Poured in Pennsylvania

10,000 years ago, we were all nomads.

You know, wandering around

doing that hunter gathering thing.

So why does anybody get into the backbreaking work

of farming and work 60 or 80 hours a week?

And the answer is, to grow barley and make beer.

Brewing started in Pennsylvania really early.

It goes back to the 1600s.

Pennsylvania brewers were much like the brewers in Europe,

I mean that's where their conditions came from.

They largely brewed ales, nobody really called 'em ales.

They just called 'em beer, and we took to it.

You know, with a German background,

they started doing it immediately.

So that got big in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania brewers were renowned.

Frederick Lauer up in Reading

was literally beloved by the entire national industry.

Between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh,

there's a whole lot of history in beer,

whether that's founding fathers and their influence in beer,

or the contribution of beer in war in Pennsylvania.

The revolution was planned

in various bars around the city.

One of William Penn's first priorities

for the colonists to build

before he arrived in the state was to build a brewery.

So that was one of the first civic buildings,

was actually the Governor's Brewery.

The first lager in America

was made less than a mile from here.

John Wagner smuggled lager used from Bavaria

and brewed in Northern Liberties.

I do believe it was John Adams who was from New England

and was a big cider guy.

When he wrote his wife once, he said,

"When I'm in New England I drink cider,

"when I'm in Philadelphia I drink beer."

Pennsylvania brewers as Pennsylvania brewers

had a major status in American brewing.

You know, even today, we do pretty well.

As the Brits say, Pennsylvania punches above its weight.

We're not that big a state,

we're certainly not that hip a state, unfortunately,

but when it comes to beer, yeah we are.

Coal had been discovered in this area

from Pottsville through Scranton in Central Pennsylvania

as the Anthracite Coal Field.

When they started mining the coal, they needed miners,

and D.G., my great-great-grandfather, he realized this,

and he also realized that Pottsville

had the good water supply,

it had a mountainous terrain for him to build his brewery

because there was no electricity at that time.

We beat electricity,

and he found his way into Pottsville

and it was about 1,500 to 2,000 people at the time,

but it was growing, and it was growing,

and this is where he built his brewery

and it's still here today.

Well, when Prohibition was enacted they made regular beer,

but took the alcohol back out of it.

There was a machine in there when I started,

and called the de-alcoholizer

and they'd run the brew through this machine

and it took the alcohol out and you sold near beer,

which was less than one half of one percent.

But it was tough times and at that time

my grandfather wanted to keep his people working,

so he built this dairy that we're in today

and to keep his guys working because ice cream

you have to freeze, beer you have to keep cold,

and it's basically the same kind of equipment.

So he kept his people working, he was good to his people.

We are absolutely the luckiest company in America probably

to be around for 188 years and go through

the hard times that we experienced,

and the people that worked in the office,

the office girls told me, you'd better go to school

because we're barely making payroll here,

and if it weren't for my dad and his brother,

putting an influx of money into the plant to keep it alive,

we would've been out of business

like all the rest of the coal region breweries.

It was scary and I said, I don't want to go to school.

I want to work here and run this thing some day,

and they kind of chased me out for awhile,

but you know what?

I got back in here in 1985,

and we went from 137,000 barrels to 2.7 million

and we're still growing, so we're very fortunate.

Penn Brewery itself has been around since 1986,

and that started with the flagship Penn Pilsner beer.

It was founded by Tom Pastorius.

It was the first tied house in the state of Pennsylvania,

being brewery and restaurant in the same building.

We are all, being myself, Linda, and Corey,

native Pittsburghers and we're all from the area,

so we are very aware of the history of Penn Brewery,

its importance to the city,

and what was happening and the feedback

when the brewery announced that it was closing.

So the opportunity to be part of

bringing that back to Pittsburgh,

and have Penn Brewery continue to operate

in Pittsburgh was very important to us,

as Pittsburghers and beer lovers as well.

I was the first microbrewery in Pennsylvania,

and I was the first female brewer in the country.

Brewpubs then were illegal.

My husband had an established restaurant

with wine and full bar,

so I had to separate myself financially from him

so that I could open up then the microbrewery.

So my husband sold me a piece of land

right next to the beer garden for a dollar,

and that's how I started.

Many people, especially locally thought that,

why does Ed Stoudt have his wife

out tramping around selling beer?

They really, 'cause in those days,

beer was in a man's domain.

Men drank beer, women drank wine,

or they didn't drink at all,

but Philadelphia was very warm and very receptive.

We opened in 1990 at 18th and Cherry,

and we were the first craft beer in Philadelphia.

It mirrored every other place in the country

where there was vast sea of bland beers all around,

and we couldn't find a wholesaler

because every wholesaler we approached said,

why would anyone buy a $20 case of beer

when they could buy a case of Heineken?

You know, it was obvious to us why,

because the US economy needed help,

culturally and economically we wanted to contribute.

We wanted to make a difference.

Our mission was to elevate the status of beer.

- What can we get you? - What does this say?

It's a farmhouse ale brewed with a bit of ginger.

The ginger is awesome.

It's just an exciting time.

We've seen breweries that have been around

for 100 plus years and you know,

you have people that are white collar, blue collar,

working full time jobs and all of a sudden,

they figure out how to homebrew

and they're in their garage,

and they're coming up with the method

that's gonna be their beer, and next thing you know,

they have a few friends trying it, and next thing you know,

they all of a sudden they said, I'm quitting my job.

I'm gonna go for the American dream

and they start brewing beers.

So what inspired me was actually when I first started,

my wife has always wanted to be an entrepreneur,

and she's been interested in owning her own business.

As I started brewing, she said,

"You're getting pretty good,

"let's try to make a business out of this."

So she gave me the goal of getting an award in every state.

She wanted to make sure

when I'm sick and I'm not feeling well,

I'm gonna brew when I don't want to,

'cause it's eventually gonna become a job.

My first award was in June, 2013.

I then had a bad accident in July.

When you have a near death experience,

you just want to live life to the fullest,

and after seeing that,

it was we've always had the dream of doing that

and pursuing our dreams of opening a brewpub,

so after something like that happens,

it was just kind of gave us the fire that we needed

just to think that you only live once,

might as well never regret it later in life

if you never accomplished it.

The most exciting time

has been the last two or three years, right now.

Things are opening here at a pace where you can't keep up.

I do my part as much as anyone,

but I feel like there's this tidal wave

of beer that's overwhelming.

It's like I can't drink fast enough,

I can't try everything I want to try.

It used to be that when a new brewery opened up,

I knew the people that were involved in it.

They were either from the homebrew community,

or they had brewed somewhere else,

or came back to Pittsburgh,

and I knew what was happening and kind of knew

what their vision was for their brewery and new beers.

Now, there's places opening up

in areas outside of Pittsburgh,

I have no idea who the people are involved,

I barely know the names of some of them.

It's hard to keep track.

Yeah, and it's kind of our job.

It is.

And it's hard to keep track.