Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette Charlie Brunner, 4, of Ross, pours it on at the Fern Hollow Nature Center's Pancake Breakfast and Maple Sugar Celebration last Saturday in Sewickley Heights.

By Bob Batz Jr., Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

You can get maple cotton candy, maple popcorn, even maple jelly beans.

But the maple that makes our mouths water is the pure, sweet, sticky source of it, poured on, and poured on, and poured --

Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette From left, Sam McClain, Richard Shuler and David Genter man the grills at the Fern Hollow Nature Center's second annual Maple Pancake Breakfast and Maple Sugar Celebration in Sewickley Heights. Click photo for larger image. Related coverage Would you like some fresh-ground maple on that, sir? Recipes put rich syrup to delicious use Web resources Other maple recipes can be found on these Pennsylvania maple sites: www.pamaplefestival.com www.northwestpamapleassociation.org.

"That's enough!" said a laughing Matt Brunner as he watched his 4-year-old son, Charlie, splash enough maple syrup on his short stack to make the pancakes float.

Neither Charlie nor his sister, Isabel, is that particular, says their Dad. "They will eat any kind of syrup." But the family always has the real deal at home.

They all were enjoying the real deal at Fern Hollow Nature Center in Sewickley Heights this past Saturday, during its second annual Pancake Breakfast and Maple Sugar Celebration.

And was it ever a sweet celebration: In addition to the glowing golden goodness in glass pots on each table, there was crumbly maple candy and a vat of boiling syrup that volunteers ladled into paper cups of icy water to make chewy maple taffy.

That singular sweet smell wafted in the finally warm, almost-spring air, and it was enough to stir something inside a person.

All around, something is stirring inside maple trees. On these above-freezing days of late winter, after freezing nights, the sap flows from the roots toward the branches to feed new growth.

Maple producers tap some of that watery sap, collect it -- via old-fashioned metal buckets or long plastic lines --in tanks, and boil it down to a ratio of about 40 to 50 gallons of sap to one gallon of maple syrup.

If this immediately makes you think of Vermont, you might be surprised at how much maple syrup is made each spring in Pennsylvania -- 60,000 to 66,000 gallons ranks us between No. 7 and No. 5 among states.

In No. 1 Vermont, "They get a lot more P.R. than we do," says Bob Hansen, who heads the "maple team" of the Pennsylvania State University Cooperative Extension Service. He'll tell you, Pennsylvania makes good syrup, too, and a significant amount of it.

"It's surprising how many people don't know when it's made," says Chris Casbohm. He and his wife, Cheryl, run Casbohm Maple Products in Albion, Erie County, which is bustling this time of year.

His is one of about 70 mostly small such operations that belong to the Northwest Pennsylvania Maple Association, of which Mr. Casbohm is president.

Most of its members are in the five counties of Crawford, Erie, Mercer, Venango and Warren. The north tends to have the right climate and the stands of suitable maples, or "sugar bush."

Many people who live just a two-hour-or-so drive north of Pittsburgh wouldn't be surprised if a guy such as Mr. Casbohm knocks on the door and asks, as he does, if he can rent their big roadside maple trees, to be paid in syrup.

	Maple facts "Hard maples," such as sugar and black maple trees, have the sweetest sap. Still, sap as it comes out of the tree is only about 2 percent sugar. It must be boiled down to at least 66.5 percent sugar to call it maple syrup. Maple syrup is sold in different grades, determined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Grade A Light Amber is the lightest in color and flavor. Grade A Medium Amber is what you've most likely poured on your pancakes. Grade A Dark Amber has that much more color and flavor. Grade B doesn't mean poor quality, just stronger color and flavor. There's a grade below that for commercial use. While some say the darker syrup tends to come from sap collected later in the season, Northwest Pennsylvania Maple Association president Chris Casbohm says he's tracked seasonal fluctuations in color from light to dark and back caused by fluctuating weather. Color is due to caramelizing of the sugars, something over which producers have little control. More and more foodies, he says, are asking for the darker stuff. You can expect to pay about $32 to $40 a gallon for real maple syrup. Because its production is so energy dependent, prices may rise this year. -- Bob Batz Jr.

Likewise, up in the mountains of Somerset and Bedford counties to the east, folks don't bat an eye to smoke and steam rising from a farm's "sugar shack."

