Beer Radar

We should be seeing some new beer in Philly by early summer following the arrival of the new Roy Pitz brewery out in Chambersburg. Co-owner Ryan Richards says he and his partner, Jesse Rotz, are planning a June 7th grand opening and expect to be sending beer our way shortly thereafter.

Both Richards and Rotz, who went to school together at West Chester U., are Siebel-trained; Richards also studied brewing in Germany. They worked briefly at Victory Brewing, then Twin Lakes down in Delaware.

The brewery is in an old sewing machine factory that was built in the early 1900s. It’ll be keg-only at first, possibly adding bottles and - who knows? - a brewpub. “Right now, our focus is just selling fresh beer in the vicinity - Chambersburg, Shippensburg, Gettysburg, maybe Carlisle - plus West Chester and Philly,” Richards told me. (Stockertown Bev. is handling local distribution.)

The beer? They’ll start with two out of the gate: White Horse Hefeweizen and Lovitz Lager (described as a light lager flavored with locally grown watermelon). Later you can look for a rauchbier and an imperial IPA.

And what about that name - Roy Pitz? It’s from some cockamamie story about conjoined twins who lived in the area in the 1700s. I dunno whether I buy the tale, but to paraphrase Smuckers: With a name like Pitz, the beer better be good. 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 8th, 2008 at 12:36 pm and is filed under Brewery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.