Hearth of Gold

No one does pizza and beer quite like Earth Bread + Brewery.

by Trey Popp

Michael T. Regan BABY, I NEED YOUR OVEN: Earth Bread + Brewery offers a rotating selection of six flatbread pizzas, all of which are fired in the brewpub's built-from-the-ground-up wood-burning oven.

Earth Bread + Brewery has been coming to Mount Airy for so long that I first requested the review assignment a year ago last week. Winter turned into spring. The restaurant's Web site seemed to hold out hope for summer. Trees dropped their leaves and I kept tacking it on to the end of my monthly list. There was just something about the simplicity of that tripartite name. I don't have pica, but who doesn't like bread and beer?

By the time Tom Baker and Peggy Zwerver got the licensing squared away in October, it seemed like everyone I knew in Mount Airy was proposing dinner or a Halloween party at this family-friendly place. And just like that, the waiting list for a weekend table started filling up at half past six. Park your train on the horizon for long enough, I guess, and crowds will pack the station to the rafters when you finally roll into town.

Neighbors wondering what took so long will have their answer as soon as they walk through the door. Just about every object in the place has a story. One of the bars was salvaged from a shuttered South Philly spot; the other from New York. A couple of old knitting machines have been repurposed as bases of chest-high tables by the entrance. Like the tongue-and-groove pine floors? They used to be the walls of an old warehouse in Maine. And the oven is a showstopper, slathered with a shade of stucco that makes it look like an igloo freshly pelted with tomatoes. Baker built it one brick at a time, stacking a cardboard box and a plastic bucket crowned with a trash-can lid to prop up the apex of the dome while the final bit of mortar dried.

Michael T. Regan EMPHASIS ON THE "BREWERY": Tom Baker offers four housemade beers at a time. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

There are restaurateurs in Philadelphia who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to conjure a semblance of a story from an elaborately fussed-over interior. Earth Bread + Brewery doesn't have the polished plotline of spots like Parc and Pearl, but its hodgepodge of recycled, reused and environmentally responsible design elements comes together in an uncommonly genuine way. Unbeknownst to me, one of my dining companions had actually been contracted to refurbish a church pew to serve as a pair of dining benches on the restaurant's second floor. Talk about sourcing locally. You get the feeling that a catalog of this brewpub's contents could form the basis of a sprawling oral history tour. 

The menu is a more tightly ordered affair, centered narrowly around that handmade hearth. A mere six flatbreads share space on the card with two salads, a cheese plate, edamame and olives. A lot of brewpubs try to run the gamut from hamburgers to mussels to lollipop lamb chops, and are lucky to earn more than a passing grade on any. Despite some grumbles from patrons accustomed to smorgasbords, Baker and Zwerver were wise to pick pizza and stick to it. For one thing, their bricked-in blaze blisters dough rounds at a machine-gun clip. I was surprised by how quickly our order arrived on a busy Saturday night. But that wouldn't mean much if the results weren't so solid.

My favorite one bore another simple name: Seed. Sesame seeds, pine nuts and pepitas studded a crust that had been painted with garlic-infused olive oil and topped with cheese. The smell alone had me salivating like one of Pavlov's dogs trapped in a bell factory, and the sourdough crust was just perfect between the teeth.

A pungent pesto topped the crust of another flatbread, garlicking up a cargo of cubed potatoes that would send one of Atkins' acolytes running for the nearest mound of meat. I loved the double dose of carbs. It reminded me of a pie topped with fettuccini Alfredo that still colors my memory of Key West 15 years after the fact.

Except for a sausage offering, all of Earth Bread + Brewery's flatbreads are vegetarian-friendly. Spiced black beans, corn and cilantro make for a better-than-usual stab at a Mexican pizza. A traditional setup of roasted onion and fresh mozzarella carried a welcome tuft of raw arugula — though I like to dress the leaves with a simple vinaigrette when I do this at home

Baker, who, with Zwerver, used to helm Heavyweight Brewing, has enough kettles and urns to serve up a changing roster of four housemade beers at a time. A good list of outsider ales and lagers keeps the options ample, but I found no reason to stray. I was particularly excited to try his gruit ale, a hard-to-find, hop-free style in which herbs like mugwort, yarrow and bog myrtle play the role of preservative and bittering agents. At a little less than 4 percent alcohol, Baker's night-dark version makes for a superb session beer in cold weather. And kudos to the management for serving suds in 13-ounce glasses as well as by the pint. I detest being railroaded into a portion I don't want.

Desserts come mainly from the Night Kitchen, a few blocks up Germantown Avenue. I also tried a pear tart made in-house, but it was outshone by an outsourced pecan pie and lemon curd cake. It made me wonder about the potential for a couple sweet flatbreads to go alongside the savory ones.

Academy of Natural Sciences: Family Four-Pack of Tickets | Mango Moon | Prive | Bliss | Raw Dawgs Saloon | Cream and Sugar | S & H Kebab House | Cafe Nola | Copabanana | Hollywood Tans: $50 for $25

HALF OFF DEPOT

Why live life at full price?

The service at Earth Bread + Brewery isn't without its kinks — my table ended up with one pizza destined for another party, and I had to point out that a couple of beers had failed to turn up on the final bill — but it's friendly and well-paced. Besides, between the stairs and all the kids scurrying about underfoot, just delivering food without belly-flopping on the hardwood is challenge enough.

As for the broader challenge, Baker and Zwerver have done an admirable job. They're serving great beer and very good pizza in a place with a character all its own. What's more, dinner and ample drinks for four rang up to less than $100 before tip — not bad in an economic climate that moved Northern Liberties' Swallow to convert its menu entirely to macaroni and cheese. Twelve months after I started looking forward to it, Earth Bread + Brewery has actually got me wondering whether my wife was right all along. She's been pitching Mount Airy as a new home for even longer than the neighborhood's new brewpub has been in the works. Buy me another glass of gruit ale, dear, and it'll be even easier to see your point.

(t_popp@citypaper.net)