The Penn State maple syrup site (maplesyrup.cas.psu.edu) doesn't list any commercial producers in Allegheny or adjacent counties.

But there are a couple in Indiana County. And the syrup for Saturday's pancake breakfast came from the Beaver County Conservation District, which this week is busy making its annual batch of what it hopes will be 400 to 500 gallons of syrup, all from trees and their own sugar shack in Brady's Run Park.

They'll sell almost all of it at their annual Maple Syrup Festival, the 30th of which happens at the end of this month.

Conservation District manager John Scherfel says lingering cold weather earlier this month slowed the start of the season, but things got flowing this past weekend and he expects to be able to serve the 10,000 people they typically feed pancakes (made with wheat, corn and buckwheat they grind themselves, no less).

They also sell maple candy and other treats including -- new this year -- the maple jelly beans.

Ancillary products are popular with growing numbers of people who are into local foods and willing to travel for them. They're important for making even a hobby-business of maple syrup, says Mr. Casbohm, who on weekdays works with more high-tech adhesives at Lord Corp. in Erie.

At his new sugar shack, he sells maple nuts and a maple mustard, including one with hot pepper in it, which he says customers prefer over the honey mustard that he also sells. "I even use it as a sweet salad dressing."

He'll offer those and other treats to visitors this weekend during the fourth annual Taste & Tour Weekend organized by his association. People may not know much about northwest Pennsylvania maple producers but he hopes they will, thanks to a state tourism grant his group won earlier this year. They're using it to produce a brochure and billboards.

"I believe there's kind of a resurgence of people who have some interest in back-to-nature and natural things," he says. "Maple fits in perfectly."

It's also, we can hope, timeless.

As Sewickley Library children's librarian Kathy Koltas told the little ones gathered to hear her read stories at Fern Hollow, "Pancakes and maple syrup: That's the BEST thing on a Saturday morning!"

Her own daughter, 10-year-old Julia, recently attended another of these maple days held at the region's parks, then came home and convinced her parents to tap a big sugar maple outside their house in Ross.

Under the girl's watchful eye, the sap is drip-drip-dripping into a plastic milk jug, and however much it collects, Mom will boil on the stove. Into pure, sweet, sticky maple syrup.

"We like the real stuff," Mrs. Koltas says with a grin. "We've just never had the real stuff from our own yard."

Here are several sweet events where you can get a taste of this region's mapleness:

Northwest Pennsylvania Maple Taste & Tour Weekend
From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, 10 maple producers in Crawford and Erie counties will stoke their fires and open their sugar shacks for visitors. You can see syrup being made, taste syrup and other products and, of course, buy them. The Hurry Hill Farm in Edinboro will have a welcome tent with children's books and a sugaring video, but advises, "Please wear boots and dress warm!" A full list of participating producers and directions can be found at www.north-westpamapleassociation.org or call 1-814-756-4781.

March Maple Madness Driving Tours
The Northeast Ohio Maple Producers also invite the public to visit more than 20 sugarhouses in Geauga, Ashtabula, Portage and Trumbull counties on self-guided driving tours from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. Find a map and directions at www.tourgeauga.com or call 440-285-9536.

Maple Weekends
The New York State Maple Producers Association holds its statewide open houses this weekend and next (www.nysmaple.com or 1-585-535-7136).

Pennsylvania Maple Festival
This is the 60th annual festival that takes over Meyersdale, Somerset County, each spring for two weekends: March 24-25 and March 28-April 1. It's so big, it has its own Festival Park, which is home to many events, including the play, "The Legend of the Magic Water." These folks are serious about their syrup, but in addition to the pancakes and sausage (all you can eat at the Meyersdale Lions Pancake House for $6), you can nosh on other maple treats including "spotza," the Pennsylvania Dutch term for taffy made by pouring hot syrup onto snow.

Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day; admission is $4 for adults and $1 for children ages 6-12. Find all the details and schedules of events at www.pamaplefestival.com or call 1-814-634-0213.

Beaver County Maple Syrup Festival
The 30th annual event runs from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. March 31 and April 1, at Brady's Run Park off Route 51 in Fallston. Both days there's entertainment ranging from Civil War re-enactments to live music, plus tons of pancakes, syrup harvested and made in the park, and more food served by hundreds of volunteers.

All the pancakes you can eat for $5 (or $4 for children). Proceeds benefit the Beaver County Conservation District (724-624-0697).