Pittsburgh is a tough egg to crack when it comes to travel, partly thanks to its unique hodge-podge identity.
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Overwhelmingly, Pittsburgh is known as a once-booming steel town with a working-class population and a penchant for life’s simpler things. By simpler things, I’m talking about competitive sports teams, hardy foods, and sprawling public parks.
But it’s got a lot more bubbling under the surface. Pittsburgh is the hometown of some wildly famous faces, including Mr. Rogers and Andy Warhol, and is where some of Frank Lloyd Wright’s best works were built. It’s also a tech and medical hub thanks to its local universities.
There are robots, there are many bridges, and there are dive bars galore. It’s the type of place that you might need help digging into, in other words.
As you build your itinerary, check out these tours that include brewery visits, bar-hopping, and a little bit of history. They’re a great introduction to the city’s appreciation for great brews—and a long night out with friends.
If you want to dive deep into Pittsburgh’s brewery culture, I recommend checking out this brewery list from the local Pittsburgh Brewers Guild. They’ve put together a brewery trail feature that you can use to build your own DIY trail or take a premade trail.
6 drinking tours in Pittsburgh: breweries, prohibition, and bar crawls
Craft Your Own Beer Experience – City Brew Tours
The top brewery tour company in Pittsburgh is City Brew Tours. You can put together your own craft beer experience with the company, along with customized bachelor and bachelorette parties. If you’re hoping to dive deep into Pittsburgh’s brewery culture, there’s no better place to start. Below, you can also book one of their highly rated tours on Viator.
Pittsburgh Signature Guided Brewery Tour (City Brew Tours)
City Brew Tours runs a 3.5-hour tour of four of Pittsburgh’s top breweries: The Couch, Penn Brew, Strange Roots, and more. The tour includes transportation and also covers the art of beer-making, in case you want to take a peek behind the curtain. Over the course of the tour, you will sample up to 12 beers.
Beers in the Burgh: Pittsburgh Brewery Walk
This half-day walking tour takes you to Pittsburgh’s brewiest neighborhood: Lawrenceville. As you explore the vibrant neighborhood, your guide will take you to a range of local breweries. There, you can sample some of the city’s most unique beers. Along the way, your guide will also share a bit about the neighborhood’s history.
Bikes and Brews Tour: Pittsburgh Brewery Tour
If you’re okay with boozing and cycling on the same tour, this pick will give you a fantastic overview of the city’s layout, its top breweries, and its historical monuments. Because you’re cycling, you also have the chance to cover more ground, including trips around popular neighborhoods like Lawrenceville, the Strip District, Deutschtown, and Millville. At the end, you can also stick around for dinner.
Pittsburgh Historic Strip District – Libation Tour
The Strip District is a historic, eclectic neighborhood that many visitors enjoy. It’s also famed for nightlife. On this two-hour tour, you can sample up to 12 libations from a range of locations, including bars, wineries, breweries, and more. Whether you like rum, beer, or wine, you’re in for a treat.
Whiskey Rebellion & Prohibition Tour
What does whiskey have to do with Pittsburgh’s history? Here’s your chance to find out. This tour covers the influence that whiskey has had on the city’s political and social fabric. You’ll get to learn about the prohibition era, speakeasies, and whiskey. The tour comes with two whiskey samples: a Prohibition cocktail and an Old Fashioned from two master cocktailers.
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