Iron City Beer to Leave Pittsburgh

A Pittsburgh brewing institution is leaving Steel City.

Iron City Brewery officials announced Thursday the brewery would be leaving its home in the Lawrenceville neighborhood for greener pastures in Latrobe, Pa. Yes, the place where Rolling Rock was born.

The brewery's president, Timothy Hickman, called the announcement "exciting news." The brewers, well, not so much.

"Well, you finally did it," Dave Kelly, who retired last year after 34 years at Iron City, said according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "You managed to take a brewery that has been through the Industrial Revolution, the Civil War, two world wars, Korean War, Vietnam War and the Iraq war -- even the Great Depression -- [and] move it out of the city that has supported you since 1861."
The brewery was founded by German immigrant Edward Frauenheim in 1861 and had a series of historic firsts, including the snap-top can. Today it makes Iron City lager, IC Light beer and Augustiner amber. It will keg its last Pittsburgh-made brews on June 22, the Post-Gazette said.

Hickman says he doesn't think sales will be impacted by the 40-mile move, but one beverage-industry attorney called that "delusional."

"They will have steep losses if history is any guide," Cris Hoel told the paper.

That history was written in Latrobe, where Rolling Rock was born, but is brewed no longer. In 2006, Anheuser-Busch moved production of the green-bottled "33" beer to New Jersey.

Any old local beers you miss?

[Via Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]