Pittsburgh Brewers

Breweries within The City of Pittsburgh & Allegheny County





August 25, 2019: See individual pages for latest date.





About this Work



The intent of this work is to identify every brewery that has ever operated in the City of Pittsburgh and the City of Allegheny, as together they make The City of Pittsburgh that we know today. Breweries outside Allegheny County may be mentioned in a brewery entry for historical reference. They are noted in the Brewer’s Index but are not a part of this work.



Richard (Dick) Ober’s book

Dick Ober, a descendant of the Ober brewing family, and Dr. Robert Musson wrote 200 Years of Brewing in Allegheny County, from 1760 to 1960., Zep Publications, 2015. Their work parallels mine in that we identify the breweries but we have done so by using different methods. We have found information that may not have been found by one another. 200 Years is an excellent book for anyone interested in this subject.





Site Updates



This work is constantly being revised as I continue to find new information or information that causes a revision. I am not sure how to indicate a revision other than the date at the top of each page.





Brewery Listings by Political Location



Breweries within the City of Pittsburgh are grouped by city neighborhood as known by the end of the 20th Century. They are found in the Neighborhoods section of this work. Breweries outside the city limits are in the Allegheny County section by municipality name.



Entries

Breweries are entered in alphabetical order by brewery name. A brewery beginning with a number shall be entered either with the number as a numeric value or spelled-out depending on how it was given in historical documents, e.g.: 14th Ward Brewery, Ninth Ward Brewery.





Identification of Breweries by Third Parties



Breweries have been generically identified in the works of third parties. The author of such work may not have had the actual name of the brewery (or chose to use it) and used the owner’s name or location. This may imply to the reader a false or inaccurate name.





Entry Format and the Regional Count



The Regional Count

The count for the total number of breweries within Allegheny County is shown in the Regional Count page in the Index section. The count comes from an off-line spreadsheet of mine. The regional count is based on a brewery’s physical location. The number of owners are not specifically counted but can be tracked in the brewery entry.





Brewery Ownership





Breweries Known by Different Names

Breweries may be known under the owner’s name more so than the brewery name. This work identifies the brewery name over the owner’s name (unless the brewery name is not known). In this instance the owner’s name may be listed as a reference with a notation. Such listings are not used in the regional count.





Street Names & Ward Numbers



Please be aware that names of streets may have been different than what they are today. I will note the change if I am able to. Streets of the same name that existed in areas, towns or boroughs and Pittsburgh were changed after annexation with Pittsburgh to avoid confusion. Streets on the South Side that ran perpendicular to the Monongahela River were individually named but renamed with a numbering system similar to Downtown and the Strip District.



Pittsburgh and Allegheny City were divided into political Wards but after annexations and mergers, the wards were re-numbers for the entire city. Ward numbers used in this work are old numbers unless indicated.





Street Address



Street addresses have changed over the years and caution is in order when trying to place a brewery. It is common today to number properties with a cross street as a beginning. Properties in the Strip between 12th & 13th Street are numbered 1300, 1201, 1302, etc, but in the 1800’s they were in the mid to high 400’s as the beginning of the numbering system was at the point in Downtown area.





Boroughs and Townships



The dates used for the boroughs and townships are taken from the Hopkins 1876 Atlas, Plate 4: Alleghany County; its Formation, its Cities, Wards, Boroughs and Townships, by W. B. Negley, Esq., of Pittsburgh.





Brewery Verification



Verification of a brewery and material relating to it are verified in a number of ways.



A brewery can be entered on this site by just being identified as a brewery from any other source. It is typically classed as un-confirmed until the reliability of the source can be ascertained. Checking an un-reliable source against a reliable source does this. A reliable source is an original hard copy (or scan of such) showing the name, illustration or the presence of a brewery.



Original sources of material used in this document are:

Hopkins Atlas (scanned and original plates)

Pittsburgh Dispatch (scanned newspaper pages)

Pittsburgh Post (scanned newspaper pages)

Pittsburgh Press (scanned newspaper pages)

Published census records

Published death records

Sanborn Fire Insurance maps

Other material that does not have “cut & paste” material created by others



Material not considered that has content repeated from other documents where the content appears to be suspicious



Historical Accuracy

Written material after a brewery was re-named, sold or closed may have a certain degree of inaccuracy. The writer may have used the name of a brewery as it was know at the time of the writer’s period, but not necessarily the name for the time the writer was referring to.



Newspapers in the late 1800’s printed the names and location of people that applied for a license to sell or serve alcohol. They were grouped by city ward or town and it was noted if they were accepted or rejected. These papers are available to the pubic on-line or through libraries.





Thank You & Reader Feedback



A number of people, including family members of brewers have made contributions to this work. I am re-thinking how I want to acknowledge them and will update in the near future.





Ed at the Nell Gwynne Tavern, London, May 2019



About Ed Vidunas

Creator and editor (11 years) of the newsletter, The TRASH Can, for the Three Rivers Alliance of Serious Homebrewers.



Created Pubnetwork.com: documents bars and brewpubs in Pittsburgh.



Frequent traveler to London: resulting in the Good-London-Guide.com.



Civil-Structural draftsman since 1973.



Appeared on WQED Television, Pittsburgh: A History of Pittsburgh in 17 Objects. Produced by Rick Sebak, June 5, 2014 (first air date). I gave brief responses to questions on the Ft. Pitt Brewing Company and the history of brewing in Pittsburgh.



Keynote speaker at Allegheny City Society Annual Dinner, April 27, 2016.

Talk on the Breweries of Allegheny, Past and Present.



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