lot better in recent months. Avoid Draai Laag and East End. Draai Laag does one beer worth drinking for every 30 they put out and East End is stuck in 2008.

Source: I live in Pittsburgh and he used to.

 

The majority of us in/close to the PGH market would say that Draai Laag ranges from kinda good sometimes to horrifyingly awful most times. To tell an out of towner to seek out DL and avoid Voodoo is comical.

 

Draai Laag is "horrifyingly awful most times." Can we be any more dramatic? Hey, at least it's nice to see that unjustifiably shitting on local breweries is no longer exclusive to Ohio threads.

Regarding Voodoo, we are talking about the Homestead location, yes? I'm genuinely curious, what is there to like about that place? I'll grant that the Erie location is head and shoulders above the Homestead location and I actually enjoyed myself there, but the beer selection is the same--that is to say lackluster at best, unless you're excited about beer-cocktails, because they sure do have plenty of actual orange juice.

 

I live ten minutes away from Draai Laag. I'm gonna guess I've had quite a few more experiences with them than you have. Really nice folks, but Dennis seems to think that it's charming to never admit a mistake and never not release a beer even when it's awful. It's not charming, and they put out a lot of really bad beer. That's not to say that their beer is never good, but if you go there on any given day, a minimum of half the beers available probably won't be very good.

I'll give you that Voodoo's day to day offerings don't excite me, but I don't rec places solely on what excites me. Plenty of people both love the beer there and the space. For an out of towner visiting Pittsburgh and wanting a sense of the scene, it's a perfectly worthy place to visit. Especially considering it's vicinity to Brew Gentlemen.

 

I'll give you that, it's close to the far superior BG. It's also close to a bustling shopping area that has plenty to buy if that's of any interest to OP.

I do not support breweries that put out beers that aren't up to snuff, and I will admit, I did have one beer while I was there that seemed like it maybe was not what it should have been, but who am I to assume what the vision was? Sometimes funky beers are off-putting, especially to those with less experience tasting them (and I'm not saying that's you). But that was 1 out of 6 beers, the other 5 were far better than many other beers of the same style in the Great Lakes/Appalachian area. And you can get a wide range of bottles on location. There really aren't too many options in this region, and even fewer taking the risks DL are.

I think we're getting away from OP though...is there any chance for any limited releases from some of the more hyped places, or should he just focus on getting a couple of growlers?

 

Taking risks is one thing, but a seaweed/oyster/caviar gose? The hardest of passes.

But I digress. No releases, but Brew Gentlemen has several really good offerings on this weekend including Akamai, Momo and Shoshin. Dancing Gnome currently has Exquisite Beast on tap for growler fills. They released cans this week and they sold out in 35 minutes.

 

The DL shit-piling is most definitely justifiable.

blue cheese beer, ice cream beer, banana beer, raddish beer, treasure chest beer, drain pour scotch BA BWs, oyster/seaweed caviare nonsense, countless high ABV sours, inconsistent "flagship" beers.

DL is a fucking joke.

 

Seriously, that's not just unnecessarily harsh and myopic, that's more than a little ridiculous.

There are people that line up for hours for beers that use exactly those additional ingredients and inspirations, or else trade half their cellars to obtain them. I would love to see what a radish sour is like, but could guess it might be exceptionally spicy. I actually tried the Nanabam, there was hardly any banana in it at all, it actually had a real nice tart twang to it. Brought two bottles home.

The thing about adding fruit to a wild or saison is that fruit usually has a lot of natural bacteria, flora or yeast on it that may not be found elsewhere. The fruit itself can add character, but the bacteria found on it can often add more to the characteristics that the base house yeast already provide.

There's no way to know how these things can affect your own beer unless you try it. So why shouldn't they? Who else is doing this in Pittsburgh, I mean really?!

Now, if it turns out horrible, fine, it shouldn't be put on tap. But honestly, I've had way, wayyyyyyyyyyy funkier beers than DL has put out, and some of them I really, really enjoyed. Others, well, the funk can get out of hand.

Also, the Geestelijke bottle I had of theirs was one of the cleanest, yet most well made and complex saisons I've had this year.

I would love to try that gose actually!

Have you never heard of these gems?

Jester King Snörkel
Evil Twin/Two Roads Geyser Gose

They're actually quite fantastic, with the Jester King's being an extremely unusual but oddly quaffable beer, imo. Also, that Evil Twin collab gose has had a few professional critics/reviewers gush over it to the point of obsession.

At BG right now, my favorite was their Overgrowth, which was a huge surprise. Brought a couple growlers of that home. Can't go wrong with General Braddock either.

 

There's a reason for that.

 

Two dopes who don't even live in Pennsylvania arguing about a Pittsburgh brewery? What a time to be alive.

Top 5 beer things OP should do to enjoy their visit:

1. Drink Head Hunter
2. Bring your own local beer
3. Drink Head Hunter
4. Drink Head Hunter
5. Make a slight detour to Vermont for beer on the way to Pittsburgh

 

Well now I want to go to Drai Laaag just to see which side is right.

 

Nice work recommending an Ohio brew and steering them away from enjoying anything local Making me feel better and better every second about our Ohio beer community.

 

You should stick to providing Ohio beer community recommendations. Your Pittsburgh suggestions aren't very good.

 

Nah, they're just fine. Not my fault Pittsburgers dislike saisons and sours, and especially those out of a brewery that goes out on a line to try something new. I don't need my username to state "Pennsylvania" under it in order to have likely had more of Draai Laag's beers than you have. This past month wasn't my first experience with them over the past couple years, and won't be my last. It's up to the OP to determine if it's the kind of thing they want to try, especially since they are most likely looking for bottles.

And especially since you seem to be completely opposed to OP enjoying anything Pittsburgh related to beer, whatsoever.

 

Dick measuring about how many DL beers you've had? You've got some next level dumb going on. Good luck with that.