Beer schedules. And schedules. And beer.

Hello again!  We thought we’d give you an update on some of our upcoming beers, as well as our tap room schedule and plans through the holiday season.  Without further adieu:

Beer Schedule.  Here is a rough schedule of beers we plan to release in the next few months and an approximate time frame.

Innovation Series: Nelson Kolsch (non-sour version) should be out on Tuesday 11/24; Balnamoon, a 7.6% ABV scotch ale brewed with orange peel, will be out on Black Friday 11/27; and Imperial Stout 1.0, which clocks in at 8.7% ABV, which should be out around December 3rd.

Vanilla Oatmeal Stout: our popular winter seasonal, brewed with roasted barley, a massive amount of oatmeal, and a subtle touch of Mexican vanilla, should be out right around December 1st, both at the tap room, and around area bars and restaurants.

Fresh Baked is a spiced brown ale with toasted oats, cinnamon and vanilla we made in collaboration with our friends at Wegmans, to celebrate the opening of their Pub on Transit Road.  The pub will open on 12/8, and we’ll also be tapping it on the brewery that day.  We’ll have a special tasting at The Pub on 12/11 if you want to meet the brewers and find out about the recipe!

Our brewers with the Wegmans team for Fresh Baked brew day

The Tower is our 11.9% ABV American Barleywine that we brew to commemorate the ball drop on New Year’s Eve at the Electric Tower (see details on our NYE plans below!)  A rich, toffee malt backbone melds with dank grapefruit rind and subtle alcohol notes to yield this complex, smooth sipper.  Available right before Christmas for those who want to give the gift of Barleywine this holiday season.  Barleywine! (Barleywine vine courtesy of CBW)

The Tower. (photo courtesy of Joe Cascio Photography)

Last Blacksmith Smoked Black IPA: last springs seasonal will be a late winter seasonal this year.  This beer balances bright orange hop flavor with smooth smoked malts.  Complex yet still drinkable.  This beer should be out right after January 1st.

Galaxy Red India Red Ale.  Apparently, a few of you have been waiting for this beer to be re-released?  We are due to get a large shipment of these rare New Zealand hops next year.  Praise Lord Lupulin!  Expect to see this beer back at the brewery, and around Buffalo bars and restaurants, around early February.

Galaxy Teaser.  Yeah.  We're mean.

Tap Room Schedule.  Here’s what we have planned.

For Thanksgiving week:

Tuesday 11/24: normal hours, 3pm – 10pm.  Innovation Series (non-sour) Nelson Kolsch will be available this day.

Wednesday 11/25: open noon to midnight!  Food service begins at 3pm.  Did you know our newest, freshest batch of Deep Cut double IPA is on?  Drink responsibly people.  Oh hey, did you also know beer goes great at the dinner table on turkey day?  Oh, and did you know we also happen to sell growlers of said beer for at home enjoyment?  True story!

To be consumed before, during, and after
Thanksgiving dinner.  Have a nice nap!

Thursday 11/26: we’ll be closed, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a few of us are enjoying a post Turkey Trot Low Bridge from within the tap room…

Friday 11/27: open noon to midnight for Fall Black Friday.  Oh yeah, that’s what it’s called now.  The kitchen will be open from noon to midnight as well.  Innovation Series: Balnamoon Scotch Ale should be available this day as well.

Fall Black Friday!  Contain yourselves, people!

Saturday 11/28 and Sunday 11/29: Normal hours.  Noon to midnight and noon to 8pm respectively.  Saturday is Small Business Saturday – as a (small) way of showing our customer appreciation, we’ll be discounting all merchandise by 10% this day.  Get your holiday shopping done early folks!

For Christmas week: 

Tuesday 12/22: open noon to 10pm.  Food service begins at 3pm.  

Wednesday 12/23: open noon to midnight.  Food service begins at 3pm.  

Thursday 12/24 (Xmas Eve): open noon to 6pm.

Friday 12/25: Closed.  Keep the change, ya filthy animal!

Saturday 12/26 and Sunday 12/27: Normal hours.  Noon to midnight and noon to 8pm respectively.

Thursday December 31st. New Year’s Eve!

