Pop-Up or Permanent: Local Breweries Pair Pizza with Beer
Photos by Michael Piazza
In the midst of the final prom season ever at Lombardo’s Meetings & Occasions, an iconic south-of- Boston event venue for 40 years, the fourth-generation co-owners were busy road-readying a pizza-fueled food truck.
Bardo’s Bar Pizza—which debuted from the kitchen at Castle Island Brewing Co. in South Boston—represents the future for Lombardo’s Hospitality Group, which formed when the family sold their Randolph building and announced plans to wind down events there by September 2023. In May, the fourth-generation co-owners—David Lombardo; his sister, Jessica Bigge; and cousin, Francesca Carbotti—unveiled a kitchen-on-wheels called Bardo’s Pizza Trailer at Castle Island’s Norwood location. The food truck is open in conjunction with taproom hours, and will also take on private events. Lombardo’s Hospitality Group has expanded its off-site catering division and plans to look for a new venue “at some point,” explains Lombardo, LHG director of operations. “But for this transitional period, pizza is approachable, fun and just an attainable way to grow.”
The pandemic and how it has altered the dining landscape has not only played a prominent role in Lombardo’s strategy, but in the proliferation of pizza in taprooms in general, as a February 2022 Imbibe feature story by acclaimed beer writer Joshua M. Bernstein chronicled on a national scale. The Greater Boston beer scene is no exception: In five slices of life, here’s a look at how pizza is going over big at Boston- area breweries.
THE NEXT GENERATION:
Bardo’s Bar Pizza at Castle Island Brewing Co.
David Lombardo’s friendship with Castle Island Brewing Co. co-founder Adam Romanow goes back even before he was known as “D-Lombs” in high school. (When they were all growing up in Wayland, Lombardo’s brother Matt had the nickname “Bardo.” The pizza company’s name, David says with a laugh, nods to the “the cooler younger brother of Lombardo’s.”)
So when Romanow’s Norwood taproom needed a reliable option for food in order to reopen in 2020 under pandemic restrictions, he called up his buddy D-Lombs. A brand-new menu dubbed Lombardo’s To Go greeted taproom visitors that summer with food inspired by family tailgate spreads. Certain menu favorites, such as a spicy chicken sandwich made with a cutlet recipe by the Lombardos’ Nana, remain on the menu at Bardo’s. But, according to co-founder and Head Brewer Matt DeLuca, the Castle Island team always envisioned that their second taproom would serve South Shore–style bar pie.
DeLuca and Romanow had bonded over the region’s thin and crispy cheese-laced pizza and felt immense pride when Town Spa Pizza in Stoughton, a vanguard of bar pie, put their Castle Island White Ale on tap.
“We love this type of pizza,” says the brewer, who is originally from Duxbury and grew up a Poopsie’s devotee. “It’s fun and easy to eat, and there’s a little bit of personality to it.” It wasn’t in Lombardo’s Hospitality Group recipe books, but Executive Chef Eric Caron and Chef de Cuisine Matt Kennedy easily took to the research it required, Lombardo says. Bardo’s Bar Pizza, which opened in Southie in September 2021, adds its own spin while staying true to style. (And fans agree that it does: Followers of popular Instagram account @SSBarPizza voted it Rookie of the Year less than three months after opening.)
Caron’s dough recipe replaces a percentage of the hydration with Castle Island Keeper IPA. The beer adds a tangy flavor that works well with Bardo’s toppings like homemade sausage, red peppers and pickles—and it also makes a connection to their partners. Breweries are “a place where people come together,” Lombardo says, “and there's nothing more shareable than a pizza.”
bardospizza.com
castleislandbeer.com
10 Old Colony Ave., South Boston
31 Astor Ave., Norwood
THE SENSE OF PLACE:
Roundhead Brewing Co.
Luis Espinoza used dough as a way to improve his language skills when he emigrated from Peru to Boston more than 15 years ago. Now, the pizza and beer coming out of Roundhead Brewing Co.—which Head Brewer Espinoza opened with business partner Craig Panzer in Hyde Park last year—tells stories about where he’s from, and where food and beer can go. “Pizza is a very versatile dish that we can play around with different flavors and different cultures,” says Espinoza.
The Roundhead menu includes the beefy churrasco pizza, topped with sliced carne asada, chimichurri sauce, cotija cheese and chipotle aioli; and sweet and spicy corn, drizzled in aji amarillo (yellow pepper) sauce. Espinoza went to culinary school and worked at his father’s bakery in his home country. At his first local job, with Kupel’s Bakery in Brookline, “I was more interested in learning English than really learning how to make bagels, because it’s something I know already,” he says. As Espinoza gained more confidence in communicating, he worked at many restaurants and hotels in Greater Boston. The path led him to discover American craft beer—a whole new world of flavor!—and he soon got into homebrewing. Espinoza connected with Panzer, a former marketer for Vermont beer brands, over the hobby during their kids’ soccer practices in Jamaica Plain.
The Hyde Park taproom has served pizza from the outset, but Roundhead Brewing Co. outsources the dough-making to Angelo Locilento, founder of Tutto Italiano, Hyde Park’s beloved bakery and Italian specialty store. He actually brings his own mixer to make the dough onsite. “We have a beautiful neighborhood and everybody tries to help us,” Espinoza says. When flour is floating from the whirring mixer, it “makes me feel like I’m at home.”
roundheadbrewing.com
Westinghouse Plaza Building #10, Hyde Park
THE CULTIVATOR:
Trillium Brewing Co.
