Pittsburgh’s Picklesburgh to be a jarring experience

Pittsburgh is about to relish in a new cultural festival.

On May 13, the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership announced Picklesburgh, a new, culinary festival concerning gherkins galore. The Partnership will hold Picklesburgh on July 17 from 3 to 10 p.m. and July 18 from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. at the Rachel Carson Bridge in Downtown Pittsburgh.

The Picklesburgh Downtown Partnership, a spinoff of the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership nonprofit that seeks to enhance the Downtown neighborhood, will organize the event. The festival will feature all things pickled, including a giant flying Heinz pickle balloon.

Heinz, which began making pickled products in 1871, will sponsor the festival, along with Picklesburgh’s point of sale system Future POS, KDKA-TV, the CW, BOB-FM, Q92.9, BNY Mellon and Whole Foods Market.

The festival will celebrate international cultures and the farm-to-table movement with handcrafted and traditional foods, like pickle-flavored ice cream, traditional pickled corned beef and pickled ginger.

Forty vendors and local chefs who house-cure some of their own pickled ingredients will spearhead the festival, along with didactic dill-making demonstrations, salty artisan cocktails with pickled ingredients, live music and a-dill-able merchandise.

Brave contestants will also have a once-in-a-brine-time shot to compete in a pickle juice drinking contest.

This festival joins other obscure Pittsburgh food festivals, including America Loves Bacon and Pittsburgh Pierogi Fest.

Jeremy Waldrup, the president and CEO of PDP, was pickled pink to announce the cornichon cornucopia.

“We are so pleased to be partnering with some of Pittsburgh’s most iconic businesses to celebrate Downtown and of course pickles,” he said in a release.