Pittsburgh's Rivers of Fire

05/21/2026

You won’t want to miss this match Oct 10! Get your tickets now!

🗣📣 HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT!

🔥 We’re thrilled to unveil the official poster for the 31st Road to the Americas Belt Match - the Pittsburgh Title! The title returns for its second year! 🌟🌶️

📅 WHEN & WHERE
🗓 Saturday, 10 October 2026
📍 Pittsburgh's Rivers of Fire Hot Sauce Festival presented by Hammajack Sauce
📍 Velum Fermentation, 2120 Jane Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15203, USA
⏰ Saturday: Noon till 7 PM (ticketed event)

🏆 WHAT’S AT STAKE?
The Pittsburgh Road Champion will:
🏅 Keep the official Championship Belt forever
🔥 Secure a guaranteed seat at the 8th Americas Title Belt Match 2027
🌎 Receive an invitation to the 4th Intercontinental Title Belt Match 2027
💰 Win the $200 SpiceQuest Cash Prize

This celebration of spice will once again crown the Pittsburgh Champion 2026! Dean Leverett captured the title in 2025 - but who rises this year? 🏆✨

Hosted by the one and only Harvest912's Tad & Kit.

🌟 WHO CAN COMPETE?
We currently have ONLY 3 spots left for daring LOF athletes from the USA, Canada, and across the Americas 🌍

⚠️ If spots remain, brave festival-goers may get the chance to walk on and compete on the day!

🎯 APPLY HERE:
🔥 https://leagueoffire.com/

🔥 FRIDAY NIGHT PREVIEW - FREE ENTRY
No hot sauce vending or bottle sales on Friday night - just a relaxed “warm-up” before Saturday’s chaos 🌶️

Enjoy:
• Craft vendors
• Trivia
• Mobile pepper-themed escape room
• Hot sauce wing samples from Cold Friends Kitchen
• Hot sauce tasting & voting for your favourites
• Meet and read about the League of Fire competitors competing on Saturday

Then Saturday turns the heat ALL the way up 🔥

🎉 EVENT HIGHLIGHTS
🌶️ League of Fire Pittsburgh Belt Match 2026 - Main Event
🌶️ 22 hot sauce vendors from mild to wild
🌶️ Ice bath challenge with Nervana Health benefiting Animal Friends for Veterans
🌶️ Scavenger hunt prizes
🌶️ Fire & aerial show by Iron City Circus Arts
🌶️ “Hot Talk” live wing interview challenge by Positively Pittsburgh Podcast
🌶️ Mobile escape room
🌶️ Pinball games
🌶️ Food trucks & ice cream

💥 SPECIAL THANKS
Huge thanks to Hammajack Sauce for partnering with League of Fire to bring this incredible event to life ❤️

💰 SpiceQuest PRIZE FUND
SpiceQuest - LOF’s exclusive PRIZE SPONSOR - is backing the contest with a massive $555 prize fund:
🥇 Winner: $200
🥈 Runner-up: $75
🔥 All other competitors: $35 each

👉 https://spicequestlabs.com/

🌶️ BELT MATCH & HOT SAUCE ROUND SPONSOR
We are proud to welcome Bean’s Hot Sauce Co as both the Belt Match sponsor and one of the official hot sauce round sponsors 🔥

👉 https://beanshotsauceco.com

🔥 HOT SAUCE SPONSOR OPPORTUNITY
We are currently looking for ONE more hot sauce sponsor to test the competitors to their limits.

💌 Interested?
📧 [email protected]

🎟 SATURDAY TICKETS:
https://yinzmart.com/product/rivers-of-fire-festival-ticket/

🌶️ Facebook - Pittsburgh's Rivers of Fire
🌶️ Website - https://www.pittsburghsriversoffire.com/
🌶️ Instagram - https://instagram.com/pittsburghs.rivers.of.fire/



Hammajack Sauce
Harvest912
Velum Fermentation

04/27/2026

We are slightly expanding our hot sauce festival at this year. For our 2nd annual event, we will be warming things up with a Friday night “Preview Night” before the full🔥festival on Saturday!

We plan for this warm up event to run 5 - 9 pm. The Cold Friends Kitchen food truck will be there, along with a mobile escape room, a 60 - 90 minute trivia game, hot sauce sampling (and voting!) and more! We also plan to have a vendor market featuring local makers.