This is the information many of you have been waiting for.  The ball drops off of the Electric Tower, which is right in front of our brewery.  This is the second largest NYE celebration in the country, making our little brewery one of the best places in the U.S. to celebrate New Year’s Eve.  Here’s what we have planned:

First, we will not be taking reservations on this day, but we will have some special things coming your way.  If you’re interested in joining us for New Year’s Eve, get here early to stake your claim at the bar, at an upstairs table, or in front of the fireplace.  

We’ll be open at noon with our normal menu until 3pm.  A 3pm, we’ll have a special menu offered until 10pm.  The menu is still to be announced, but should include some more upscale food options/entrees and some fun food as well.  Stay tuned on the specifics of this menu which will be announced in December.  

Then, beginning at 10pm, we are offering a package of two drink tickets, a buffet of various appetizers, and a limited edition New Year’s Eve tasting glass that you can use for a ceremonious toast of The Tower barleywine at midnight.  We’ll be open until 2am that night as well.  Price is $25 in advance, $35 at the door.  Link to pre-register/pay is here. 

If you decide to come after 10pm and not participate in the package, that’s ok, but we won’t be serving food.  We hope you join us either way.

Should be a busy holiday season, with lots of great beer.  Celebrate it, Buffalo!  Cheers!

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Beer Week!!!!! (and beyond)

Sorry for the long delay since our last blog update; as you might expect, this summer has been a busy one!  However, with Buffalo Beer Week just around the corner, we have so many events lined up that we just had to take a break from the action to keep you informed.  So, without further ado, here is a quick list of where we’ll be over the next several weeks, with some informational tidbits sprinkled in as well:

September 24th, 6pm: Brewers Shuffleboard Tournament at the brewery.  This is a fun get together for all of the Buffalo-area brewers to just hang and relax, have a few beers, and play some shuffleboard.  The matchups are:

Game 1: 4 Mile vs. Old First Ward

Game 2: Community Beer Works vs. Resurgence

Game 3: Big Ditch vs. Pan-American/Pearl Street

Game 4: Rusty Nickel vs. Woodcock

The trophy! (object may be smaller in real life)

The Game 1 winner will play the Game 2 winner, etc., until we have a final champion.  Did we mention there’s a trophy too?  However, the best part for you, the reader, is that we’ll have beers on from all these breweries at our tap room, plus beers from Hamburg, Gordon Biersch, and Ellicottville.  Most beers still to be announced; however, we can announce the CBW beer here, which is the return of Bringer of Nuclear Fire, the imperial milk stout with anchos and chipotles we made with CBW (along with our good friend Alex Placito) as part of the Risk Legacy adventure we played out a few years ago.  This beer is delicious and we’ll have a limited amount (one sixtel!) of it.  You need to come to this event if only just to check this beer out.

Bringer

September 25th, 530pm: Launch of WNY Craft Beer Magazine Fall issue at the brewery.  Featuring you-know-who on the cover!  The article, as well as the entire issue, is well written, as is all of their stuff.  We can’t thank these guys enough for featuring us.  Check out the preview video here.

September 26th, 5pm: Ballpark Brew Bash!  One of the best beer festivals (if not the very best) in the area.  We’ll have Hayburner and Blonde Peach (our summer seasonal – this is the batch we made with fresh NY peaches!) at our regular tent; a keg of Combine, which is our American Pale Ale brewed entirely with WNY ingredients (malt from NY Craft Malt and Centennial hops from Niagara Malt) for the “Farm-to-Pint” area, and last but certainly not least, we’ll have a cask of double dry-hopped Hayburner with passion fruit in the VIP area!

Fresh Blonde Peach (pic courtesy of Andrea D.)

You can buy tickets for the brew bash at our tap room and you’ll get a $5 gift card back from us!  Get them while there are still some left!

September 27th, 12pm: Darien Lakes Harvest Festival.  Tasting Hayburner and Cinnamon Apple Amber Ale.

Also – you did know our tap room is now open on Sundays didn’t you?  From noon to 8pm.  We’re now serving a few beer mixers for folks getting to our place early, including beermosas with Blonde Peach and Citraburner, as well as a Hayburner Bloody, our own craft IPA with vodka and house made Bloody Mary mix, shaken and garnished with pickles.  Stop by, try one, and root for your Bills, Buffalo!

