PITTSBURGH -- Iron City Brewing, a fixture in Pittsburgh's Lawrenceville neighborhood for almost 150 years under various names, is moving its beer-making operations to Westmoreland County.
The iconic Pittsburgh beer will now be the anchor tenant at City Brewing in Latrobe, although the company's headquarters and administrative jobs will remain in the city, WTAE Channel 4's Bob Mayo reported Thursday.
"We're still committed to our brands. We're still committed to Pittsburgh," Iron City Beer president Tim Hickman said. "We're moving 40 miles down the road. The Steelers hold their training camp in Latrobe. We figured, hey, if it's good enough for the Steelers, it's got to be good enough for Iron City."
Hickman said the 148-year-old company -- which has also been known through the years as Pittsburgh Brewing Company -- expects to brew its final beer in Lawrenceville on June 22 and hopes to produce 171,000 barrels a year in Latrobe.
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Thursday's announcement came two years after Iron City struck a deal with the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority to settle hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid bills -- a massive debt break which was supposed to help solidify the company's future within city limits.
In March, Iron City announced what was to be a temporary move of canned beer production to Rochester, N.Y., citing mechanical issues. But a new engineering report issued this week may have finally forced the company's hand.
Necessary infrastructure repairs for canning in the Lawrenceville facility were first estimated at about $2 million, but later determined to be between $12 million and $15 million. Hickman said the cost is not feasible, so the company will continue canning its beer in Rochester for now and lease space and equipment in Latrobe for bottling and keg brewing.
Eventually, IC will move its canning to Latrobe. A new canning line is being installed at the brewery, which was bought by Wisconsin-based City Brewing after Rolling Rock moved out and sold its beer recipe to Anheuser-Busch in 2006.
Iron City Brewing Co. was known for many years as Pittsburgh Brewing Co., until returning to its original name after going bankrupt and being bought out in 2007.
"If this brand benefits from being uprooted and moving to a new facility outside its hometown, that will be first in the recorded history of the beer business," said attorney Cris Hoel, who has represented Pittsburgh Brewing and other clients in the alcoholic beverage industry.
For a time, City Brewing was making Samuel Adams beers in Latrobe, but the brewery has sat empty since November.
Latrobe Mayor Tom Marflak -- who has seen several attempts to restart local beer production fall flat -- did not seem overly excited at the news that Iron City was coming to town.
"Announcements come and announcements go. People come and people go," said Marflak. "I hope today's announcement is good news for the people of Latrobe and employees of City Brewing to get something in that building."
City Brewing employees who will brew IC beer in Latrobe are members of Locals 144B and 22B of the IUE-CWA -- the same union that covers about 50 current IC workers.
"We feel like one of our children is dying, and they're saying we can transplant the heart in the other child, you know? While we're happy that it's good for the one child, the other one's dying," said union staff representative Ken Ream.
Ream -- who's also a former employee -- said union workers had agreed to major concessions two years ago.
"They're angry and they feel like they've been lied to, in that they feel we had some commitments from the current ownership," Ream said.
Some union members had fathers, grandfathers and even great-grandfathers who brewed and bottled Iron City beer during both world wars, the Great Depression and Prohibition.
"My father used to have a bar that he only served Iron City Beer in Waynesburg years ago," said John George, of Morgantown, W.Va., who was at the Primanti Bros. restaurant in the Strip District on Thursday. "It's not a big difference since it's still going to be in western Pennsylvania. If they took it out of western Pennsylvania, it would be a real shame."
Attorneys for the city of Pittsburgh are trying to determine what money they can recover from Iron City Brewing, and the company said it will fulfill its obligations.
"Today is a sad day for Pittsburgh. It's a sad day for the beer business. It's a sad day for everyone who grew up with Iron City Beer," said Hoel.
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