Many of you are curious about our journey towards becoming the next Buffalo brewery. If you’ve Liked us on Facebook, you may have noticed us just pop up there one day. And if you’re the kind of person that likes Buffalo, and beer, and I guess Facebook, you decided to Like us. And we appreciate your leap of faith!
But, you may have wondered at some point: “Who the hell are these guys?” “Are they for real?” “Where can I get their beer? If at all? And, will it be good?”
Well, every journey has a beginning. Ours began with a bucket.
We just happen to work in a place where we happen to have access to stuff like unusable food grade buckets (don’t ask.) Well,
one day in early 2011, Corey happened to take a good look at this
otherwise large piece of plastic waste, and as he happens to do
frequently, he wondered what else he could make with someone else’s
refuse.
And, of the many things he could possibly make with it, he thought of something that he happens to think about often: beer. He then realized, of course, that a 5 gallon food grade bucket would make an excellent fermenter.
He mentioned this idea to Matt, since they happened to sit next to each other at work. Matt had tried to brew his own beer before, three times to be exact, in 2005. And, in each of those tries, he had failed miserably. The
beer hadn’t been contaminated or anything like that; both Matt and
Corey were classically trained at cleaning, sanitization, and
sterilization of all sorts of equipment over the years. The beer just didn’t taste good. Of course, it was made from a plastic kit with cans of syrup and an old dusty packet of yeast. But he didn’t know there was anything wrong with that sort of kit at the time.
And so, Matt had told Corey that brewing beer was
like making pizza: sure it could be done, but it wouldn’t be any less
expensive, and it certainly wouldn’t be as good. And we had a good laugh, and went back to our day jobs. (note: we’re pretty sure we’re wrong about the pizza too…)
But that night, Matt thought about how much he had
loved quality, craft beer… from back in the old days when he got to
drink unlimited quantities of JW Dundee Honey Brown at Molly’s for three hours for 5 bucks; to drinking his first Guinness at the Steer; to watching Ithaca and Sierra and Brooklyn and Great Lakes get bigger and better over the years. And he thought about how much he had always wanted to start his own business, but never had that one special idea. And how, well, there just weren’t that many breweries in Buffalo, were there? Shouldn’t there be more? Doesn’t Buffalo deserve an iconic and explosive industry of its own, just like the old days? And
so he texted Corey – “i think you should make that beer after all lol” –
and the next day the ideas for this brewing business were born. Since
then we’ve been digging our ditch, slowly chipping away at our dream of
making beer for a living for the good people of Buffalo.
So, that’s just a little bit about who we are and our history. Skip around this site and you’ll find out a bit more.
We’ll repost here every once in a while, but
probably not on a real fixed schedule - it may be after a couple of
days, or maybe a couple of weeks. The content, well, we’re kind of expecting it to be all over the place. It may be about Buffalo, or craft beer, or homebrewing, or starting up a small business. And we expect it to pose many more questions than answers, to be honest. But this is a good thing. Those of you reading have the opportunity to take part in the creation of a new brewery in Buffalo. We might wonder aloud: “Where should we locate? What beers are you in love with right now? What food would you like at our tasting room?” And, you, as our loyal reader, can have input that we will read, seriously consider, and respond to.
So, follow us on this journey, and you will be rewarded with fresh and delicious beer you helped to create. We
can’t answer all of the questions that you may be asking right now, but
we can say this: the beer will, without a doubt, be excellent.