USA, PA: CoStar Brewing officially open in Etna

It’s been a long time coming, but CoStar Brewing is now officially open in Etna, Good Food Pittsburgh reported on March 2.

Co-owner Dominic Cincotta, who has been brewing beer for more than a decade, first started home brewing out of a garage in Highland Park. Eventually, CoStar brews made it into bars and restaurants throughout Pittsburgh, and Cincotta and his business partners began looking for land to build their own taproom, and expand the brewery.

“We purchased the land seven years ago, so it’s been in the works for quite awhile,” says CoStar cofounder Dominic Cincotta. “The Etna Borough Council actually owned one of the lots that we bought, and reached out to us to suggest this spot. We started construction about a year ago.”

The now-open Butler Street taproom and brewery is a 2,400-square-foot open-span building, with a minimalist design.

“We wanted to incorporate design ideas from breweries and taprooms from around the country that we really loved,” Cincotta says. “Our brew system is open to the taproom, not enclosed in another space or behind a wall, so you sit right there with the tanks and can see what’s happening.”

The taproom will have a bar area, a mix of different-sized tables, and two garage doors that open to Butler Street, giving the space loads of sunshine. It also features a small beer garden, for when the weather is nice.

“We’re excited that we’ll be able to open those doors up during the summer, and give people a space to sit outside,” he says.

For now, the taproom is bring-your-own-food, but they do have plans to introduce food trucks to the space in the future. And, because of their open-tap brew system, no animals are allowed in the taproom itself, though pets can be outside when the beer garden is open.

The focus, Cincotta says, is (as always) the beer.

“We believe in having simple things done really well, and that includes our beer,” he says. “We’ll have our Pale Ale, our Candice IPA, our Cream Ale. We don’t have a sour program, and we don’t do milkshakes right now. We are planning to do some hazies in the future, but we wanted to stick to the styles we’ve done well over the years.

That includes the aforementioned Hopland Park Pale Ale (clear and clean with hints of lemon), the Candice IPA (piney and grassy), CoStar Kolsch, Cream Ale (with a hint of sweetness from Flaked Maize and Flaked Barley), and ESB, a traditional English Extra Special Bitter brew.

“The most important thing is that we always want to have the freshest beer,” Cincotta says. “This is the first time that we’ve opened a tap room, so we’re going to see what works, and see how much supply we go through, and that will help determine the steps we take in the future.”

CoStar Brewing is having a soft opening on Saturday, March 2 from 2:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., and Sunday, March 3 from 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., and will continue to open on the weekends for now. “Eventually, we plan to move into a Wednesday through Sunday or a Thursday through Monday schedule, but we want to get everything figured out behind the scenes.”

And, though Cincotta will continue to work his full-time consulting job, he says that he’ll be a regular presence in the taproom.

“I’ll eventually step away from some of the bartending duties as we hire more people,” he says. “But it’s our business, and we want to be here as much as possible.”

So far, Cincotta says, the neighborhood has been happy to have them.

“The sense of community has been incredible,” Cincotta says. “Everyone in Etna has been incredibly welcoming – the mayor is who did the design of the building for us, and the neighborhood has just been incredibly instrumental in helping us put this together. We know that everybody is very excited for us to be here, but we’re just asking for patience – we’ve never done this before, but we really want it to be great.”

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