In more sad news, another brewery will be shuttering their doors and turning off their taps soon for good. This time its Spigot Brewing located in Ford City, Pennsylvania (near Pittsburgh).

Yesterday (10.5.20 at 7:17PM) they posted this on their Facebook page:

What we’re about to say brings us no pleasure and, quite frankly, sucks.For the past several months, the strict regulations surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic have proven to be quite a fiscal challenge to deal with. To be completely honest, we have been operating at a deficit for six months now…and yet we have done our best to try to adapt, push on, and hope for a break. However, the breaks simply haven’t come. Our biggest challenge is the size and layout of the taproom. Even as the various phases of occupancy restrictions lift, we cannot accommodate an increase of patrons due to the tangled web of rules that govern us. To bluntly summarize, at this point we have been financially damaged beyond repair and simply cannot continue to operate at a loss any longer.So, what’s next? For starters, we will continue to be open for growler fills for a few weeks. While we will not be brewing any additional product at this point, we just tapped a batch of Fest ‘20 & Ford Street Fog IPA, and have a new IPA kegged up that will get us through for a bit until the Spigots run dry. If we had to guess, that will probably happen near the end of October. Between now and then, all outstanding gift certificates should be cashed in as quickly as possible to prevent any forfeitures. Additionally, you can bring in any beer tokens that you have and use them toward purchases of growler fills or merchandise.Words cannot describe the gratitude that we have for those who graciously supported us over the past few years…especially those super-loyal patrons who stopped in for their weekly growler fills since the inception of the shutdown back in March. You are the sole reason that we were able to survive for as long as we have…a HUGE thanks goes out to you!Please know that we are deeply saddened by this decision, and are sure that you feel the same way. However, you must admit that we had a good run and had a lot of fun together along the way. And as we have said many times over the years, we hope to have a beer with you soon. Except for this one, we may simply be on the other side of the bar with you when it happens…and that’s ok too. Cheers! Doug & Cindy

Spigot Brewing Facebook Page

They follow in the footsteps of some other Pennsylvania breweries that closed their doors for the last time this year – Stoudt’s Brewing, Crystal Ball Brewing, and Voodoo Lancaster.

2020 has certainly been a challenging year for breweries, as well as people in general. From wildfires in Australia and California, from COVID-19 and the coronavirus pandemic and various laws and restrictions and issues therein, from murder hornets, aluminum shortages, coin shortages, Tiger King, spotted lanternflies, and a host of other things; it has been a trying time for all of us. Least of all small businesses. It is in times like this that we need to best support our small businesses and smaller breweries. Visit your local microbrewery, buy a growler, share it with a friend, rave about them, write Untappd and Beer Advocate reviews – or even submit a review to me, and get them some attention and publicity. Tip their servers well. Help out where and however you can.

Spigot Brewing was established in April 2018, in one of the many historic buildings in Ford City. They are technically being listed as the first PA Brewery to close due to COVID-19 / coronavirus.

They are selling the remainder of the beer they still have on tap and in their tanks through growler sales. So if you are in the Ford City area (a bit over three hours from Harrisburg, about forty five minutes from Pittsburgh), I would recommend stopping in and picking up a growler to at least try them before they close. Also, if you have any gift certificates, now is the time to use them.

You can follow Spigot Brewing and get the latest information on their Facebook page, Twitter, Instagram, and Untappd.

In other industry and brewery news, there has been a few openings lately. I have just gotten home from day two of Rubber Soul’s opening. I will have a review of the place, food, and beers up soon. You can check out my two articles on their opening here:

• A Sneak Peak of Rubber Soul Brewery (February)
• Rubber Soul Grand Opening (September / October)

I also was recently at Highway Manor’s opening. You can check out my articles on them here:

• Brewery Opening: Highway Manor
• Brewery Review: Highway Manor

And for more openings:

Be sure to check out our other articles on brewery openings:

• A Sneak Preview of Rubber Soul Brewing (Hummelstown)
• Midwest Coast Brewing Opens (Chicago)
• Rally Point – Cox Brewing Taproom Opens (Elizabethtown)
• Boneshire Brew Works to Open Second Taproom in Harrisburg (Harrisburg)
• Irv’s Pub Rebranded as Rotunda Brewing Pub (Hershey)
• Official BBQ (Pizza Boy Secondary Location) (Rutherford)
• Pilger Ruh Brewing Needs Your Help (Pottsville)
• Highway Manor Brewing Co. (Camp Hill)

Please be sure to follow us on our social media accounts – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Influence. Please be sure to also follow, like, subscribe to the blog here itself to keep updated. We love to hear from you guys, so be sure to leave a comment and let us know what you think!

