Pittsburgh homebrewers vie to win on ‘Beerland’
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Pittsburgh homebrewers are back on the final episode of “Beerland” airing at 10 p.m. Tuesday.
Season three of the Viceland TV series has reached its conclusion, when host Meg Gill has a final “taste-off” at the Golden Road Brewery she founded in Los Angeles. All of the season’s winning brewers compete to decide: Who makes the best beer? The winner gets a national distribution deal, made possible because AnheuserBusch InBev owns Golden Road.
The winners of the June 12 Pittsburgh episode were three homebrewers who have poured their brews at events in the region as Allegheny River Brewing. Oakmont’s Brandon Allison, Springdale’s Paul Rocchini and O’Hara’s John Buechli brew on a computerized, automated system they built and continue to fine-tune.
Their espresso stout is pitted against brews by three guys from San Diego; a woman from Toronto; two guys from Marfa, Texas; and three guys from New Orleans. All went to Golden Road in Anaheim, Calif., in hopes of taking their beers “from the backyard to big-time brewingequipment.”
Three judges try each beer and weigh in, as do beer drinkers, but the final call is Ms. Gill’s. We won’t spoil it here. You’ll be able to watch it eventually at viceland.com/en_us/show/beerland.
Hop Nation USA
On Wednesday, two local brewers will debut their homebrewing show on Moon public-access TV, MCA-TV. Adam Reardon of Robinson and Stephen Scheboth of Beaver County have been podcasting for more than a year as “Hop Nation USA” and now are making it visual, which makes sense because the latter is a freelance video editor. (Mr. Reardon is an engineer.)
Mr. Scheboth says the new show — available on their YouTube channel soon — “is mainly focused on homebrewers in the area, their beers and their stories. But also trying to educate and encourage everyone to get into homebrewing and by association, craft beer.” Check them out now at hopnationusa.com.