Makes me want to shout!

September 28th, 6pm: Our Inaugural Beer Dinner at the brewery!  The tap room will be closed to the public on this day except for those that attend this event.  This is a five course dinner with each course paired with one of our beers.  The menu is as follows:

Appetizer: Pumpkin Polenta with Crispy Shallots and Sage; paired with Cinnamon Apple Amber Ale

Salad: Baby Arugula, Shaved Fennel, Candied Walnuts, Warm Goat Cheese, Sweet Cherry Vinaigrette; paired with Hayburner American IPA

Seafood: Prosciutto Wrapped Cod Loin served atop Brussels Sprout and Kale Slaw with Roasted Lemon; paired with Low Bridge Hoppy Golden Ale

Game: Pheasant Thigh Roulade - Pheasant Thigh Stuffed with Dried Fruits, Poached, Seared, and Sliced; paired with Fall Black, our new hybrid German-style schwarzbier and California Common

Dessert: Flourless Chocolate Torte with Excavator Chocolate Cherries, Caramel and Smoked Sea Salt; paired with Excavator Rye Brown Ale

You read that right: new beer debuted here!  Fall Black is made with German and American malts and hops. It features a subtle roast character, smooth bready malts, and slightly spicy hops.  Please join us for good fun, good food, and good beer!  Tickets are $45, you can book a reservation here.  Space is limited, make your reservations ASAP!  You will not be disappointed.

September 29th, 4pm: Consumer’s tasting at their Como Park store in Lancaster.

September 30th, 6pm: Buffalo Brewpub tasting.

October 1st, 5pm: MacGregors' tasting.

October 2nd, 7pm: Santora’s (Transit) tasting with other local breweries as part of a UB Alumni event.

October 3rd, 12pm: Oktoberfest @ Riverworks, sampling various beers.  Expect Fall Black at this event.

October 4th, 5pm: Griffin Gastropub takeover.  This should be a good one, our last tasting at Griffin Niagara Falls was memorable with six different beers on tap.

October 5th, 7pm: Flights and Bites, a charity event benefiting Eric Wood’s charity, the Eric Wood Foundation, will be hosted at the brewery.  The night will include flights of our beer, food, games, music, and a chance to meet Mr. Wood and a few of his teammates!  $2 from every flight purchased during the event, and on every Sunday during the season, will be donated by us to his charity. Details on the event are here.

In fact, if you stop by the tap room and purchase a flight during the game on Sunday 9/27, we’ll enter you into a raffle to win two free tickets to the event!  The winner will be picked right after the game.  We hope to see you there!

October 6th, 3pm-10pm: Dining Out For Life at the tap room.  Join us, along with many other local restaurants, in a meal that benefits the fight against HIV/AIDS.  Details here.

October 12th, 5pm: Slow Roll Buffalo.  This is our second Slow Roll of the year.   The first was insane-amazing; this promises to be even better with a bigger crowd.  What’s Slow Roll Buffalo you ask?  Get all the details here and get info on attending a Slow Roll here.

Slow Roll July

October 18th: Big Ditch 1st anniversary party.  This will celebrate one year since we officially opened the brewery for beer sales in the market.  Still a little early and we don’t have all the details yet, but expect us to release the first commercial batch of our new Double IPA on this day!  Stay tuned!

With all of these events, there’s just no excuse to not have Big Ditch beer in your life sometime in the next month.  We’re looking forward to sharing a beer with you.  Cheers!

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Summer updates

It has obviously been quite busy month for us!  Reaction to the opening of our tap room has been tremendous, and we thank all of you that have stopped by for a beer.  We have several updates for you concerning how things have been going and upcoming news:

1) Beer.  We opened our tap room with plans to have 8 to 12 beers on tap at all times.  Due to overwhelming demand, we have found that occasionally the number may drop a little bit lower.  We are constantly rotating our selection of beers and adding on beers from other local breweries.  We’re also adding brewers to help us make more.  We hired Kim and Brett about a month ago; they are currently in training and picking things up pretty quickly.  We’re also looking to hire another full time brewer and will probably hire a few more assistants before the end of the summer.  The brewers will be working around the clock to brew as much as possible over the coming weeks and months, with a mix of existing favorites, new seasonals and limited releases.  Please remember - it takes time to make good beer!

