Right now, Pittsburgh is a hotbed of fury.
As we speak, rioters are wreaking havoc in the streets, trying to draw the world's financial giants' attention to their respective causes during the G-20 summit. Unfortunately, the protesters still don't realize our nation's latest calamity. The starving Africans, masses without health care and the hemisphere burgeoning with carbon dioxide all can wait. We have a crisis on our hands.
About a month ago, my father, a Pittsburgh native, was in dahn tahn Picksburg (Pittsburghese for downtown Pittsburgh), and decided he wanted to partake in a long-standing tradition. He wanted himself an Iron City Beer, or Arn
if we're going to be phonetically correct. So, we went to a fine local establishment and asked the waitress for an Iron. This young woman brought back what we thought was about to be the key factor in a taste of authentic Pittsburgh.
However, as my father, an experienced Iron City drinker, swallowed his first gulp, a look of absolute disgust came onto his face. Is this an Iron City? he yelled to the waitress. Well yes the label says it's an Iron City
she huffed.
Upon close examination, we found the source of the problem. It's no longer made in the Lawrenceville brewery, where it was brewed for the past 140 years. We were shocked to find the brewery moved to nearby Latrobe, where Rolling Rock was previously made. Is Iron City going to fall the way of Rolling Rock and be purchased by a massive beer conglomerate?
Once upon a time, when Iron City was still produced in Pittsburgh, you could taste the pollution from the Allegheny River water used in the brewing process. Now that Iron City isn't fortified with hard metals and other toxic chemicals from massive steel mills, my main concern is how the Pittsburghers will get their quota of these important substances.
It was like the Burg's version of PBR, lovingly bottled by area union workers. The tradition honed at the Lawrenceville brewery location has been watered into a bland, generic beer. Iron City no longer tastes like Iron City; it tastes like Bud Light.
Beyond the obvious change in taste, moving production had other effects on the city. When the Pittsburgh Brewing Company transferred to Latrobe, it laid off 50 workers and totaled a water bill of $1 million to Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority, according to a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story from Aug. 2.
Many of the remaining workers revealed to the Post-Gazette they worried their jobs were in danger.
We've seen things going downhill and downhill and figured two years ago it would happen
said Don Conners, who had been a brewer at the plant for three decades. Then we figured last year it would happen. Now it's happened.
The G-20 leaders, protesters and union workers should join hands, crack open an Arn and take advice from U.S. Navy Capt. James Lawrence, for whom Lawrenceville is named. Don't Give Up the Iron!
Natalie McGee is a junior studying journalism and copy chief for The Post. Send her your commemorative cans at nm747107@ohiou.edu.
4
Opinion
29160a.jpg
