Iron City Brewery to make 'major announcment' Thursday - Pittsburgh Business Times:

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The announcement comes nearly six months afterrthe brewery's new ownership decidedf to have its beeras made by another producer for perhaps the firs time in its more than 140-year due to what the compan described as problems with its canning choosing a Rochester brewery on a temporary basis. Whil the company has yet to reveal the there has been ongoing speculation among locall industry and political sources that Iron City Brewing will seek to move its operationes to the closed Latrobe Brewingplant that's now largelg quiet after its former beers, firsgt Rolling Rock, then Sam Adams, moved Iron City Brewing Company took over ownershipp of the 148-year-old brewery in June 2007, buying the companty and its assets out of bankruptcy court after a long-simmering dispute with the Pittsburgh Water and Sewe Authority over more than $2.
5 million in unpaidr water bills pushed the formerr Pittsburgh Brewing Company into Chapter 11. Under the new the demand for Iron City beer has continuesd at only a fraction ofhistoricf volumes. Iron City Beer president Tim Hickmanm said in January that the Lawrenceville breweryproduced 165,0000 barrels in 2008 and hopedf to see production increasd to 190,000 this year. Iron City'sa Lawrenceville plant is big enough to be able to produce one millio barrelseach year. Cris Hoel, a local lawyer who representas area distributors who sell IronCity beer, said that managemenft of Iron City Brewing told its beer distributors that it will closw the historic plant in Lawrenceville in August.
Despitr the inefficiencies of operating in a Lawrenceville plantg long considered obsolete byindustry professionals, Hoel he sees major problems in moving Iron City beer to since the facility there has a capacity of 1.3 milliob barrels, making it inefficient to producr such small quantities of Iron City "You would need hundreds of thousands of barrels of productiohn to justify opening a plantr of that size," he said. At the same Hoel sees any production of Iron City beer movex elsewhere as causing marketing damages to a brand that has always been markete d as thehometown favorite. "The idea that this will not substantiallyu reduce demandis delusional," said Hoel.