If pizza makes up the foundation of your diet, it’s important you don’t burn yourself out. Eating marinara, pepperoni and cheese daily can have dangerous consequences that include but aren’t limited to: tomato breath, lactose intolerance and physically turning into a slice of pie. It doesn’t take much for you to avoid these ghastly side effects of daily pizza intake; all you have to do is switch it up. And there’s no better way to do that than trying a style you’ve never heard of, covered in clams and bacon.

Black Sky Brewery
490 Santa Fe Drive
DENVER

If pizza makes up the foundation of your diet, it’s important you don’t burn yourself out. Eating marinara, pepperoni and cheese daily can have dangerous consequences that include but aren’t limited to: tomato breath, lactose intolerance and physically turning into a slice of pie. It doesn’t take much for you to avoid these ghastly side effects of daily pizza intake; all you have to do is switch it up. And there’s no better way to do that than trying a style you’ve never heard of, covered in clams and bacon.

Black Sky Brewery is a brewpub situated on 5th and Santa Fe in Denver. It specializes in metal tunes, craft beer and New Haven-style pizza, which owner Harry Smith says is a mix between New York Style and Neapolitan that brings together high-quality ingredients with a surprisingly dynamic crust.

Clams are a very strange sight on a pizza this side of the Divide, but the second you bite into the sweet, briny shellfish, you’ll wonder why you’ve never gnawed on a slice like this before. Clams casino is simple. No sauce, no cheese, just clams, bacon, garlic and olive oil on a bubbly, chewy crust that’s cracker thin.

The sweet clams, salty bacon and pungent, fresh garlic are balanced out by the olive oil and a crust that you have to bite to believe. It’s crispy at first but with each chomp it gets more chewy and elastic. It’s yeasty and light; the perfect crust for such a simple ‘za.

So, we sat down with the creator of this heavenly pie, Harry Smith, to figure out what the hell it's so good.

What is new-haven style pizza?
It’s close to Neapolitan style, cooked in a really hot oven, that gives a really nice char on the bottom, always thin-crust, and it’s a different kind of dough. We do a cold rise, so everything is cold, flour, yeast, water and then it rises for 24 hours in the fridge. It’s totally different; with the cold rise you get more elasticity and chewiness.

How do you make this pie?
The dough rises for 24 hours, then we hand press it into 18-inch pies. It’s very thin, almost cracker-like, but still doughy. Then we sprinkle a little olive oil, put a little crushed garlic on there, then add bacon and clams. After it’s finished in the oven, we sprinkle Italian seasoning to finish it off.

Why is it so good?
It’s just something completely different for this area of the U.S. We use all fresh ingredients. We source all of our clams from New Bedford, Mass. We use high-quality clams and high-quality bacon. Everything we do here is fresh. Nothing’s canned or bagged; dressings, sauces, everything is made from scratch. It’s all hand crafted, hand-crafted beer, hand-crafted food. It gives us a chance to play around and try new things. From bringing back a traditional-style pie like clams casino to some new pies that will be coming out soon.

What else should people order here?
Beer.

And because we're on a pizza kick this morning, here's little pizza style for you, because you're going to need something more interesting to say at the water cooler than "This weekend I advanced to Level 5 … in Mortal Kombat."

Pizza Style Guide

Neapolitan: Crispy, bubbly crust that was baked in a wood-burning oven. The toppings are few but always extremely fresh and flavorful.

New York: Thin, crispy yet chewy crust is covered with greasy cheese and whatever toppings your drunk heart desires. Fold like a taco to eat, otherwise you’ll end up with cheese in your lap

Sicilian: Rectangular, thick, fluffy crust topped with lots of sauce and fresh toppings. You’re going to need a fork and a nap afterward.

Chicago: Two words: deep dish. Toppings are more like fillings in this pie, as the cheese goes on top of them. A fluffy, greasy crust tries to hold them in, but there’s really no point. Grab a fork, or be buried under every iteration of pork and tomato sauce there is.

St. Louis: Cracker-thin circular crust that’s cut into squares. It sounds weird until you put a proprietary cheese blend on it, called provel. That’s provolone, swiss and white cheddar to you. It’s topped with the usual toppings that go all of the way to the edge. 

California: Thin, often gluten-free, fluffy crust that’s topped with anything from avocados to eggs to peking duck. You’ll eat a whole large to fill you up, but you don’t care because you just ate Chinese food on a pizza.

Colorado: Fluffy and crispy crust that tests the limits of altitude, piled with mountains of toppings. Eating this pie is a challenge akin to climbing a fourteener. You’ll want a fork and some honey for the crust, because this is dinner and dessert.

Detroit: This thick, deep-dish style pizza is rectangular. The ‘za is twice baked with cheese that gets baked into the crust, and then they put the sauce on top of the toppings. What is the world coming to!?

College: English muffin, bagel or piece of bread for crust squirted with squeeze marinara and topped with whatever cheese hasn’t molded in your fridge, microwaved to perfection. Eat before it cools down so you don’t realize what a schlub you are for eating it.