New brewers!

2) Cans.  We teased a picture of Corey with Rudy, CBW’s head brewer, making a beer together in our brewery, about a month ago.  That was the beginning of a collaboration we had been discussing for several months with the Buffalo Bisons.  They had an idea to create a collaborative mixed pack between several different breweries in the same pack, which hadn’t happened almost anywhere else in the country to our knowledge.  The mixed pack would be released at the ballpark and also at Consumer’s Beverages, and would be filled with summery, light beers.  After some discussion, it was decided that the participating breweries would be us, Resurgence, and CBW, with the beers featured as Low Bridge (our hoppy golden ale), Summer Saison by Resurgence, and a one off IPA by CBW called, of course, “An IPA”.  CBW needed a place to brew the 20 barrel batch of beer, so of course, we volunteered to help.   Rudy created the recipe and we helped CBW scale it up and brew it at our brewery.  The mixed three pack will be out this week.  And it looks awesome.

BOOM

3) Tours.  With all the commotion of opening the tap room, we put brewery tours on hold for a little while, but we’re working on starting them up again.

In the meantime, there are some ground rules for groups showing up that are visiting our brewery as part of a large group:

- We welcome groups to come visit our brewery and tap room.  However, if your group is larger than 12 people, please call 854-5050 no less than 72 hours before your arrival as we need to staff properly to accommodate large groups.  We reserve the right to deny entry to unscheduled groups if we don’t have sufficient space or staff to comfortably accommodate the group.

- After a long day of visiting breweries and trying many beers, it’s likely that some of the members of your party might be a little buzzed up.  Which is okay.  However, our policy, in accordance with the State Liquor Authority, is to deny alcohol service to visibly intoxicated patrons.  So, if any of the members of your party is visibly intoxicated, please, do not try to bring them into our facility.    If your party attempts to bring an intoxicated guest in, we reserve the right to disallow the entire party in.

4) July 4th is this Saturday, and we’ll be closed that day to provide a much needed day of rest for our staff.  We’ll be open until midnight on July 3rd, so be sure to stop in a grab a growler for Independence Day festivities.

5) Menu Specials.  Chef Mike will be whipping up a bunch of cool food specials in the next few weeks.  Last week we featured a Chorizo Burger, Red Pepper and Smoked Sausage Mac n Cheese, and BBQ Chicken flatbreads.  We’ll have more specials coming this week – and maybe even some special beers to pair with the food…?

Last week's special: BBQ Chicken Flatbread
with chipotle cream cheese and fresh jalapeno

6) Sundays and Lunches.  We get these questions all the time, and we’re working on that too.  We’re adding staff to be able to open on Sundays and expect we can open on Sunday sometime later this summer.  Lunches will take a little longer.  We’ll be sure to let you know.

As always, follow us on social media for the latest updates: facebook.com/bigditchbrewing, twitter.com/bigditchbrewing.  Have a great summer!

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Our tap room is open! And other pertinent information.

As many of our long time followers know, when we were in the process of opening our brewery to brew beers for distribution around Western New York, we were very open and candid about our process and what we were up to.  We wanted to hit the ground running and therefore we shared lots of information about the brewery and the beers we’d be making.

However, we held back a lot of information about our tap room, mainly because we wanted you to have that “wow!” moment when you first saw it.

Well – here it is.

Yesterday, after several weeks of private, soft opening parties, we opened our doors to the public for the first time, fairly quietly, knowing full well that Buffalo is a small-big town where no secret goes untold for very long.  It was a great night.  Everyone seemed to have a great time and have lots of great things to say about the space, the beers and the food.   We want to take the time to tell you about it in our own words and pictures here.

The space

In a word, it is beautiful.  We have two main areas open to the public in right now.  First the main tap room area:

Highlights are a) the overhead doors which open into awnings (still a bit cold to use these now – let’s hope things warm up soon!) b) the “Strength Pride Ambition” mural on the wall facing Huron Street – these words have come to represent our company values c) the Erie Canal map table, which took months to design and build.

