By Mike Pound, Post-Gazette Steve Ilnicki doesn’t have designs on becoming huge. But that doesn’t mean the head brewer of Bethel Park’s Spoonwood Brewing didn’t start big when the brewpub opened in late January. It’s a big space: a 15-barrel brewhouse, a full food menu, easy seating for 250 thirsty customers – or more, now that the patio is open. And it’s off to a big start. While working as an assistant brewer at Homestead’s Rock Bottom, Mr. Ilnicki answered an ad on a jobs board at the American Brewing …
Munch goes to Spoonwood Brewing Company in Bethel Park
By Dan Gigler / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette In the introduction of his 2012 book “Brewing in Greater Pittsburgh,” Dr. Robert Musson estimates that from the 1800s to the pre-Prohibition era nearly 100 different breweries existed in what is now considered metropolitan Pittsburgh. But like an increasingly ornery bartender clanging the bell, flipping the lights on and yelling “GIT AHT!” at last call, a combination of the Volstead Act, consolidation, industrial decline and the rise of the national macrobrews all conspired to eventually drain the region’s brewing culture from that of a …