Bloggin' Umholtz

Ist das ein Bier! Ya, das ist ein Bier!

The meeting I was attending was a two-day senior management staff meeting, which I’m normally not invited to (not senior management – yet). Suffice it to say that, while I knew most of the attendees I was a little nervous. Since we were all staying at The Priory we decide to go out to dinner together. Not knowing Pittsburgh I relied on their expertise to pick a suitable location for our evening repast. They choose the Penn Brewery. Hey, I said they were senior management. I didn’t say they had their priorities screwed up.

The Penn Brewery is located on the north side of Pittsburgh, and is in fact, a brewery. Not only that, but the Penn Brewery Restaurant is an authentic Bavarian style Beer hall, with an authentic Bavarian menu. With a last name of Umholtz, German food is something I know a little about.

Because of my current vertigo attacks I’ve had to forego alcohol consumption, so the fact that we were eating at a brewery was a little difficult for me to deal with. On the bright side, the other seven of my dinner partners had a designated driver for their van. The waitress took our drink orders as soon as we arrived, seven glasses of various beers...and one lemon water. Oh well.

The restaurant used plank tables and benches, just like a real beer hall and was festooned with various beer drinking and brewing memorabilia. One wall was glass and looked out over the brewery itself. Oh to be so close, and not be able to touch!

I took immediate notice of the many people wearing the uniform of the day, black and gold. Various signs were hung above the bar and throughout the restaurant proclaiming something called “Go Steelers” My only understanding of this comes from a historical reference to Pittsburgh’s steel making industry. Obviously, the sign must reference some remnant of that industry that is trying to increase production. Surely the workers frequent this beer-drinking establishment and being the good capitalists that they are, the management is encouraging them to work harder. Don’t you just love management? Oh…wait a minute, forget I said that.

The menu was simply a delight to read. Every German dish you could possibly want was in there, plus a few non traditional dishes for those not inclined to eat bratwurst and guzzle beer. On a 2-mg/day salt diet, I quickly eliminated 99.9% of the menu. In fact I really couldn’t find anything I could eat. I finally settled on Wiener Schnitzel (breaded veal cutlet), braised red cabbage and German potato salad.

While we waited for our dinners I noticed two gentlemen dressed in the traditional German Lederhosen (leather pants, shorts actually). Since it was a German beer hall, I wasn’t too surprised. Just about the time our meals arrived these two gentlemen produced a squeezebox (accordion) and a bass fiddle. They then proceeded to serenade us with German beer drinking songs. More then once I raised my glass to toast everyone’s health. Prost!

Long about the middle of the meal was when it happened. And I tell you truly, you simply haven’t lived until you are sitting in a German beer hall in downtown Pittsburgh, when the German Omp-Pah band (two middle aged overweight men with accordion and bass fiddle) leads everyone in their rendition of the Steelers Fight Song. It is a sight to behold and a sound unlike anything you will ever hear again, Thank the stars. Hideously terrible gold towels are waved overhead and once the song is complete another toast is made:

Ziggy-Zoggy, Ziggy-Zoggy!
Oi, Oi, Oi

Ziggy-Zoggy, Ziggy-Zoggy!
Oi, Oi, Oi

Prost!

I raise my glass of lemon water to the German Omp-Pah band.

I learned a couple of interesting things in my Pittsburgh travels.

1. Pittsburgh consumes three times as many perogies as any other major city in the United States.

2. The Steelers have absolutely zero fans. But they have one heck of a huge family.

3. Thursday afternoon, a radio broadcaster broadcasting from Detroit was heard to say. “ That in his thirty years of broadcasting he had never seen anything like it. They picked up the entire city of Pittsburgh and moved it to Detroit. Why I can’t even brush my teeth in my hotel room without bumping into two or three Steeler fans.”


If the world goes to heck in a handbasket and the bad guys are winning, I’m heading to Pittsburgh. These people will kick the crap out of anyone. And they’ll be wearing leather shorts when they do it.

Go Steelers!