Earth Bread + Brewery

Is there a more soul-satisfying combination in the edible universe than handmade pizza and beer? I don't think so.

And it's a good thing, considering that pizza and beer are pretty much the main attractions on the menu at Mount Airy's funky new Earth Bread + Brewery. Actually, there are also a fresh salad or two, a creamy soup of the day, some mixed olives, and a cheese platter. There is also a surprisingly smart selection of international wines by the glass.

But brews and "breads" clearly rule the yeasty ambitions of this welcome new addition to Germantown Avenue, where an igloo-shaped oven in the front blazes ash logs at 700 degrees, and a petite set of brew tanks tucked into the back pumps out some eccentric beers worth driving for. It's a willingness to focus on doing these two things well (even if there's yet some work to do) that makes Earth Bread + Brewery especially intriguing.

A neighborhood institution can be built on such fundamentals. And Mount Airy has found a kindred spirit to its counterculture soul in this quirky, casual brewpub, where a handcrafted artisanal feel pervades the menu and the rambling bilevel dining rooms, and owners Tom Baker and Peggy Zwerver have shown an uncommon commitment to building a sustainable, eco-friendly restaurant. Everything that can be - from the pine floors (recovered from a barn in Maine) to the bar (from the old Michael's in South Philly) to the spent brewing grain (sent to the nearby Weaver's Way Co-op) - is recycled. Composting has cut the restaurant's trash pickup by half.

But for Baker and Zwerver, who've never owned a restaurant, keeping the concept simple and affordable (with larger pizzas topping out at $16) is also smart business. For Baker, a self-professed "control freak" who made a national reputation as an experimental brewer at his small but mighty Heavyweight in Central Jersey (since closed), the mini-scale of the brewery here - about a third the size of the typical chain brewpub - allows him the small-batch freedom to create beers that are anything but predictable.

Every week brings an unusual new offering, and at least four of his eccentric but reliably well-crafted brews are on tap at any given time, including recent gems like the herby medieval "black gruit" (the Bradley Effect), a Baltic porter (Berkun's Finger, named for the Slavic god of thunder), and a traditional alt-bier (Here's Brucker). Unlike many brewpub operators, Baker is secure enough in his own art to bolster his draft and bottle list with a substantial selection of other excellent personal favorites, with beers from Sly Fox, Victory and Jolly Pumpkin to some inevitable Belgian greats (Orval, Dupont, Petrus). I've heard some beer-geek griping that Baker, long known for his bigger brews, is now focused too much on brewing lightweight "session" beers. But there's hardly a dull pint here. And I agree with Baker that lower-alcohol beers are sometimes better companions to food - especially something as delicate as these flatbread pizzas.

As for the "breads," they still need some tweaking, but have the potential to become among the city's most coveted. Baker built his oven by hand from free plans downloaded from the Internet, and it is a beautiful hearth to behold, its tomato-colored dome framing an iron mouth aglow with fire-roasting pies expertly tended by baker Frankie Dashiell.

I'm particularly impressed with Baker's dough, which has a perfectly delicate crispy bottom, a lively, stretchy puff of a middle, and a heat-blistered crust on top. This is especially true with the fast-cooking smaller rounds. If only Earth Bread paid as much attention to its toppings, we could be talking a pizzeria champion here. (Among the latest generation of postOsteria pie-hopefuls, it's got competition on the high end from Cooper's in Manayunk, and on the more traditional side from Slice in Bella Vista, a bare-bones nook that's my current thin-crust take-out favorite).

Take-out isn't an option at Earth Bread + Brewery, where the flatbreads would never survive the car ride home. But there are definitely some choices worth visiting for, including the "Traditional" take on a Margherita, its zesty sauce topped with mozzarella and fresh arugula tufted in the middle. The Mexican adds a jalapeño- and smoked-paprika tingle to the tomato sauce, which also gets the pop of roasted black beans and corn. But the most memorable bread here is the "Seed," a sauceless cheese round scattered with enough crunchies - sesame, pumpkin seeds, pine nuts, and garlic (whoa, lots of garlic!) - to make a Weaver's Way bulk-bin groupie go weak in the knees.

Meat eaters, on the other hand, will find the topping selection wanting, with only a few slim slices of nitrate-free sausage and pepperoni (plus the occasional morsel of chicken) to sate the carnivore.

It's a serious shortcoming that could so easily be remedied with some big, craggy crumbles of fire-roasted fresh sausage (better texture than those soulless sliced rounds), some crispy nuggets of Southern smoked bacon, or some silky folds of fresh prosciutto. And Baker, a longtime vegetarian, says he's committed to improving the meat toppings soon, as long as they don't weigh down the crusts, which get sliced into a checkerboard of small pieces. The gooey chicken alfredo that drooped with too much cheese into the center of one pizza special we ordered was a good example of one such heavy-handed mistake.

In terms of pizza basics, though, Baker's straightforward pies are already off to a great start. A plan to start making the mozzarella in-house would begin to elevate them to the next level.

A few more choices on the appetizer list wouldn't hurt either, though we enjoyed all the starters Earth Bread + Brewery did offer, including some notably fresh salads, a creamy pumpkin bisque, and a nice cheese plate with tasty pear compote.

One concession to this restaurant's kitchen limitations I didn't mind: desserts brought in from the Night Kitchen in nearby Chestnut Hill, which reminded me, with its fluffy chocolate cakes, rich ganache tarts, and buttery shortbread cookies, why I still consider it one of the city's best home-style bakeries.

But for the most part, this newcomer's charm lies in the magic of its handcrafted bounty, the delicacy of its wood-fired pizzas, the character of its original beers, and the personality of a space so well suited to its neighborhood. With the heat-charred flour of these flatbreads still tickling my lips on my way back home to Center City, I pondered the question once more: What could be more satisfying than great pizza and beer? A destination for pizza and beer this good in my own neighborhood.