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Peters Township graduate seeks support for Museum of Beer

By Harry Funk 4 min read
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Rendering of Brew: The Museum of Beer by DLA+ Architecture and Interior Design of Green Tree

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Source: http://brewmuseum.com/

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Rendering of Brew: The Museum of Beer by DLA+ Architecture and Interior Design of Green Tree

If a trivia night emcee ever asks why the Mayflower ended up at Plymouth Rock, here’s your answer:

“Somebody discovered a journal from one of the passengers, which said, ‘Our goal was to go to Virginia, where it was warmer,'” Matthew Sherwin related. “But it turned out that, in terms of the supplies on the ship, they were running out of beer.

“And the Mayflower crew, which was going back to England, said, ‘We don’t have enough brewskies to get us back home if we go farther south. So you’re getting off here.'”

Sherwin, a Peters Township High School graduate, enjoys collecting such malted beverage-type stories as he and two other area residents work toward bringing their grand idea to fruition.

Brew: The Museum of Beer is the brainchild of Dr. Joe McAllister founder of the Autism Center at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC. After visiting the Guinness Storehouse museum in Ireland, he was surprised to learn there is no large-scale counterpart dedicated to the 10,000-year history of beer.

So he came up with the idea of bringing one to Pittsburgh.

“When he told me about this project, I said, ‘Man, this sounds great for the city,'” Sherwin, who lives in Canonsburg, said. “And I’m very glad to get involved and try to make it happen.”

Joined by financial executive Denis Meinert of O’Hara Township, the team envisions a 50,000-square-foot structure at a prime Pittsburgh location, which has yet to be determined. And of course, one of the key factors in making it all happen is money, upward of $30 million.

An initial stab at crowdfunding, an online campaign through Indiegogo, brought in $32,905 despite almost no prior publicity about the museum.

“It wasn’t a ton of money, but it was enough for us to get a bit of a boost and to demonstrate that there is market demand for this thing,” said Sherwin, a Yale University graduate whose background is in education fundraising. “We’re going to take that money and that validation to the next step.”

The project’s principals hope to interest private investors while also pursuing public money, including part of the recent $1 million annually in state funding for the Pennsylvania Malt and Brewed Beverages Industry Promotion Board.

“We believe we’re in a good position to tap it, because we’re not promoting any one particular company,” Sherwin explained. “We’re promoting beer broadly. And we’re all about tourism and all about Pennsylvania.”

The museum’s potential financial impact as a destination, based on figures from such ventures as Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, represents another strong selling point.

“Our ‘back-of-the-envelope’ calculation is 200 new jobs for the city, and $6 million in net new taxes for city, state and county,” Sherwin said, along with $100 million-plus in total economic impact.

As far as a location for commemorating beer, the principals often hear the question: Why Pittsburgh?

Their answer: Why not?

“We like to say that the history of beer in Pittsburgh reflects the history of beer in America, going back 250 years,” Sherwin explained, starting with the making of ale at Fort Pitt and continuing through the recent proliferation of craft breweries. “That said, do we have anything unique that makes us superior? No. Everyone has been making beer forever.”

Again, he cited the example of the exceptionally well-attended music museum in the neighboring state.

“There’s the question of, why Rock and Roll in Cleveland? There’s one answer to that: It’s because somebody just made it happen.”

To see what you can do to help make Brew: The Museum of Beer happen, visit brewmuseum.com.

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