Spoonwood Brewing, Bethel Bakery create 3rd pastry-ale offering

Mary Pickels
Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2020 6:35 a.m. | Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2020 6:35 a.m.

Courtesy of Bethel Bakery

Bethel Bakery and Spoonwood Brewing Co. have combined products to create “Donut,” a golden ale featuring paczki doughnuts, available “until it’s gone.”

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Kayla Milliron, Bethel Bakery pastry chef, and Steve Ilnicki, Spoonwood Brewing Co.’s brewer and part owner, with an earlier collaboration, The Retort Chocolate Raspberry Cake Stout.

Spoonwood Brewing Co. and Bethel Bakery are joining forces for the third time in their “have your cake and drink it, too,” campaign.

In May, they introduced Retort Chocolate Raspberry Cake Stout, a combination of Spoonwood’s traditional stout with the bakery’s chocolate cake and raspberry purée.

In October, the Pittsburgh brewery and Bethel Park bakery dreamed up Pumpkin Drop Porter, adding pumpkin purée, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and the bakery’s pumpkin spice cookies to a dark ale.

With cake and cookies already scoring customer support, could doughnuts be far behind?

At 11:30 a.m. Jan. 25, Spoonwood, at 5981 Baptist Road, Pittsburgh, will release its first doughnut-flavored golden ale, Donut, until it’s gone.

The two businesses describe the newest collaboration as combining Spoonwood’s golden ale and Bethel Bakery’s paczki (pronounced pohnch-kee), a filled crispy fried treat that is richer than a traditional doughnut, and originally hails from Poland.

Kayla Milliron, Bethel Bakery’s pastry chef, and Steve Ilnicki, Spoonwood’s brewer and part owner, are continuing work they began in early 2019 to join and promote two local businesses in the Bethel Park community.

“I think these hybrid pastry/beer concoctions appeal to the imagination of drinker and brewer alike. Donut is very ‘fruit-forward,’ jammy and sweet-tart, with a doughy malt undertone,” Ilnicki says.

“It’s flavored with a combined 462 pounds of raspberry, blackberry and boysenberry purée, and a couple dozen of Bethel Bakery’s famous paczki added directly to the mash,” he says.

As for the flavor coming through the suds? “You would be surprised. You can definitely taste it,” Milliron says.

Customers can purchase Donut in pints, 32-ounce and 64-ounce growlers ranging from $6.50-$19.50. The 32-ounce growler will feature a limited-edition collaborative Bethel Bakery and Spoonwood logo.

Paczki, in raspberry, French buttercream, Bavarian cream and lemon fillings, will be sold at Bethel Bakery until Fat Tuesday (Feb. 25).