[Above: AHA Executive Director Julia Herz (third from right) poses with members of T.R.U.B. as they receive the Radegast Club of the Year award during Homebrew Con 2022 in Pittsburgh.]
This article was originally published in the September/October 2022 Zymurgy magazine. Access all issues through the year 2000 with Zymurgy Online.
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By Kristen Kuchar
The Radegast Club of the Year Award was awarded to the Three Rivers Underground Brewers (T.R.U.B.) homebrew club from Carnegie, Pa. The honor, named for the Slavic god of hospitality and the creator of beer, is awarded to a homebrew club that spreads the joy of homebrewing and diversity within the hobby and makes achievements through charity and philanthropy.
A huge accomplishment the club has achieved is their yearly event and one of Pittsburgh’s longest running beer gets, Brewing Up a Cure. Now in its 14th year, the event features more than 100 different homebrewed beers, ciders and meads by various club members and local craft breweries, as well as thousands of dollars worth of auction items.
The best part is it is all for a meaningful and great cause, benefiting the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Original club member Shane Terrick’s daughter, Sadie, who is now 18 years old, was born with cystic fibrosis. With the work of the club for Brewing Up a Cure, they have been able to raise more than $350,000 for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. The event was even the recipient of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation’s Community Partner Award.
“As a club, we volunteer at many serving events in the area and assist one of the other local clubs with their home competition.” says member Terry Denham. “We have shared our experiences by presenting a seminar at Homebrew Con about holding charitable homebrewing events.”
T.R.U.B. was founded in 2007 by five original members. “We were looking for a club that would help us sharpen our brewing skills and have others to offer constructive criticism about our homebrew,” Denham says. “We were unable to find such a club at the time so we created our own.” Since then, the club has grown to 30 members.
“Our club is about brewing beer, sharing beer, and helping others brew better beer,” Denham says. In addition to sampling and critiquing each other’s brew, the group devotes meeting to to discussing the latest from the Brewing Up a Cure committee and any upcoming serving events. They also have a show-and-tell to guess the beer and when visiting with new, local breweries, tour the facility.
The group makes joining the club simple and easy, advising just to come to one of the meetings and even feel free to bring some growlers along on your first visit.
“We welcome new members with open arms and hope they return to the next meeting,” Denham says. “Being a member has allowed me to meet other homebrewers, share tips and methods; it has also allowed me to brew with several of the local pro brewers and learn from them.”
For more information about Brewing Up a Cure, visit their Instagram account and see Last Drop in the September/October 2022 issue of Zymurgy.
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