Pizza and beer are a perfect combo, and Hampline Brewing Co. is betting Memphians think so too.

The craft brewery added a wood-fire pizza oven to the taproom in November.

“We’ve gone through a few incarnations of food including cheese boards and pastas provided by a third-party catering company, sandwiches that we executed ourselves and finally, rotating food trucks on busy nights. None of those things really provided the level of quality or excitement that we had envisioned for ourselves. Enter the fancy pizza oven,” said Martha Hample, who owns Hampline with Richard Rhodes and brewer Wes Osier.

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The brewery’s state-of-the-art Forno Piombo oven is a handcrafted masterpiece from California that cooks pizzas to perfection in just 90 seconds. It sits in the front corner of the taproom so that guests can watch all the action.

The taproom menu includes six artisanal pies.

I popped by early on a Wednesday night and the taproom was bustling. The tables were full with customers eating pizzas, drinking brews and playing trivia.

We started with an order of the Roasted Nuts. A blend of cashews, almonds, pistachios and pecans had been tossed in olive oil and herbs before being popped in the wood-fire pizza oven. They come to the table warm and toasty. They were the perfect bar snack to accompany a pint of beer.

I was with a few friends, so we decided to give several of the pizzas a try.

The crust is what makes these 13-inch pies. 

The crust was flavorful and offered just the perfect amount of chewy-ness in each bite. In my opinion, there is just something about a pizza crust cooked correctly in a wood-fire oven that can’t be beat. The fire helps the pizza get just the right amount of toasted crispiness on the bottom and lends a hint of charred smokiness to the flavor.

So let’s talk about what we tried.

“The Buzz” is an amped up pepperoni pizza. It comes with a house-made tomato sauce, mozzarella, pepperoni, hot honey and fresh basil. It’s a solid pepperoni pizza. 

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“The ‘Shroom and Board” is a mushroom lover’s pizza, topped with a cream sauce, fontina and mozzarella cheeses, an assortment of wild mushrooms and sausage. Fresh herbs and a drizzle of truffle oil added the finishing touch. Guessing it must be from the sausage, but there was just a hint of spiciness in each bite.

We liked all the pizzas we tried, but the stand-out was the “Big Sur.”

This original pizza creation is topped with both brie and mozzarella cheeses, figs, pears and prosciutto. Fresh arugula and balsamic drizzle are added when the pizza came out of the oven.

It is a fun play on the taste buds thanks to the contrast between the funkiness of the brie and the sweetness of the figs, pears and balsamic.

Our server recommended pairing it with Hampline’s Guava Cabana. The fruitiness in this sour beer was the perfect complement to this pizza pie.

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I plan to always ask for a suggested beer pairing when I go from now on.

It’s a great way to try a craft brew you may not have had before, as was my case that night.

Hampline has dubbed its pizza menu concept “Orsoza.”

The name was inspired by Hampline’s mascot — a bear.

Our server that night explained that “orso” is the Italian word for bear, and the “za” is for the pizza.

“Natch is the reason why the Memphis Zoo exists today. Memphian and businessman, A.B. Carruthers, was paid a debt with a black bear. That bear became the first animal in the Memphis Zoo,” explained Hample. “A.B. Carruthers is the great-grandfather of my partner, Richard Rhodes. And of course, we’re right down Broad Avenue from the zoo so it was a perfect fit for our mascot.”

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Hampline’s bear rides on a bike in honor of the brewery and taproom’s location on the Hampline bike and pedestrian trail.

For Orsoza, the bear takes an iconic Italian form of transportation — the Vespa!

Hampline Brewing Co.’s taproom at 584 Tillman St., Suite 1, is open 4 to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 1 to 10 p.m. Saturdays and 1 to 8 p.m. Sundays.