Iron City Distilling is kicking off its 2026 Music on the Mezz concert series with a fall acoustic season that opens on September 24 with singer-songwriter Bill Deasy and closes on October 30 with Scott Blasey of The Clarks. The lineup brings two of Pittsburgh's most recognizable rock voices to the distillery's mezzanine space inside a converted 19th-century glass plant in the Creighton neighborhood of East Deer.
“Iron City Distilling is excited to welcome Bill Deasy to launch its fall acoustic season,” said Peter Katz, president of Iron City Distilling, as reported by TribLIVE. Deasy's show begins at 7:30 p.m. on September 24, with doors opening at 5 p.m., and guests are encouraged to arrive early to grab seats, per the outlet. The Del Vecchio Sausage food truck will be on-site for the performance, and tickets are available on the Iron City Distilling events website.
A Songwriter With National Credits Takes The Stage First
Deasy has toured nationally both with his former band, The Gathering Field, and as a solo artist, according to the same TribLIVE report. That band signed a major-label deal with Atlantic Records after its single “Lost in America” dominated local radio in 1996, and the group marked the song's 30th anniversary during a 2026 summer tour, as detailed by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The Gathering Field originally formed in Grove City before building its regional following.
Deasy's songwriting resume extends well beyond the band. He co-wrote “Good Things Are Happening,” which became the long-running theme song for Good Morning America on ABC, according to his LinkedIn bio, and served as the show's promotional theme from 2001 to 2004, per the Post-Gazette. He's also credited with the Emmy Award-winning Your Home campaign for KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh, has written songs recorded by country stars Martina McBride and Billy Ray Cyrus, has published three novels, and has won a Golden Needle Award, TribLIVE reports.
The Clarks' Frontman Closes Out The Season
Scott Blasey, lead vocalist and acoustic guitar player for The Clarks, will close the concert series on October 30. Blasey co-founded The Clarks at Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 1986, and the band — which started as a college act called The Administration before its 1988 debut album — has released 11 studio albums and sold nearly 500,000 records over its roughly 40-year run, according to Wikipedia. Blasey has also released multiple solo projects, and Iron City Distilling has previously hosted him alongside Kelsey Friday.
Between the two headline dates, the acoustic series will feature performances at least once a week through October 30, according to TribLIVE, including sets from A&P Acoustics, Justin Cook, and Cover 2 Acoustic. Tony Source will host an open mic night featuring Z Town. Full event schedules and show times are posted on Iron City Distilling's Facebook page.
A Former Glass Plant Turned Distilling Hub
The concert series unfolds inside Iron City Distilling's home on a 42-acre industrial campus at 150 Ferry Street in Creighton, occupying the former boiler room of an 1883 Pittsburgh Plate Glass Works plant that shut down in 2018, according to TribLIVE's earlier coverage of the site. Rosebud Mining owner Cliff Forrest acquired Pittsburgh Brewing Company in 2018 and bought the shuttered glass plant in 2019, eventually bringing Iron City Beer production back to a locally owned Pennsylvania facility in 2022 after 13 years of contract brewing in Latrobe.```
Iron City Distilling will offer cocktails made with its Bessemer spirits line during the concerts. Master Distiller Matt Strickland uses a rare three-chamber pot still installed in late 2024 — one of only a handful operating worldwide — to reproduce 19th-century Western Pennsylvania Monongahela rye whiskey, per the same TribLIVE report. In December 2025, the distillery released its first spirit mashed and distilled entirely on-site: 176 bottles of 107.4-proof Bessemer Rye Whiskey made from 100% Pennsylvania-grown Danko rye aged two and a half years, as the Post-Gazette detailed. The distillery sources its grains from Pennsylvania suppliers like CNC Farms and bottles its spirits through Stoelzle Glass in Monaca.
The concert series follows a broader stretch of public programming at the Creighton campus, which in July hosted Pittsburgh Steelers legend Rocky Bleier for the launch of Bleier Family Whiskey. Pittsburgh Brewing Company has also been expanding its footprint beyond Creighton, having opened a downtown taproom inside the Alcoa Building in April, even as the company's original Lawrenceville brewery — closed since 2009 and vacated when brewing moved out of the city — was hit with a condemnation notice earlier this year.
