The Pittsburgh County Fair harvests countrified fun and friendly competition

Pittsburgh residents don’t have to travel to the Big Butler Fair for farm animals, prize-winning produce, and carnival-type rides and games. Even after the big fair season has come and gone, the Pittsburgh County Fair gives locals a chance to indulge in countrified fun and friendly competition. 

Now in its third year, the Pittsburgh County Fair — taking place Sat., Sept. 13 at Allegheny Commons Park West — promises a free, all-ages affair full of “hands-on demonstrations,” contests, appearances by local farms, and “sustainability-focused artisans,” as well as line dancing hosted by 412 Step, live music, and local food and drinks, including beer from Allegheny City Brewery.  

True to form, the alt-fair delivers familiar entertainment, including a petting zoo and pony rides, along with more offbeat activities such as a “bacteria scavenger hunt.” The competition aspect, a central focus for any county fair, has become a big draw for both participants and attendees. 

“It’s an interesting thing, because the first contest we ever did, the first year, was only the tomato,” Pittsburgh County Fair organizer Justin Lubecki tells Pittsburgh City Paper. “I was like, this is the lowest barrier to entry — you just have to show up with a tomato that you grew. That’s all we’re asking, and then you get stuff for it.”

Lubecki says he created the fair as an extension of his work with Ferment Pittsburgh, an organization he founded to provide resources “for fermentation and homesteady-type things.” He believes the fair reflects the agriculture-leaning nature of the Pittsburgh region, which has increasingly spread into the city in the form of urban farming and gardening, backyard chicken-keeping, and clubs like Ferment Pittsburgh that encourage time-honored, at-home food prep like canning and pickling.

“Our county is really fascinating, where you can drive 10 minutes [outside Pittsburgh] and you’re in farmland,” he says.

Tomatoes aren’t the only thing receiving the spotlight this year. The Pittsburgh County Fair contests now cover a range of growing, making, and animal husbandry, from a Natural Fiber Arts exhibition to an Urban Backyard Poultry Show presented by Chicks in the Hood. There are also less conventional contests, including the Farmers Market Olympics, grape stomp, kraut mash, and homemade oat milk chug, which, for this millennial, recalls the dairy challenge from the Kenny Rogers Jackass sketch on Mad TV. 

The fair emphasizes the empowering aspects of going handmade, Lubecki says. Among the fair’s various activities are stations where guests can try indigo dyeing, flax scutching, and sorghum pressing. Lubecki also touts the chance to toss around a baseball made from flax he grew, “handspun and stitched together” by a team of volunteers. 

“Our activities are all very much rooted in active agriculture, where almost everything grown at my farm is used as an activity,” he says, describing it as an all-around “tangible relationship.”

Also handmade are the rodeo-style belt buckles that, for the first time in the fair’s history, will be awarded to competition winners.

In the past, Lubecki says, serious contenders have shown up for the baked goods contests, recalling how one couple tested “40 different recipes of mini pies with all these variations” in their quest to make the perfect award-winning dessert.

Last year, Cat Briggs received a third-place ribbon for what she calls a “modified version of a Bavarian apple torte.” She describes it as a “sugar cookie crust” and “layer of cream cheese mixture” topped with a “huge pile of apples tossed in sugar and a unique spice mix including pink peppercorn, mace, and sesame.” 

Briggs, who works professionally as a data scientist, plans on competing again in this year’s fair. 

“I’m coming for first place,” she tells City Paper.

While entertaining and full of friendly competition, Lubecki believes the fair also serves a highly educational purpose, especially when it comes to young attendees who have little to no exposure to farm life. He recalls a conversation with City of Pittsburgh representatives, in which they described hosting an event with pony rides where the kids “freaked out” because they had never seen real-life horses before.

“There’s a whole spectrum of what people have been exposed to,” Lubecki says, adding that the fair brings in livestock like sheep, goats, and cows so guests can “see them and interact with them.” 

Ultimately, Lubecki sees the fair, as well as the Fermentation Festival, another event led by Ferment Pittsburgh, as celebrating the efforts of people yearning for some form of self-sustainability, especially after the uncertain days of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“We do things our own kind of unique way, where it’s all very DIY,” says Lubecki. “I’m surrounded in a world of people that care a ton about what they do … We decided to keep a pretty tight standard for those events in order to give a platform to those people that are putting in all that extra work for what they do that’s generally unsung.”

Pittsburgh County Fair. Sat., Sept. 13. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Allegheny Commons Park West. North Side. Free. All ages. fermentpittsburgh.com