Something that has come up in conversation numerous times lately (and also at various times that I can recall), is the fact that you can go just about anywhere and find Steelers fans.  I posted last week about the Terrible Towel in Space, but another item that seems to propagate is the Steelers-themed bar.

A friend from college studied a semester in Australia and found a Steeler bar down under, and I always hear about finding Steeler bars in cities across the country and countries around the world.

Doing some research about it (since I don’t travel a lot, I figured I could live a little vicariously through google…) I actually found a list that the Post Gazette has put together by state.

• Here’s the list for Arizona, in case you are there and need some respite.  Quite a few actually, even around Phoenix and its surrounding communities
• Here is the link for Florida, for anyone headed down to Tampa without tickets (also, don’t forget if you happen to be in Ft. Lauderdale, stop into Primanti Brother’s for a sandwich)
• And finally, here is the international list, for any displaced members of Steelers Nation

I have occasionally boasted to some of you about my cooking prowess. Now’s your chance to put your money where my mouth is. Next Monday, October 13th, from 7 to 9 PM at the Shadow Lounge in East Liberty, I’ll be serving up various items (mostly vegan, one chicken dish) from the Indian subcontinent. $15 gets you all you care to eat, and the Lounge’s bar will be open to quench your thirst. I’ve looked over their coolers, and there’s several beers that’ll go very nicely. Proceeds from the event benefit Everybody VOTE, a nonpartisan organization working on voter registration, election protection, and youth involvement.

Come on down, have some food, and join in the good times!

Today is a very important day, and doubly so for those of us in Pennsylvania.  Today marks the beginning of the state-wide smoking ban.  I feel like we’ve been through this before, and truth be told, I haven’t taken much interest in the ban this time around.

Now, I should be happy about this.  A large portion of my friends smoke, and  I seem to be some sort of smoke magnet.  No matter where I’m sitting, and no matter what the air flow is like, smoke seems to find my face (this also applies to campfires, but that is a different post all together I suppose), so if anything, this ban will certainly help me.  But I don’t know, I guess I’m almost hardwired to expect bars, sport lounges and the like to be smokey

But I still have to see if my favorite haunts fall under the exceptions.  One of them might, when I finally get a chance, I’m going to head over and see what is or is not in the air.  But in the meantime, what are your thoughts about the ban?

The Post-Gazette reports today on the troubles at Pittsburgh Brewing:

The proposed saviors of bankrupt Pittsburgh Brewing, who last month were given an additional 45 days to complete their takeover of the troubled Lawrenceville brewer, are confident they’ll meet the latest deadline extension.

A spokeswoman for the PLCB said the agency is waiting to receive additional information it asked for from Mr. Milne’s group. The proposed owners applied for the brewery license July 13, more than a month after Judge McCullough approved their reorganization plan.

So, they aren’t shipping their beer and they bouncing utility checks again, which is what got them in trouble in the first place. The people who were supposed to be the saviors of the brewery can’t even do basic paperwork in a timely manner. I noticed the other day that the billboard on Liberty Avenue at the end of the 16th Street Bridge, which has been an Iron City billboard for as long I can remember, now advertises Rolling Rock, an Anheuser-Busch product.

Not mentioned in this story is the danger that the collapse of Pittsburgh Brewing would represent for people who like more esoteric beers. The Tony Savatt company, Pittsburgh Brewing’s largest distributor, is strongly tied to PBC’s fate. They are also the Pittsburgh distributor for many Belgian beers, including Kasteel, Piraat, and Delirium Tremens. They bring you Spaten products, Sapporo, and Dinkelacker.

That isn’t all. Vecenie’s Distributing also relies heavily on Iron City products, although they are in a little less deep than Savatt. Still, if Pittsburgh Brewing pulls Vecenie down with them, we will not seeing Victory, Troeg’s, Bell’s, Erie, Lancaster, Stoudt’s, Weyerbacher or Dogfish Head, among others.

Eventually other distributors will pick up most of these brands, but will not sell them as forcefully, because they have other brands in competition. Nor will they have any inclination to keep prices down as the distribution of beer in Allegheny County becomes more oligarchic: without Pittsburgh Brewing as a base for smaller distributors, and Rolling Rock already swallowed up by Budweiser, in ten years we might see only two wholesale beer distributors operating in an atmosphere of de facto price fixing.

I don’t want to see I. C. Light off the shelves, but Pittsburgh Brewing’s incredible history of incompetent management may have much deeper implications.

