Hofbrauhaus brings a bit of Germany to the ‘burgh

By Kelsey Shea

Assistant A & E Editor

With the clink of a mug and a… By Kelsey Shea

Assistant A & E Editor

With the clink of a mug and a fateful stumble, a man falls off the bench he’s standing on and spills his beer, but he still manages to right himself in time to belt the last few lines of “Don’t Stop Believin’” with the rest of the crowd.

After all, it’s Saturday night at the Hofbrauhaus — a little spilled beer is the last thing anyone’s worrying about.

Pittsburgh’s own German beer hall is the go-to place for weekends in the SouthSide Works. Inside the colossal building, guests stand on the benches of long communal tables dancing, singing, swinging and swigging their beers to the rhythm of the house polka band’s renditions of American classics.

The original Hofbrauhaus is located in Munich, Germany. Pittsburgh boasts one of the restaurant’s only three American locations (the other two are in Cincinnati and Las Vegas).

According to co-owner Eric Haas, the riverside location of Pittsburgh’s SouthSide Works was the perfect spot for a German beer hall.

“Pittsburgh is like Cincinnati. There are a lot of people with German heritage and a lot of people who like to drink beer,” Haas said. “Plus, it’s a great town.”

The Hofbrauhaus seats about 1,400 people between its lively great hall, outside bier garden and quiet side hall.

The restaurant also serves as a brewery, churning out over 100 gallons of its own beer each day. And they need it — the restaurant can sell that amount, if not more, on a busy night. At last year’s Oktoberfest, for example, the restaurant sold over 1,300 liters in a single day.

In any given month the Hofbrauhaus brews five different beers: four standards — Wheat, Dunkel, Light and its Premium Lager — and one seasonal beer that changes each month.

The man behind this frothy golden magic is none other than the Beer Master of the Hofbrauhaus himself — Eckhard Kurbjuhn.

Kurbjuhn looks like the kind of guy whoses earned the title of Beer Master. A big man with a thick German accent and a blunt sense of humor, Kurbjuhn says his favorite beer is the beer in front of him, and that he’s made his “hobby into his profession.”

Born in a small town in northern Germany, Kurbjuhn learned the art of brewing as an apprentice at the original Hofbrauhaus in Munich. Kurbjuhn moved to America at the insistence of the Pittsburgh establishment’s owners.

According to Kurbjuhn, Pittsburgh’s Hofbrauhaus is an authentic experience. He said that other than the American occupants and the building itself (the original Hofbrauhaus is 400 years old), the two beer halls are very similar.

The menu features authentic German dishes like bratwurst, schnitzel and Schmanker-Platte. The soft pretzels with bier cheese are especially popular — probably because they compliment the beer, which Kurbjuhn says he makes with an original Munich recipe.

Kurbjuhn says Haas’ choice of Pittsburgh was smart. He says business is booming, and the beer hall isn’t going anywhere.

“You Pittsburghers, you drink a lot of beer,” he said.