Holy Thursday: Celebrate Local

I couldn't call my self any form of a Pittsburgh beer blogger if I made no mention of the upcoming celebration that starts tomorrow and runs all of the way until next Sunday. That's correct, folks. Pittsburgh Craft Beer week is primed and ready to roll for it's annual celebration of all the glory of the local craft scene.

If you're in the area, be sure to check out an event or two. The PCBW website is a bit spiffier this year and has a neat searching page that enables you to filter by date, event, location etc. The Real Ale Festival presented by Pipers Pub and the Beer Barge are annual events that are returning once again due to popular demand. There are also plenty of tap takeovers and beer pairing dinners to go around. I'd bet on the fact that the beer dinners are having tickets go fast if not completely sold out already. So, step to.

I usually try to make it to an event or two every year. The two I'm setting my sights on this year are both the Trivia with Tom of Yards Brewing at Hough's Taproom and Brewpub on April 29 and the Beer and Oyster Festival hosted by Blue Dust that will be set under Homestead's High Level Bridge. There will be plenty of music as well as exotic brews to go around. Remember the pumpkin beer festival at the same location? Yes, nothing short of a hit.

The Real Ale Festival and the Oyster Festival both take place on May 3. Real Ale looks to be from 1-5 p.m. while the Oyster Festival is from 2-10 p. m. So, technically you could go to both if you wanted to. It's sometimes all about timing.

The bottom line is we live in a special area when it comes to good beer and food. This week annually acts as a token of celebration or remembrance for that sole fact. I've wasted so much time on this blog writing post after post that beer is so subjective and open for subjective. I'll toss out that notion for this post. We definitely know what we're doing here in Pittsburgh. Let's enjoy it.

Zing

During my first ever visit to D's Six Pack and Dog's in Regent Square at some point last year I came into contact with my first ginger beer. It was Atlantic's Island Ginger. The friend I was with (the always mentioned Beer Snob Sr.) added a bottle of it to his mix and match six pack. I got a rash of text messages a few days later about how great it was.

I hadn't ever had a ginger beer before. I eventually got myself a bottle of the Island Ginger and was fairly pleased with it. It was intriguingly different. My next experience with ginger beer wasn't until last night at Hough's in Greenfield.

Crabbie's Alcoholic Ginger Beer is the UK's top-selling ginger beer and is quite new to the states. It only made it ashore within the last calendar year and has only been native to the Pennsylvania market for approximately six months. I was invited to a tasting party at Hough's and indulged into the world of ginger beer once more.

Tradition has it that the Crabbie's concoction is served on ice with a slice of lemon or lime. As a traditionalist in most respects, I made sure the first drink of this stuff I had was the traditional way of having it. I must admit that it was a refreshing end to the mini heat wave we had here in Pittsburgh over the past three or so days. It has smooth honey taste with some punchy zest from the ginger on the back. It left me with an interesting peppery sensation on the aftertaste.

Hough's also featured some cocktails and a few food dishes to pair with the ginger beer. As a big rum fan, I chose to go with the Dark and Stormy, a Crabbie's with a shot of dark rum. It's amazing how a drink can change with just a minor altercation. The food selections included the likes of wings with a ginger sauce and a pulled pork BBQ with ginger. I chose the pulled pork. I'm also new to attending beer pairing events, but the zing in both the ginger beer and the BBQ sauce combined well.

Keep a sharp eye. I sure will.