Cheers!

-B. Kline

Many of you have probably heard of the ‘All Together’ project, started by Other Half Brewing Co. As soon as I heard about it, I had to immediately find the first brewery in my area to do it and get one; that first one in my immediate area turned out to be Ever Grain Brewing Co. Unfortunately I missed out on the 4pk of it, but I did get in time for a crowler (or two) of it, and I was informed that the crowler sales would go towards the project, just as the 4pk sales did.

I will be posting links to several other sites and sources about this here in this beer review / article, and I highly recommend you checking them out, and I also highly recommend checking out whatever ways you can have of donating.

Here is a direct bit from the Other Half Brewing Co.’s website on their official beer release version of theirs:

A world wide collaboration hosted by Other Half, Stout Collective and Craftpeak to support the enormous amount of hospitality workers laid off during this difficult time. We are donating 100% of our proceeds to the Restaurant Workers Community Foundation. We brewed this recipe with 2-row, oats and carapils and then hopped it with a beautiful blend of our hand selected Citra, Mosaic, Simcoe and Cascade. We intentionally kept the recipe simple so that every brewer that wants to do it can do it. Keep an eye out for versions from over 500 breweries worldwide all working to help others in need. Visit alltogether.beer for all the details and a list of breweries involved. Collect them all 🙂 Brewed in Rochester. 

Other Half Brewing Co.

Many breweries jumped on board, and you can find some lists of who all is doing it on a few other sites, such as Craftbeerdrinking and Hopculture.

Craftbeer.com’s article (All Together Collaboration – Beer to Help Hospitality Workers) lists: Non Sequitur Beer Project, Side Project, Southern Grist, Mikerphone Brewing, Fifth Hammer Brewing, Modist Brewing, Outer Range Brewing Co., Industrial Arts Brewing Co., and obviously Other Half Brewing Co.

The All Together Beer website, a site designed for this and set up for this project, has a wealth of information on the project. I highly recommend checking this out. You can find the recipe, you can find ways to donate, and if you are a brewery, you can also find a way to jump aboard and become part of the project, as well as print out labels, and get ways to promote the beer for yourself as well. At the bottom of their page, they have a map and a running tally / statistic. There is 824 breweries that have participated, in 50 states (of the United States of America), and in 53 countries. That is amazing and just phenomenal! 824 breweries is insane! And every state, and 53 countries helping out, is just downright awesome. I don’t care how you slice it, breweries helping people, will always be awesome, and I will always gladly do what I can to help support that.

There is a map, that you can zoom in and see what breweries are doing the project. So being a Central PA native, I had to zoom in on PA and see who all is jumping aboard, and here is a list of many that are:

(in no particular order)

• Saucony Creek Brewing Company
• Robin Hood Brewing
• Shy Bear Brewing
• Hidden Stories Brewing Co. LLC
• Rotunda Brewing Company
• Ever Grain Brewing Co.
• Fourscore Beer Co
  * Collaboration with: Prototype Brewery and Meadery and Wolf Brewing Co.
• Shabby Deck Craft Brewery
• Suburban Brewing Company
• Voodoo Brewing Company
• Hitchhiker Brewing Company
• Grist House Craft Brewery
• Roundabout Brewery
• East End Brewing Co.
• Dancing Gnome
• 11th Hour Brewing
• Whitehorse Brewing
• Four Points Brewing
• Sly Fox Brewing Co.
• Lost Tavern Brewing
• Birthright Brewing Co.
• Angry Erik Brewing
• Naked Brewing Co.
• Free Will Brewing
• Imprint Beer Co.
• Well Crafted Beer Company
• Ten7 Brewing Company
• Brothers Kershner Brewing Company
• Bald Birds Brewing
• Rebel Hill Brewing Company
• Stickman Brews
• Brewery ARS
• Odd Logic Brewing
• Second Sin Brewing

And that’s just the list of Pennsylvania breweries! And just the ones mentioned so far. Who knows if more will do it (hopefully). And thats also just one state out of fifty, and one part of a country out of fifty-three countries. So there is obviously a lot more breweries doing this! Some big names too like Equilibrium Brewing in New York are on board as well. So there is definitely a lot of momentum and weight behind this movement and project, which is absolutely fabulous! Keep up all the great work breweries!

