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/ In Mt. Lebanon, beer doesn’t get any more local
than that made by two breweries owned by locals.

Scott Smith, who lives with his wife, Julie, and family
on Longuevue Drive, started East End Brewing, one of
Pittsburgh’s first craft breweries, in 2004, and so marked
its 15th anniversary shortly before the pandemic hit.

It was a one-man show in a windowless warehouse
in Pittsburgh’s Homewood neighborhood when he
started, but has grown into a literally hopping hub of
craft beer production, sales and consumption in nearby
Larimer. His pandemic pivot was to deliver beer to consumers
at curbside or to their homes in surrounding zip
codes, including 15228. That helped him continue
to employ all 14 full- and part-time employees who
wanted to remain.

30 Mt. Lebanon Magazine | JUNE 2021
When the Friends of the Mt.

Lebanon Library’s annual August
Beer Garden Bash had to be canceled,
Smith supported the group’s Virtual
Beer Tasting with cases of actual
beers and helped the library that way.

East End Brewing managed to hold
its own during the first year of the
pandemic, when revenue actually
was slightly up, Smith explained, and
he expected to be operating more
normally this summer, with guests
back in the Larimer taproom as well
as out on the patio to drink beer, fill
growlers of beer and eat fare from a
new restaurant cheekily dubbed “East
End Chewing.”
“Never at a loss to make an awful
joke,” he quipped. But he is seriously
considering expanding the ongoing
series of “You Are Here” beers
named for 90 city neighborhoods
to surrounding
municipalities, so yes, there could literally be a
Mt. Lebanon beer.

Another big Pittsburgh beer brand,
Hitchhiker Brewing Co., is owned by
Mt. Lebanon residents—Gary and
Serena Olden of Colonial Drive. It
has taprooms in Mt. Lebanon, on
Castle Shannon Boulevard, and at its
big brewery in Sharpsburg, in part of
what once was the massive Fort Pitt
Brewing Co.

But Hitchhiker was tiny when Gary
started it in 2014 with a brew house
squeezed into the head-bumping
basement in the Mt. Lebanon
building, which he just got lucky
to find available after shopping for
buildings in surrounding towns that
have more suitable structures.

“I didn’t even know it would be
possible” to open in Mt. Lebanon,
he recently recalled, but said it was
“one of the best things that happened
to us, sorta by circumstance.” They
expanded to Sharpsburg in fall
2017. Both taprooms were mostly
closed during the pandemic except
for customers to pick up beer they’d
preordered—a convenience that
Hitchhiker will continue to offer for
those who don’t want to drink a beer
out. “You have to give people options at
this point,” Olden said as restrictions
eased the first weekend of April and
/ East End Brewing’s Scott Smith has been a big
supporter of the Mt. Lebanon Public Library’s
two annual beer-tasting events.




;
Gary Olden,
owner of
Hitchhiker Brewing, added
a second spot
in Sharpsburg
in addition to
the original
Castle Shannon
Boulevard location.

:
he prepared to reopen both taprooms. “Not everybody is ready to come back.” He
mused that many people’s habits probably have changed permanently.

The two taprooms, separated by just 13 ½ miles, a little more than a half marathon
(Olden has run from one to the other) are different in more ways than just their size.

Much cozier Mt. Lebanon tends to fill with people who live in the neighborhood, while
bigger Sharpsburg draws a more transient, often in-transit crowd. Olden, drawing on
the fact that he and his wife have two sons, said, “I look at them like having children
that are very different.”
He loves them both, but “I look at Lebo as a super special place in my heart because
that’s where we started.”
Scott Smith went into this spring expecting to work with the state Liquor Control
Board to finally open a second taproom adjacent to the Onion Maiden restaurant in the
city’s Allentown neighborhood.

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; Links Brewing
owner Jeff
Becker, center,
with advisers
John Bryan, left,
and Matt Mohn.

Becker wants to
see his brews
out on the links
all over the
country. :
A brewery that few people knew existed until
this spring is Links Brewing Co. on the North
Side. It was quietly launched last year from the
basement of the PFE Fire and Safety Corp. by
its third-generation owner Jeff Becker, whose
parents lived in Mt. Lebanon when he was
born in 1977 and who now lives with his wife
and two daughters on Mt. Lebanon Boulevard.

For the past several years, Becker has been
passionate about craft beer, but his side-hustle
brewery is “definitely a different take,” because
it’s aimed at a specific demographic: golfers
such as himself.

Links debuted their draft at Oakmont
Country Club in May of 2020 and got it on tap
at several other private clubs. But they don’t
want to be seen as pretentious. In April, they
began canning their brews for takeout at the
brewery while they expand the number of golf
courses that serve it. This year, plans include
a Links Brewery-wrapped Sprinter van with
a half dozen taps that can roll up and pour at
golf tournaments and other events.

“What drives me, and drives us,” he said,
“is to be served at the top 50 golf courses in
the country.”
Other beer people who’ve gotten their start
in Mt. Lebanon include Matt McMahon, who,
with his wife, Keana, owns 11th Hour Brewing.

He’s vice chairman of the Pittsburgh Brewers
Guild of what’s now 39 Allegheny County
breweries ... and counting ... that are working
together on ways to keep going.

The McMahons live in McCandless. But he
grew up on Mt. Lebanon’s Old Farm Road.

And get this story: His Sunset Hills neighbor
and friend at Howe Elementary School was
Dustin Jones, who started Mindful Brewing
Co. in Castle Shannon in 2017, the same year
McMahon opened 11th Hour.

“We actually had discussions at a couple of
points about partnering up,” said McMahon,
but the two Lebo guys decided to follow their
own muses, with Jones going for a restaurant
and bottle shop and McMahon going for more
of a rustic brewery feel.

Back in Mt. Lebanon proper, good beers
can be enjoyed at cozy spots such as The
Korner Pub and the iconic Saloon of Mt.

Lebanon, Atria’s, Bado’s Pizza Grill and Ale
House, Caliente Pizza & Drafthouse, BRGR,
Mediterra Cafe and Primanti Bros.

McMahon muses about how he used to
frequent several of those places when he was,
well, younger than the 41 he is now so he could
meet friends to drink a beer. “It’s funny to be
supplying them.”
Bob Batz Jr. lives in Sunset Hills and can be
reached at batzjr@aol.com.

lebomag.com | 31