If you are a local maker and can offer at least one pepper or hot sauce-themed item for sale, feel free to apply to vend at our event.

Since Instagram won’t let me share a link to the application here, DM me or comment “FORM” in the comments and I will send you a link to apply.

04/08/2026

Did you participate in our scavenger hunt last year?? Give a shout out to Masterminds - organizer of that activity! They will be back again this year with MORE than a scavenger hunt. Stay tuned for details!!!

Hello to our faithful and loyal Masterminds! (And Brian Pontzer!) We are always looking to grow and expand, and part of that is beating the Facebook Algorithm at its own game. And that means, as much as I hate to ask, I am hoping to get some reviews on our page.

So if you have been to an event held or hosted by Masterminds Entertainment , and had a good time please drop us a review! Business owners/ activity planners/ managers, The Tannery Bar & Grill, Pine Inn Restaurant & Lounge, Temerity Aleworks Ltd, The Dead Canary Brewing Company, Sandfly Brewing Company, Asylum Pro Wrestling, Pittsburgh's Rivers of Fire even food trucks like La Vita Bella Pizza and Leaping Leo’s if you could drop us a review for drawing people in for you, we would appreciate it!

If you haven't had a great experience, be it as a participant or business, please reach out and let me know what to do better! (Except you Brian, nobody cares what you have to say!)(Jk!)

Thanks all!

03/13/2026

Ok Home and Garden what is your favorite sauce?! We want to know!! Pick one of these 4! (We have more!)

02/17/2026

New this year! Competitors in the League Of Fire competitions will ALL receive a cash prize!!! Listen to this awesome message. Competitors in our Oct 10 competition will qualify for this!

01/18/2026

Another NEW addition to Pittsburgh’s Rivers of Fire this year!

We are SO EXCITED to announce that award-winning, Hot Ones-featured Black-Eyed Susan Spice Co. from Baltimore will be joining us!

Their spice blends have earned multiple food awards. Their “Red Flag” sauce was featured in the Hot Ones Season 24 lineup. In October, you can taste what they’ve got right here in Pittsburgh!

01/15/2026

🔥

ROUND 2... SPICE!!!!

We are beyond thrilled to announce that we will be returning as a vendor for the 2nd annual .rivers.of.fire created/hosted by / Hammajack Sauce !!!

We had an outstanding time at this event last year, meeting so many new people, seeing some old friends, and slinging a ton of sauce. You NEED to put this one on the calendar!!!

01/09/2026

We are VERY excited to announce one of the NEW vendor additions to our line up at our 2026 festival!🎉🌶️🔥❗️

John & Beth are pretty new to the professional hot sauce scene. They wanted to attend Rivers of Fire last year, but by the time they heard about it, they already had another commitment. Fortunately they can join us this time!

These sauce makers reside in Imperial (very local to Pittsburgh). They are another true craft sauce maker - focused on flavor first & all made by hand.

Be sure to stop by to try what they’ve got in October!

01/06/2026

I am blown away by this VERY early interest AND commitment from small hot sauce makers in Pittsburgh’s hot sauce festival! SOOO much effort and energy was put into this event last year just to make it happen. I was unsure about doing it again because of the resource commitment it required. But it is quickly becoming obvious that it was resources well invested❣️

If this year’s event is only as great as last year’s, that will be a huge win. But already 10 months out I’m feeling a much higher level of engagement and excitement surrounding this event.🔥🔥🔥🌶️🌶️🌶️❣️❣️❣️

Thanks again to everyone’s support in this!!! Especially for being the greatest host we could ask for!

Also especially to Tad & Kit at for hosting the .of.fire contest! (And they will be again this year! 🙏❗️)

I could go on and on with the thank yous! We had SO MUCH help.

Here’s to an awesome celebration of hot sauce, hot peppers and community!🥂🍻🌶️🌶️

01/01/2026

We’re doin’ it again in 2026! 🎉❗️🌶️🔥. Applications are now open for vendors for our 2026 event. Priority will be given to those who participated in 2025, but there is room for a few more this time!

Copy and paste this link to apply:
://forms.gle/JRmCkwaUQAwVwKZF9

DM us with questions or send e-mail to [email protected]

10/11/2025

Finally got to meet Shahina the of .of.fire in person today at the 1st annual Blaze for the Brave in Gettysburg!