When Old Economy Village in Ambridge holds its annual Holiday Dinner with the Pittsburgh Opera next Wednesday, Dec. 10, guests will get a taste of the beer made and enjoyed by the original Harmonist residents about 200 years ago.
This fall, Nichole A. Remmert, development and marketing associate for Friends of Old Economy Village, which administers the museum site with the state, worked with counterparts at Historic New Harmony in Indiana to get an English translation of a circa-1816 Harmonist beer recipe (in obscure German script) that the Ambridge site gave the Indiana one years ago.
With that in hand, she was able to have a batch brewed by Dan Woodske at his Beaver Brewing Co. in Beaver Falls.
He describes it as a straightforward German black lager, or schwarzbier, made, true to the German purity law, with just malt, yeast, hops and water.
The brew, which turned out to be a relatively 4.3-percent alcohol, he dubbed “Harmonist Schwarzbier -- George Rapp Approved” -- Rapp being the man who emigrated from Germany and founded the emigrated from Germany and founded the religious/communal Harmony Society in 1804. They started in Harmony, Butler County, moved in 1814 to what’s now known as New Harmony, Ind., then moved back to Western Pennsylvania to settle at Economy in 1824. By 1905, the settlement was disbanded, in great part because the Harmonists were supposed to be celibate.
But they had no prohibitions against drinking. In fact, in Economy, they had a brewery as well as a distillery and made their own wine, too, selling what they didn’t use themselves to others.
More than a century later, the Harmonists’ well-regarded dark lager -- Indiana’s first commercial beer -- was replicated by several member brewers of the Brewers of Indiana Guild in 2010, and at least one continues to be commercially made (by Great Crescent Brewery) and sold by the growler at Sarah’s Harmony Way pub in New Harmony, and in pint cans across the state. Great Crescent’s Dan Valas says they plan to push their Harmonie Bier Dark Lager for Indiana’s 200th anniversary in 2016.
Mr. Woodske started pouring his Western Pennsylvania version at his brewpub two weekends ago. He says the only tweak he made, thinking about how the beer originally was brewed over actual fires, was to add a handful of smoked malt. “I can’t even taste it but I would imagine any beer at that time would have some sort of smoky flavor.”
He made a barrel and a half, or 45 gallons, 10 of which he planned to save for the Old Economy dinner. The rest he presented to his customers the day before Thanksgiving, and they loved it. It sold out, save for the keg he saved for this weekend.
Ms. Remmert says,“I’m so excited for this project to be coming to fruition -- it was one of the first things I took on when I started here this summer.” She is, after all, interested in brewing and distilling. She finally tracked down the recipe from the Brewers of Indiana Guild and they agreed to give it back to her. “I didn’t want variations. I wanted the basic [translated recipe] that they had sent out initially.”
She says that Mr. Woodske would make more for future Old Economy events. What’s extra nice is, he’s donating the beer to the museum.
Tickets for the annual Holiday Dinner are $80 or $64 for members of the Friends of Old Economy. Doors of the Feast Hall (on Church Street in Ambridge) open at 6 p.m. Wednesday, and Mr. Woodske will pour tastes of the beer and wine with hors d’oeuvres. Then at 7 p.m. starts the buffet dinner by Mezza Luna Cafe (guests are invited to bring their own wine for dinner).
At 8 p.m. is the performance by the Pittsburgh Opera.
For tickets and information, call Ms. Remmert at 724-266-4500, ext. 114, by Friday, Dec. 5.
She’s already planning a garden-to-table dinner for this summer, also featuring Harmonist beer.
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Also this weekend, Santa taps the St. Nikolaus Bock Brewers Reserve at Penn Brewery at 6 p.m. Friday, and East End Brewing Co. and Harris Grill mark their 10-year anniversaries (and help Grow Pittsburgh and the Animal Rescue League) at East End at 6 p.m. Saturday.
First Published: December 4, 2014, 5:00 a.m.
