Three Rivers Beer Week connects with Cleveland for collaborations
Pittsburgh is generously sharing Three Rivers Beer Week — with Cleveland, of all places.
Organizers are building on last year’s partnership with Asheville, N.C., brewers and wanting to keep the “partner city” thing going, so local brewers collaborated with Cleveland ones on beers.
Guild Executive Director Mike Tysarczyk says they hope to attract Ohioans to visit Pittsburgh for some of the events. “It’s also kind of fun because our two cities are known for being bitter rivals on the field ... but with beer, hey, we’re all friends, right?”
He adds, “And as luck would have it, Cleveland Beer Week is Oct. 14-23. So some of the collaborating partners are doing ‘home and home’ collabs.”
All eight of the TRBW collar beers will be poured at the kickoff event on Saturday, the First Pour Beer Festival. This year’s venue is This Is Red, a former church turned marketing agency and event space in Munhall that has hosted other beer fests.
One collab pouring there is one made by Lawrenceville’s Hop Farm Brewing with Fat Heads Brewery in Middleburg Heights, Ohio. The brewery sprang from the O.G. Fat Head’s Saloon that started 30 years ago on the South Side and still has a Pitt product at the helm in Matt Cole. Malcolm Frazer came back from Fat Head’s Brewery to brew at Hop Farm. The beer is, appropriately, an old-school West Coast India pale ale, rich with frozen hops that were driven over by Cole that morning. They’ve named it Fresh Green Nugs.
Some of the Cleveland brewers are to join their Pittsburgh peers at the kickoff party, the playlist for which is curated by Hitchhiker Brewing Co.’s Andy Kwiatkowski. It runs from 7 to 10 p.m.
Tickets are $53.62 with fees and taxes; there’s a $64.23 ticket that gets you in an hour early; holders of $106.66 VIP tickets get early access to the third-floor VIP section and rare beers served with charcuterie. Designated drivers can get in for $12.24. There will be food to buy from Mindy’s Take & Bake and the Streets on the Fly food truck.
Starting Sunday are eight days of about 30 events, from beer releases and tap takeovers to Oktoberfests and other parties, even an ice cream mixer, at some of the 40-plus breweries across Allegheny County that belong to the Pittsburgh Brewers Guild. You should be able to find the collaboration beers at those and some other bars and restaurants.
One standout event that Sunday is Smoketoberfest, the annual celebration of smoked beers and foods that’s being held at Roundabout Brewing’s beer garden on the rivers on the North Shore. The eighth annual event costs $42.80, which gets you a first beer — from a number of Roundabout specialties including a few smoked varieties — in the 16-ounce souvenir glass and smoked bites from Blowfish BBQ, Driftwood Oven, Just
Roll’d Up and Mindy’s Take and Bake. Additional beer tickets are $7.
Bring cash, the brewery advises, for its “world-famous-in-Pittsburgh meat raffle. ... All raffle sales will be going to one our favorite regulars and supporter of PGH craft beer, Tim Kahrnak. Tim is up against a second battle with cancer and we want to help him win the war.”
Check the latest day-byday Beer Week schedule at threeriversbeerweek.com.
The Steel City Big Pour
Another big Pittsburgh beer event that isn’t on the
Three Rivers Beer Week schedule is happening on Oct. 8: The Steel City Big Pour.
The 15th annual fundraiser for Point Breeze reuse nonprofit Construction Junction is being held for the first time at another location: The Rockwell Park Apollo building, which is located behind Construction Junction at 7511 Thomas Blvd.
Admission is $75 or $115 with a souvenir T- shirt (plus fees), and attendees can sample beers and other beverages from 40 breweries and other producers and fare from 20 food partners, including Blackberry Meadows Organic Farm, which is donating two pigs for a pig roast. There’ll also be art and design demos. Attendees can get a sneak peek at the ASCEND climbing gym going into the complex, which once was part of the Pittsburgh headquarters for Rockwell Standard. Unlike previous years, there’s one session, from 2 to 6 p.m.
For more information: cjreuse.org.
Brewing for a Cure
Proof that when it pours, it — well — pours, another big beer event is happening on Oct. 8: Brewing for a Cure.
Three Rivers Underground Brewers, or TRUB, started the fundraiser for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, celebrating the art of home brewing, in 2007 in honor of a club member’s daughter who has the disease. TRUB has raised $350,000.
They’ll keep it going with $50 and $65 (VIP) tickets to this year’s event, featuring more than 100 home-brewed beers and other beverages, several commercial brews, food and other fun at the Energy Innovation Center in the Hill District, with its view of the Pittsburgh skyline.
Tickets are available at brewingupacure.org.