The Atlanta Metroblog is featuring the Drink of the Week (this week is an awesome mojito. This drink of the week idea got me thinking about what is a Pittsburgh drink. A few years ago I was doing some work in Houston and we were sitting at the bar and I asked the group “what is the Texas drink?” The response was “long island iced tea” – which certainly didn’t seem very Texas to me.
So, when people visit Pittsburgh – what is the suggested Pittsburgh drink? I know the immediate answer is Iron City Beer. I know this is a drink favored by Pittsburghers everywhere. Last summer I helped a family pack up a case of iron to take with them to their son who now lives in Alaska. But is there a mixed drink that really screams Pittsburgh?

As if we didn’t already have one of the screwiest set of liquor laws in the nation, Republicans in Harrisburg want to sell off state liquor stores to private interests. Kind of.

As decribed in the Post-Gazette, the retail stores would become a public-private partnership. I get the idea, but I’m left with a great big HUH? Why take an overly complicated system and add another layer of complexity? How about we just change the laws so the state gets out of selling wine and spirits altogether and we let retail stores take care of it? That’s how it works in many other states, including radical frontrunners like Iowa, South Dakota and Nebraska.

Would it be so terrible if we could get Glenfiddich at Trader Joes. or pick up a sixer of Yuengling at the Giant Eagle?

photo by Mikey via flickr

Samuel Adams will have a new home in Latrobe.

I mean the beer, of course, not the colonial firebrand, who is dead. It will be produced by contract brewer City Brewing, which also produces a bunch of its own crappy brands.

Wait, Sam Adams? Western Pennsylvania? Crappy brands? This sounds familiar.

Right you are, grassywhatnot. Years ago the Pittsburgh Brewing Company used to have that contract. It was a source of pride for good beer drinking Pittsburghers that the brewer of Old German and American Ice was also capable of brewing something half decent.

Of course, they were not, as it turned out, really capable of doing so, and before long they lost the contract. Since then they have sent out a huge batch of bad half barrels which they refused to take responsibility for, failed to pay their water bill, filed for bankruptcy, and changed hands. On the other hand, we have seen a surge in local good beer production, with Penn Brewery, our Troy Hill house of Reinheitsgebot and East End, big beer purveyor straight out of Homewood.

Those are fine and good, especially East End’s Kvass, which lacks a web presence, but it will be nice to have a big, national good beer brand we can be proud of back in (the immediate vicinity of) the Burgh.

Another weekend, another mass migration to the South Side. I’ll admit, I just don’t enjoy the crowds, the traffic, the glorious binge drinking the way I feel I should. So I turn to the Blog of a Good Time, wherein blogger Julie drinks beer, has fun and drops snipes that crack me up. Such as:

Friday, a gentleman grabbed me and took a picture with me without my consent. Normally I would have punched him in the face. Lucky for him I was intoxicated by the sounds of The Misshapes. I humored him for a while when I noticed he had a wedding ring on. I said see-ya and he said he had an ‘open relationship’ and then bought me a red bull and vodka. Verdict=Not annoying. Vodka=happiness. Douche level=8 – he was married and tried to grab my butt. I am not a home wrecker.

This weekend, while I tackle mountains of schoolwork, I’ll check in for more partying misadventures.

The Post-Gazette tells us that college students are drinking a lot, a problem seen here appearing all of a sudden out of nowhere in 2007. But wait:

The share of the college population engaging in that behavior is no greater than it was in 1993, the researchers found.

Wha? Well, OK, so the people who drink partake more often. The shocker is supposed to be that college students use hard druges in higher percentages than they used to. Admittedly I was not in college until 1998, but at that time the percentage of students who used hard drugs at least once was roughly one hundred percent. It is tough to go up from there.

So what is the point of this article? It all comes down, as far as I can tell, to a single quote from a moralistic jackass from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. You can guess where he stands.

It’s time to get the ‘high’ out of higher education,” he said.

Because that way it would just be, er, education?

What do you do in Pittsburgh when it’s more than 70 degrees in March? Find a place with a patio and a happy hour. Enter Harris Grill in Shadyside (with wifi, even!). I’d say head over right now, before the sun goes down, but as I’m here on the patio I have to warn you that it’s packed. You might be able to perch on the steps, tho, and honestly it’s worth it. Beer + patio = a fan-freakin-tastic afternoon.