In early 2020, Trillium Brewing Co.’s massive Canton headquarters hosted the inaugural meetup of the Northeast Grainshed Alliance. It was the first time a group of small-grain stakeholders from around the region—like farmers, maltsters, bakers and brewers— met to discuss how they could work together to develop the local grain economy. At the time, the Boston-born beer company was in the midst of its own growth vision: Co-founders JC and Esther Tetreault had recently purchased property in North Stonington, Connecticut, to cultivate a diversified farm and establish an estate brewery. Meanwhile, long-term plans for Trillium HQ included adding a state-of-the-art spirits distillery, which is currently under construction.
The Canton taproom and restaurant is expansive enough to welcome upwards of 800 people. “We were looking for ways to integrate grain into our food,” says JC Tetreault, “but ultimately, we're just trying to make people happy with what we offer.” Pizza ticks both boxes.
For the dough, Trillium sources stone-milled local wheat flour from Ground Up Grain, a subsidiary of Valley Malt in Hadley, and a co-founder of the Northeast Grainshed Alliance. The whole wheat imparts rich flavor to the crust, but it can make it tough and not springy. So the kitchen team sifts the stone-milled flour, then blends it with commercially available 00 flour to achieve the right consistency. The recipe, which uses both brewers’ and bakers’ yeasts in fermentation, was developed in collaboration with baking teacher (and Edible contributor) Andrew Janjigian.
This process leaves behind a small amount of wheat middlings, or the fibrous bran and germ leftover from milling flour. It’s a byproduct that other members of the Grainshed Alliance have in excess. It can enhance soil nutrients, and it’s often used for animal feed. But, in collaboration with Lynn’s One Mighty Mill, Tetreault has begun to experiment with value-added uses for wheat middlings. Distilling whiskey from it is not an efficient process, he allows, because flour retains most of the grain’s starchy protein. “But whatever whiskey you would make from it would have this highly concentrated aroma and flavor,” Tetreault explains—and a distinctive terroir. It’s an idea that could only come about by “like-minded people talking to each other and getting creative,” he says, probably over a pizza and beer.
trilliumbrewing.com
100 Royall St., Canton
THE NEW NEIGHBORS:
7th Wave Brewing and Farthest Star Sake
A southwest suburban town has a burgeoning fermentation emporium thanks to a self-taught pizzaiolo.
David Strymish and his wife, Deborah Cronin, bought a multi-tenant industrial building in Medfield several years ago, with the intention of opening a brewery. Now, the Medfield complex is home to not only 7th Wave Brewing—Strymish’s hub of beer, whole-bean coffee and pizza—but also to 10 other businesses including AstraLuna Brands, a distiller and distributor of more than a dozen craft spirits; and Farthest Star Sake, another taproom and New England’s only producer of the brewed rice beverage.
Strymish, who previously founded an online cookbook retailer and ran his family’s book business, loves to cook and is a hobbyist coffee roaster. “I’m always experimenting,” he says. So when a friend showed him how to homebrew, “I thought it was the coolest thing ever,” and he set about opening his own place.
Strymish did a lot of learning on the job—recently hiring an experienced brewmaster for 7th Wave, Brian Flach—and introduced a pizza program during the pandemic. As a food lover and a landlord, Strymish wants his building to facilitate a creative culinary economy, he says. That attitude benefits tenants like Todd Bellomy, founder and brewer of Farthest Star Sake. “He understands the trials and tribulations of owning and starting a brewery, so he’s been very fair, and patient, and helpful,” Bellomy says.
And, his pizza is good. Its portability makes it easy for visitors to bring food from 7th Wave into Farthest Star’s taproom. Bellomy encourages his patrons to think beyond Japanese or even Asian cuisine when pairing his junmai and nigori. “Pizza and sake is something I thoroughly enjoy,” he says. Farthest Star’s proximity to a more traditional taproom, with a pizza kitchen to boot, is “showing people that sake is an alcoholic beverage you can enjoy with all kinds of stuff.”
7thwavebrewing.com
fartheststarsake.com
120 N Meadows Rd., Medfield
THE INNOVATOR:
Pizza Project
Craft beer is all about introducing new ideas, whether it’s a flavor or technique in the brewhouse or a collaboration in the taproom. So the scene made perfect sense as a starting place to Allie and Dan Spinale when they began Pizza Project, a business inspired by all types of naturally leavened dough.
When the couple began planning, Dan was working at Chelsea’s erstwhile Mystic Brewery, where he was introduced to the nearby award-winning Neapolitan- style spot, Ciao! Pizza and Pasta. He later moved into a kitchen role at Charlestown pizza-and-beer bar Brewer’s Fork. Allie was at Bone Up Brewing in Everett. The couple’s beer industry network answered their calls about pop-up plans in 2021. Among those people was Jenna Chillington, the community manager at the Charles River Speedway, who had recently left Night Shift Brewing Co. to help launch the complex of businesses in Brighton anchored by an outpost of Notch Brewing. Before other food vendors opened at the Speedway, “the number one thing coming through the door was people carrying pizza boxes,” says Notch founder and brewer Chris Lohring. Pizza Project began appearing there regularly that fall.
So when The Speedway recently polled tenants about what type of food should be a permanent addition to the mix this spring, the consensus was, Lohring says, “Pizza Project would be the ultimate. When you're sitting at communal tables and a pizza box arrives, it’s for everybody. It really fits the taproom vibe to be sharing.”
Pizza Project debuted its own storefront at the Speedway in May, serving up Sicilian-style slices and sandwiches. They’ll continue taking their custom-built wood-fired pizza oven on the road to other breweries, too, including Widowmaker in Braintree, Silvaticus in Amesbury and Vitamin Sea in Weymouth. Eventually, the Spinales hope to open a sit-down restaurant for their dough-driven menu, Dan says—perhaps with a beer list that highlights the breweries that helped them get going. Allie adds, “We’ve got some ideas brewing.”
pizzaprojectboston.com
525 Western Ave., Brighton
This story appeared in the Summer 2023 issue.
