Brewing was among Pittsburgh’s earliest industries. Deep cultural traditions around producing and consuming beer, combined with the need for a safe, disease- and pollutant-free drink, made breweries important parts of early American cities. Pittsburgh is one of a small number of American cities where German immigrants settled in great numbers, bringing with them European brewing and beer consumption traditions.
And the city’s hillsides once were pockmarked with vaults key to making lager beer.
After the 1830s, German brewers recognized the advantages to using the city’s rocky slopes to create cold storage vaults, sometimes called beer caves. For some, like Centre County historian Matt Maris, they are captivating ways to connect with the past…