Truss Brewery is a nanobrewery that opened up within walking distance to my house. I have to say, one of my favorite things they had were these amazing sweet potato fries wrapped in bacon for their grand opening. I am hoping they come back into the menu rotation at some point because, man-oh-man were they good. I also really enjoy their margarita pizza... something about the sauce, it's just really good. We also tried the King Edward beer and I can't complain about that one bit. It was different than the normal beers I drink, but that's what I liked about it.
1. Tell us a little bit about yourself and Truss?
Mark Larimer Jr. , chef/owner with 30yrs experience in the industry. Institutional, casual and fine dining as well as catering for the Pittsburgh Penguins and Pittsburgh Steelers and individual players - most recently Derek Watt, Ryan Switzer, and Ben Roethlisberger. Truss Brewing is a nanoBrewery and wood-fired oven all situated in a 900 square-foot building designed for take-out only. This concept was put together before the pandemic and opened its doors during the height of it. Two executive chefs collaborate on unique beers on a small batch scale with all local ingredients and local purveyors providing menu items as well as retail merchandise for guests.
2. What made you decide to go into the brewing business?
It’s such a great industry with great people and a very fun atmosphere. It’s a complete shift from corporate America.
3. What makes Truss different/unique?
It’s size, service service model and the ability to get creative and in and out of things quickly. We can use all fresh ingredients - grind our own grains, not use additives, concentrates, or fillers or anything that isn’t whole fruit or grain. With two chefs we can have fun attempting things that maybe haven’t been done before. We’re propagating our yeast strains, we’re brewing with vegetables, carbonating soup and doing lots of things that we love to do.
4. Where do you get the inspiration for your flavor profiles?
The crossover from culinary to the Brewing world has been great for us.
5. What is one beer that you have made that is your all-time favorite? And have you ever brewed one that didn’t turn out like you envisioned?
So far sweet potato has been a favorite. We attempted a Kuit style Dutch beer From the 1400s which was not very friendly to modern machinery but it turned out great. It’s just very challenging to make and next week will be our last run of it for the year.
6. Truss has a delicious menu as well; I personally love the bacon wrapped fries. What was the inspiration for the menu?
Oddly enough the bacon wrapped sweet potatoes were offered for four days during our soft opening and have not been on the menu since - but many have commented on them both good and bad. We offered a mix of different potatoes per order that were done over wood fire & only two out of the 6-8 wedges would have been sweet potato wrapped in bacon. A few people took the keyboard commentary to us for leaving bacon off of the other fries in the order. LOL. They were very laborious and they tasted great but we’ve moved on.
With my prior employer I got to use almost all pieces of food service equipment. We tried everything that was manufactured. I fell in love with wood cooking over 10 years ago and at that point built an oven in my yard. Our entire menu at truss is cooked on wood. We do not have a fryer, we do not have an oven, a stove top, a broiler, sauté station, steamer, or any commercial cooking equipment. Just fire from the wood. I’ve worked in different styles of restaurants from fast casual to fine dining but this was going to be about what goes great with some very good beers.
7. You chose to be take-out only, what made you not want to have dine in space for your customers?
Driving down Labor model, cost per square foot, Utilities, and Other key performance indicators to a goal well below known industry standards. I wanted to be contrite and have a certain amount of guilt associated with any waste. I thought it better to have multiple units than one giant place.
8. Where can we find you, Facebook, the web, Instagram?
Trussbrewing.com and Facebook
Nicole Leckenby - Co-founder of the Holiday Cafe, soccer mom, dancer, councilwoman and author of children's books. Enjoys interviewing people and writing stories.
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