Honoring
Our History

The year the US Civil War begins and the Iron City Brewery was established. New partners Augustus Hoeveler and Edward Frauenheim brought their capital and vision to join with Benitz brewers John Miller and Leopold Vilsack. Brewing began at the Lawrenceville brewery in 1867.

The brewing firm Frauenheim & Vilsack was incorporated in 1889 as the Iron City Brewing Company. Iron City Brewing would remain the largest brewer in Pennsylvania with a total output of 200,000 barrels.

Iron City Brewery would soon become the largest producer of lager beer, ale and porter in all of Pennsylvania.

The Pittsburgh Brewing Company was formed through the combination of 21 different local breweries on February 9th, 1899. The Iron City Brewery was the largest of the breweries in this combine. The newly created Pittsburgh Brewing Company provided a total production capacity of over 1 million barrels a year, not only the largest in Pennsylvania but at the turn of the century one of the three largest in the entire nation.

The Pittsburgh Brewing Company was one of the few brewing companies to remain open and in operation throughout the prohibition era. Pittsburgh Brewing Company developed other products including producing ice cream, soft drinks, “near” beer, and operating a cold storage business. They operated as a subsidiary under the name of Tech Food Products Company, allowing them to emerge from prohibition.

Tech Food Products was bought by the Borden Dairy Company in 1945.

Iron City Lager Beer was reintroduced into the market and only 3 of the original 21 Pittsburgh Brewing Company breweries had remained after prohibition. The surviving breweries were Iron City, the Eberhardt and Ober (E&O) now home to the Penn Brewery, and the Uniontown Brewing Company.

The Pittsburgh Brewing Company trademarked the iconic bulls-eye logo and all three of their breweries utilized it on their labels.

In 1936, Pittsburgh Brewing introduced its first canned product, Iron City Beer, in rolled steel containers marketed as “canteens”. These cans were designed to be opened with a can opener which was given away with each purchase.

These original flat top beer cans were replaced in the early 1950’s by the cone top can which could be opened with a bottle opener and were in use until 1960.

During World War 2, the Pittsburgh Brewing Company produced large quantities of beer for US troops overseas. The entire production of the Uniontown Brewery was dedicated to the fulfillment of military contracts.

In 1951, the oval Iron City logo was introduced. It was just used on cases, advertising and packaging.

In 1957, a corporate logo for the Pittsburgh Brewing Company was developed which incorporated the words “Quality, Integrity, Tradition” which is still in use today.

In 1962, the Pittsburgh Brewing Company teamed with Pittsburgh based Alcoa to design a new and easier way for consumers to open beer cans. The snap top beer can was test marketed and became a huge success. This revolutionary new way of opening cans led to a tripling in sales of Iron City cans in its first full year of production and was adopted as the standard in the beverage industry.

1963 saw another first for Pittsburgh Brewing with the introduction of Draft Beer in the new snap top cans.

Another new packaging first was also introduced in 1965, the recappable twist off bottle cap. This was used on quart bottles and allowed consumers the option of saving the contents after opening the container.

Pittsburgh Brewing became the first brewery to feature limited runs of specialty commemorative and sports team beer cans. In support of the Pittsburgh steel industry Pittsburgh Brewing produced the final steel beer can in the U.S., a Roberto Clemente commemorative in 1993.

On June 9, 1978 IC Light was introduced. IC Light rose to claim the title of the number one selling beer in the Pittsburgh market and outsold competing national brands eight to one. IC Light remains Pittsburgh Brewing’s best-selling beer to this day.

In 2004, Pittsburgh Brewing introduced the first nationally distributed beer in an aluminum bottle.

In 2009, beer production at the Lawrenceville brewery ceased and was moved to City Brewing in Latrobe, PA where the beer was contract brewed until August of 2022.

Ownership changed in 2018 when local entrepreneur, Cliff Forrest, purchased Pittsburgh Brewing Company. His sight was set on bringing Pittsburgh’s brewery back and he did just that.

In 2020, Pittsburgh Brewing broke ground at the original PPG Glass Plant no. 1 which was originally built in 1883. The facility is 170,000 square feet located on 42-acres.

The original brewery in Lawrenceville stands to this day under the ownership of Pittsburgh Brewing and is now a historic landmark.

In the late summer of 2022, Pittsburgh Brewing Company would be brewing in house again for the first time in almost 13 years.