Another link with information can be found at Hopculture: Hopculture – Other Half’s All Together Beer Project for Hospitality Workers.

Now we got all of that behind us, the whys, the hows, and the whats of this amazing and great beer. Lets get into the beer itself!

Beer: All Together
Brewery: Ever Grain Brewing Co.
Collaboration: Other Half Brewing Co.
Style: IPA – New England
ABV: 6.5%
IBU: None Listed
Untappd Description: We are proud to be apart of this open-ended beer collaboration masterminded by Other Half Brewing Co. 100% of our proceeds are going to Hospitality Assistance Response of Pennsylvania.

Some of the various breweries listed what they changed of the recipe or adjusted, if they swapped hops or malts or added adjuncts. Ever Grain’s Untappd listing doesn’t state any changes. So I’m assuming its near identical to the recipe given by Other Half Brewing. You can find their recipe on their All Together website, and you can click here directly for the recipe. I also saved a copy of the recipe, and I’ll post it here as well:

So this is what I’m assuming Ever Grain did, just on their system, with possible minor tweaks along the way.

Firstly – appearance is beautiful orange. It has that lovely New England IPA look to it. Golden orange juicy appearance to it, like pouring into a tall pint glass your morning OJ (not… the killer… or running back… but the drink); but this time with alcohol added! (Double win!). It has a little foam head to it that is light and fluffy with dispersed bubbles.

Aroma is pound for pound sound for sound pure hoppy juicy, citrus, fruity, and delicious smelling. Just cracking this open and pouring it already has my mouth watering and ready to drink it. I got notes of citrus, grapefruit, passionfruit, orange and tangerine, with a bit of zest or lime to it at the end. There isn’t any west coast IPA notes to be found in this, no evergreen tree, no earthy notes, no forestry like notes, all pure New England typical hop aromas and notes. The dry hopping really brings them out to the forefront.

Taste is phenomenal, and sadly makes this beer go waaaaaaaay too quickly. Me and my friend D. Scott drank two crowlers of this, way, too, quickly, while doing one of our Knights of Nostalgia sessions. I think we finished our crowlers in about fifteen minutes each. Which, thankfully this is only 6.5% so we weren’t rocked from basically pounding 32oz., but this was also just too delicious to even set down. It is very juicy, very dank, very delicious. Its both fruity and citrusy, with notes of grapefruit, passionfruit, orange and tangerine. Theres a bit of a lime / lemon twist at the end, but very subtle, barely noticeable, but there is definitely a citrus vibe to this that goes with the fruity juicy nature of the beer itself. And like I said, at 6.5% its not too heavy or overwhelming, even in a 32oz crowler; or if you get a 4pk of this, (4 x 16 = 64oz) you could probably handle a 4pk in an evening and be fine for work the next day. (Work…. work…. I vaguely recall work….). The mouthfeel is also very nice, its not too thick, not cloying, or heavy, or watery thin either, its just the right level of consistency and feel on the tongue. This is definitely an easy sippable beer or a quick quaffer. Which, obviously, I was pretty quick with mine, but your mileage may vary. Knowing also, that 100% of the proceeds is going to the Hospitality Assistance Response of Pennsylvania, also makes this just so much tastier and drinkable.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 4.26 (as of 5.14.20).

Cheers everyone. Hopefully you are all making it through this quarantine and lockdown relatively safe, sound, and mentally safe and sound. If you are looking to donate for hospitality workers, there is links here in this article, and the All Together Beer link has thee most information on that. As well as information if you are a brewer, home brewer, or commercial brewer looking to make the beer as well. So please check that out here: All Together – Beer – We’re All In This Together.

As always everyone, thanks for checking out the blog, click the like, the follow, the subscribe, and share, and do all those other cool things to help us out. We greatly appreciate it, and love all of our readers. Stay safe and healthy, and make sure to drink up lots of All Together to help our favorite bartenders! They are going to need it. Even when we re-open, things will be tough for them for a while, and probably dealing with idiots not wanting to follow CDC guidelines and the such will be all the more difficult for them. So please, help them out. Cheers!

-B. Kline