"It's not a stretch to say that Pittsburgh's burgeoning craft beer industry can look to Tom Pastorius as the man who led the way. Pastorius, the Sewickley resident who founded the Pennsylvania Brewing Co. on Pittsburgh's North Side in 1986, died Thursday. He was 67." http://www.timesonline.com/news/loc...cle_2cd55d0b-7406-50ab-9611-3e05d9d3e5f4.html
Along with HopDevil, Penn Pilsner was one of the first 'craft beers' I was exposed to back in ~1996-1997. I fondly remember those days with my medical school mates and buying cases of it along with Penn Dark and Kaiser Pils. My condolences to his family and friends.
Didn't Stoudt's open before Penn? Penn's beer hit the market first, but the first couple of years they were contract-brewed at Pittsburgh Brewing Co. (along with Samuel Adams Boston Lager at the time. Jim Koch once was quoted implying that some of those early contract-brews coming out of PBC were essentially his SABL recipe.).
I guess there's some room for debate here. I've heard Penn called PA's first microbrewery, but it might be more accurate to call it PA's first "microbrewer", since it didn't have a brick & mortar presence til 1989, & even then under a different name (Allegheny Brewpub).
