A mile away from friendly competitors, Chimera, HITCHHIKER BREWING COMPANY created a taproom in Pittsburgh’s Mount Lebanon area (neighboring Castle Shannon) after initiating its nearby tan brick-factoried Sharpsburg brewery during 2014 (formerly housing Fort Pitt Brewery). Willing to go all over the place creating exciting, varied beers, Hitchhiker has crafted over 100 different recipes in a decade-plus.
At a gray brick cornershop with small deck, Hitchhiker’s wooden insignia welcomes patrons to its casual neighborhood pub serving an amazing amount of diversified liquids. Old metal-backed chairs crowd the wood top bar (with a dozen-plus tap handles) and a TV hangs from the back black wall.
My wife and I visited October ’25 at noon on a warm n’ sunny Saturday during our four-day Pitt brewpub sojourn, discovering several fruited sours, one blondie, a gourd spicer and Oreo stout.
Beige yellow-glowed Conversion Blonde Ale let polite lemony grapefruit bittering and subtle mandarin orange tang swing thru grassy-hopped pining.
Autumnal goodie, Throwback Pumpkin Ale, tossed bittersweet vanilla beans at perfumed pumpkin pie spicing (cinnamon-nutmeg-coriander-ginger) over molasses toast.
Dry waxy fruiting and candied citrus spicing led medium-bodied Bane Of Existence IPA, leaving lemon-limed grapefruit and orange bittering as well as tart mango-guava-passionfruit tropicalia and herbal notions on its cereal grained bottom.
Fruit punched milkshake IPA variant, Whole Punch: Jelly Donut, conditioned on donuts, raspberry, and vanilla beans, picked up mild strawberry, boysenberry and blackberry illusions atop creamy oats.
Kettle-soured IPA, Usual Chaos, conditioned on tart blackberry, raspberry and vanilla beans, supplied milk-sugared oated wheat creaming to its Citra-Amarillo-hopped piney fruiting.
Conditioned on peanut butter and raspberry, fruited kettle sour, MMHMMM Raspberry brought creamy milk sugaring to salty strawberry-jammed rhubarb tartness to its honeyed Graham Cracker base.
Conditioned on strawberry and marshmallow, chewy pastry sour, Yoberry, spread cocoa nibs splendor across oated wheat creaming.
Peach Mimosa-like Smoothie sour, Peach Bottle Service, spewed lightly acidic orange concentrate on peachy milk-sugared vanilla creaming and wheat-flaked pastry dough.
A confectionery nightcap conditioned on Oreo cookies, Oreo Speedwagon Imperial Milkshake Stout loaded milk-sugared dark chocolate syrup onto minty vanilla, creamed coffee and honeyed oats.