[St. Marys PA] Straub Brewery & Tour

[Rail Paul]

I visited the Straub Brewery today, and took their tour of the 1880s vintage brewery. The little town of St Marys is located in northwestern PA, in the great forest. It is remote, very remote.

 

Straub makes an old fashioned, working man's pilsner brew. It's distributed in Pennsylvania and in a few counties of southwestern NY and nearby OH and WV. They also have a dark beer, and a recent light beer. It's a good, clean tasting, beer. In some circles it has a cult status due to its lack of sugars, syrups, salts, etc. Flaked corn, barley, yeast, and mountain water. Small batch production, and they use deposit bottles for some of their product sales. One of the last brewers to do this.

 

One of their claims to fame is "The Eternal Tap" which was turned on in 1933, I understand. There are three keg taps in their workroom, and locals would come by to fill their beer pails or growlers from freshly brewed kegs. These taps are now available to tour guests, apparently without limits, as far as I can tell. There were two guys drinking when I arrived, and the same two guys were still drinking when I left, an hour later. For all I know, they may have been there since 1933...

 

 

Straub

 

There was a line of cars outside the brewery, at the pick up window. You tell them what you want, they tell you what it will cost, and you pull up. They load your car, you pay them, and you drive off. People were getting multiple kegs, cases, etc.