Grist House brewery celebrates opening at former Cold War missile site

It wasn’t long after Brian Eaton and Kyle Mientkiewicz opened Grist House brewery in Millvale that they knew they would need additional space for production.

As it turns out, a Cold War missile-command site in Collier fit the bill. Grist House celebrated a grand opening at the Nike site Sept. 6 and 7.

“We came across the former command center,” Eaton said. “We realized it would be great for not only our production facility, but also it would be an amazing taproom.

“We’re lucky to find it. It’s a very unique building. I think people will be impressed.”

In the 1950s, the 55,000-square-foot main building at 301 Sgt. Messerschmidt Road was the command center for about 12 surface-to-air missile sites in the area. It stopped being a missile command in 1972.

Eaton and Mientkiewicz purchased the site in 2018.

Most of the brewery’s production will take place at the Collier location, which they aptly named Grist House Command, Eaton said.

The Command has a 30-barrel system, twice the capacity of the site in Millvale, Eaton said. It also has a fermentation capacity of 30,000 barrels, a vast increase from Millvale’s 2,500.

Eaton said the Collier location will run a full kitchen, complete with a nod to Grist House’s start in Millvale with a chili dog. When the Millvale site first opened, Grist House was required to serve food, so they served chili dogs.

Seating capacity, indoor and outdoor, at the Command is about 450, Eaton said.

Along with the Command, the Millvale taproom will remain, as will Grist House’s nonbrewing sites in Saxonburg and Butler. Eaton said early feedback for the Command has been positive.

“It’s a neat portion of Pittsburgh history, and being able to preserve it and have people experience it is very unique,” Eaton said. “It’s been an interesting journey. I think people are excited to check it out.”