Venturi Pizzeria in Goshen Stops House Beer Program, Looks to Future

Since we launched Indiana on Tap in December of 2013 we’ve had the pleasure of reporting on the ever expanding number of breweries in the state. In those short eight months we’ve seen the opening of Function, Books & Brews, Scarlet Lane, Mashcraft, Four Fathers, Burn ‘Em, Chilly Water, Devil’s Trumpet, Man Cave, Tow Yard, Two Deep and probably some we’re missing! Unfortunately we now have to report on the closing of a brewery.

We learned back in June that Venturi Pizzeria in Goshen, Indiana has stopped their brewing program. They stopped brewing in February and served their last house beer back in April. We recently had an opportunity to talk to co-owner and bar manager Troy Pippenger and former brewer Logan Miller about the past and future of Venturi Pizzeria.

Venturi Pizzeria opened for business on New Years Day 2011. They specialize in Neapolitan Pizza and are certified by the True Neapolitan Pizza Association. They make their dough from imported Italian flour each day with just flour, water, yeast and sea salt. The fresh mozzarella (fior di latte) is made by hand every day just before service. Their tomatoes, olive oil and sea salt are all imported from Italy. They adhere to the Italian tradition of only using simple, fresh and delicious ingredients in everything they.

The Venturi beer program started in May 2013. They were brewing on a tiny 1/6th barrel brewing system as they worked to create consistent recipes. They typically brewed one batch a week for the approximately 9 months they were brewing. They were primarily focused on developing a single house beer to serve as a complement to their Margherita DOC pizza. Their most popular beer was a Citra hopped IPA (7-8% ABV, 88 IBUs). Another well received beer was the Magnifico Imperial IPA. It was modeled after Russian River’s Pliny the Elder (9% ABV, 300 calculated IBUs). Once on tap, Magnifico was usually gone by the following night.

Ultimately, Venturi decided to stop brewing beer when they realized they needed to increase capacity with larger brewing equipment, a larger kitchen, walk-in cooler, keg system and other associated costs. Unfortunately the costs were too high for the immediate future. They will continue to offer a rotating beer tap and several bottled beers. They hope to revamp the bar and add capacity for more draught beers in the future.

Even without the house beer program, Venturi will continue to make their Neapolitan Pizza and have embarked on an impressive cocktail program. It focuses mostly on classic, pre-prohibition cocktails and modern cocktails that employ classic techniques and flavors. They use only quality fresh ingredients and quality spirits, liqueurs and bitters. Their Limóncello is house made and they’ve begun experimenting with barrel aged cocktails.

If you’re in the Goshen area, we recommend you stop by Venturi Pizzeria for a pizza and cocktail. Also, look for stories by Logan Miller on Indiana On Tap soon as he joins us as a content contributor! 

Recent stories about Venturi Pizzeria

• THE STATE OF BREWING IN GOSHEN 09/14/2013
• VENTURI BREWER LOGAN MILLER 01/31/2014

Have you been to Venturi? Tell us about your expereince in the comments section!