TROY HILL — Just under six months after declaring bankruptcy, Penn Brewery is under new ownership under a team including a well-known figure in the Northside business community.
Priory Hospitality Group CEO and president John Graf was joined by beverage-industry veteran Eric Heinauer and a third unnamed partner in taking on the battered brewery. The new ownership was announced in a press conference on Sept. 14.
“We’re all super excited because we came into acquiring Penn Brewery as fans,” Graf told reporters.
The Priory Hospitality Group is the company behind The Priory Hotel and Pittsburgh’s Grand Hall at the Priory, two major landmarks of the Deutschtown neighborhood. Graf told The Chronicle that the brewery fit right in with his existing business’s hospitality focus.
He also noted that the hotel and the brewery both opened in 1986, and that his dad — The Priory Hotel founder Ed Graf — would play St. Nicholas during Christmas-time festivities at the brewery.
Heinauer, meanwhile, has a long history in the beverage industry, including serving for more than 11 years at Penn Brewery under various roles, including director of sales. Other businesses he’s worked at include Pittsburgh Brewing Company, InBev, Straub Brewing and Wigle Whiskey.
While his resume in the industry is quite extensive, Heinauer said that Penn Brewery was always special to him.
“This place has always been my home in a lot of ways,” he said. “I’ve gone to work for a lot of different breweries, but this has always been my passion. I still find myself answering the phone ‘Eric from Penn Brewery.’” Graf told The Chronicle that he would handle more of the “high-level business strategy” of the brewery, and Heinauer would be focused on the day-to-day operations.
Despite the transition, Penn Brewery remained open during its annual Oktoberfest celebrations in September, and Heinauer said he expects the brewery’s restaurant to open back up fully by the end of October with a new menu and some upgrades. The restaurant has been operating under a limited menu in recent weeks.
Regarding changes under the new ownership, Heinauer said he would aim to return the brewery to its traditional German roots. In particular, he said the brewery would resume using a technique called krausening, a carbonation method he said is relatively uncommon among craft breweries these days.
Christopher Rudolph, Penn Brewery’s head brewer, told The Chronicle that the process involved adding wort (an extract from the mashing step of the brewing process) to beer in order to restart the fermentation process. He said this helps make the beverage easier to drink, and that the brewery formerly employed it and would easily be able to restart its use.
“We’re almost designed for it,” Rudolph said.
Rudolph will be staying on with the brewery during the ownership transition, as will Director of Sales and Marketing Amy Huseman. Heinauer said Huseman helped keep the brewery “relevant” through its collaboration with community organizations, something the new ownership plans to maintain.
“We intend to keep all those connections together,” he said. “I think a lot of the time, the first time somebody has tried a Penn Brewery product has been at a community event.”
Huseman echoed the commitment to the neighborhood.
“I wouldn’t be here if it didn’t still have a community focus,” she said.
The new ownership team further indicated that the brewery will be seeing renovations over the course of the coming year, with some to take place before the restaurant’s reopening in October, and some to occur next year. While specific upgrades were not given, Heinauer said the brewery’s brewhouse and beer garden will see updates.
Price changes are also expected for the brewery’s menu with a goal towards being more competitive.
“So prices are not going up,” Graf specified.
Background on the brewery
The location on which Penn Brewery currently sits has housed breweries for more than a century starting in 1848. The first brewing on the site occurred under the Eberhardt and Ober families, German migrants who lived in Deutschtown, according to Penn Brewery’s website.
Beer production continued under various labels until 1952. Penn Brewery was founded in 1986 and resumed brewing operations at the site under the auspices of Tom and Mary Beth Pastorius. The brewery changed hands several times, eventually coming under the ownership of Stefan Nitsch, who was the owner when the brewery declared bankruptcy on March 31 this year.
According to bankruptcy filings, the brewery had estimated liabilities of up to $10 million, including a $5.1 million debt owed to First Commonwealth Bank.
