Ready for a Maple Roll Stout? Jeannette's Sobel’s Obscure Brewery, Enrico’s Bakery team up for a beer

Sobel’s Obscure Brewery in Jeannette is riding the beer-and-bakery wave with a new Maple Roll Stout.

“Pastry stouts are a popular beer style right now, so we wanted to try one,” said brewery co-owner Jackie Sobel. “They’re pretty darned decadent.”

Inspiration for the small-batch offering, available on Friday, came from another Jeannette business.

“Every day, I’d drive past Enrico’s Bakery and see the sign for the maple rolls and think, ‘Man, I really want a maple roll,’ ” Sobel said.

Finally giving in to the craving, Sobel visited the bakery and got talking to Rob Enrico, the third-generation owner of the family business now in its 101st year.

“He did a lot of home brewing a while ago,” she said. “We geeked out talking about it.”

“I started TRASH (Three Rivers Alliance of Serious Homebrewers) in 1983,” Enrico said. “It’s still going, but I’m not involved now. I dropped out when (the former) Red Star Brewery opened in Greensburg. I said, ‘I don’t have to do this any more.’ “

“We took 12 pounds of maple rolls and dumped them into our fermenter,” Sobel said. “To produce the flavored stouts, you put in whatever you want it to taste like. The yeast in the fermenter feeds on the sugar in the rolls. It’s kind of like making tea — you’re essentially steeping the rolls in the fermenter.”

The extra sugar results in a slightly higher-than-usual alcohol-by-volume content in the finished product — 8% for the Maple Roll Stout, she said.

The bakery brew experiment produced “a very small batch” of three barrels, Sobel said. A four-pack will sell for $16 at the brewery’s warehouse at 108 S. 4th St., Jeannette.

Warehouse hours are 4-7 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays and 1-7 p.m. Saturdays.

“I was surprised (Sobel’s) wanted to do this, but I know it’s been a trend for a while,” Enrico said.

He said he’s eager to try the finished product, though it’s not something he would normally drink.

“I like the blond, hoppy beers,” he said.