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Gray Areas: Penguin City hosts group wedding, fest merges punk with craft beer

Assorted ramblings from the world of entertainment:

• It’s Valentine’s Day weekend. Love is in the air, maybe nowhere more than Penguin City Brewing Company, which has a group wedding on tap for Friday.

‘Til Death Do Us Part will provide couples with an officiant (Hannah Ferguson, owner of Penguin City neighbor Dope Cider House), a wedding photographer (Brianna Isabel) and a beverage (champagne, non-alcoholic or a Penguin City brew) to toast their nuptials.

Penguin City co-owner Aspasia Lyras said she heard about similar events in other cities, and it’s something she wanted to do in Youngstown. They already had flash tattoos by Aqua Ink planned for the day before Valentine’s Day and thought the group wedding would pair well with that.

“(Ferguson) is an officiant, so if you have a marriage license, it’s all valid,” Lyras said. “If you want to come do a vow renewal, that’s also welcome. We wanted something that could be affordable for people. So for $100 you can get married, you get a mini photo shoot, and you get a complimentary drink for a toast.”

Add-ons are available as well — bouquet and boutonniere, a mini cake for dessert and dinner from Suzie’s Dogs.

About 20 couples already are signed up to participate in the 7 p.m. ceremony, Lyras said, which will be held in the main taproom at Penguin City, 460 E. Federal St., Youngstown. Walk-ins can sign up from 5 to 6:30 p.m. to be a part of the ceremony. Admission is free to attend the ceremony

“The tap room is open to the public, so if their families want to be there to witness the couples getting married or you just want to observe it or you want to have a date night, everybody’s welcome to attend,” Lyras said. “There’s going to be little cakes and flowers and some vendors and Valentine’s Day drinks, so there’ll be a lot of Valentine’s inspired things happening.”

• Punk rock and craft beer seem like an odd pairing.

In 1978, a punk craft beer would have been Jello Biafra spitting in your Mickey’s wide-mouth bottle.

Aging punks apparently have more refined taste.

Coming to greater Pittsburgh on April 18 is the Punk in the Park Road Show, the first of three cities to host the event in 2026

Punk in the Park was started by Brew Ha Ha Productions and has been held in 10 other cities (primarily on the West Coast) since 2021.

In addition to the music, a major component of the festival is a craft beer sampling from noon to 3 p.m. featuring the best local, regional and national craft beers, hard seltzers and ciders, according to the news release.

This year’s lineup is dominated by old school punk acts, including The Adicts, Dead Kennedys (minus Biafra, who hasn’t toured with the band for decades), FEAR, Agnostic Front, Leftover Crack, Murphy’s Law, Codefendants, The Last Gang and Worlds Scariest Police Chases.

There are few things more common in band names than apostrophes that don’t belong. Worlds Scariest, which is from Pittsburgh, goes against the trend by leaving out a necessary one. How punk rock of them.

The festival takes place at Sandcastle Park in West Homestead, Pa. Tickets start at $59.99 and the craft beer tasting is available for a $15 add-on ticket. For more information, go to www.punkinthepark.com.

Andy Gray is the entertainment editor of Ticket. Write to him at agray@tribtoday.com

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