Secondly the upstairs bar area:

Featuring a smaller bar with the same beers we have downstairs, some more table seating, as well as a gaming area (currently includes darts; will soon include a shuffleboard table), and finally a lounge area complete with fireplace.  The leather sofas here are amazing.  With all the hours we’ve been working and how comfortable these sofas are, frankly it’s hard to sit in them and not take a nap!

The exterior you've seen before, but maybe without the Big Ditch Brewing Co. sign atop the building.  Oh, and did you know it lights up at night?

Not yet open is an area we call the “beer hall”.  This area will soon be filled with German-style biergarten furniture.  This space will be best for bringing large groups of friends and tossing back a few beers.  Hey, speaking of beers:

The beers

You may have heard us say that our tap room will include 8-12 beers on tap.  We are starting with 10, and we may have two more beers on in the next 1-2 weeks.  Offerings at the moment include our signatures:

• Low Bridge Hoppy Golden Ale

• Excavator Rye Brown Ale

• Hayburner American IPA

Our past and present seasonals:

• Last Blacksmith Smoked Black IPA (spring)

• Vanilla Oatmeal Stout (winter)

• Cinnamon Apple Amber Ale (fall)

And formally introducing our initial set of limited releases, which will be nearly exclusively designated for our tap room:

• Galaxy Red.  Galaxy Red is a super juicy India Red Ale loaded with late kettle and dry hop additions of tropical Galaxy hops. The result is a malty-sweet beer with pineapple, mango and papaya flavors. Yum!  ABV: 7.0% IBU: 75

• Golden Shovel.  Inspired by the more secular Belgian breweries, this Belgian-inspired golden strong ale has a fantastic aroma of white grape, tangerine, clove and fresh-cracked peppercorn. Golden Shovel is the first Belgian-style beer brewed in our commercial brewery, commemorating the opening of our tap room.  ABV: 7.6% IBU: 19

• Lock Porter.  This dark beer features a mild roast and prominent smoke character with a lightly earthy and hoppy finish. Smooth, warming and complex, Lock Porter is a true sipping beer.  ABV: 7.7% IBU: 46

We also plan to keep one of our taps filled with rotating selections of beers from other local breweries, because we don’t just celebrate our beers, we celebrate all of Buffalo’s beers.  Currently on tap is High and Rye, a dry rye stout.  This beer was a collaboration Corey did with the brewers at Old First Ward Brewing Company.

All of our beers are $5 or $6.  We also serve a Flight of Five (get it?) 5 oz beers for $10.

Flight of Five

The food

Ru's Pierogis

Flatbread pizzas

The Breuben

When we first started working on the plans for our tap room, we knew we wanted to have high quality food, but the original thought was that the purpose of the food was mainly to keep people in their seats to enjoy the beer for longer.  After months of menu and recipe design, we are proud to say that the quality of our food rivals the quality of our beer.  Our GM, Jon, spent many months assembling a menu of items that would both pair well with beer and in many cases use beer in the preparation.  Our chef Mike perfected these items over the last few months.  Here is the menu:

Highlights:

• Hayburner wings.  Our wing sauce is prepared using our Hayburner IPA to yield a tangy and almost citrusy chicken wing.

• Hand cut fries with a selection of six different dips, including orange chipotle ketchup, roasted red pepper balsamic ketchup, smoked tomato and shallot ketchup, malt vinegar aioli, roasted garlic mayo, and gribiche.

• Breuben.  Our take on a classic Reuben with corned beef brined in Excavator Rye Brown Ale

• Mac and Cheese.  Prepared in Low Bridge cheese sauce with carmelized onions and smoked bacon.

• Local.  We attempted to use as many locally produced items on the menu as possible.  Our pierogis come from Ru’s.  The bratwurst and sausage come from T-Meadow.  Coffee served in the tap room is exclusively from Public Espresso.  For dessert, we feature a flight of ice cream from Lake Effect.  We are very proud to use our tap room to feature some of the best of what Buffalo has to offer when it comes to artisanal food.

Celebrate.

The logo

We had the folks at Block Club (yet another local partnership) help us tweak our logo to make it a bit sleeker and easier to use with merchandise.  We like what they came up with, don’t you?

The staff

We couldn’t be happier with our staff.  It is still so strange to me that this idea that started in a lab almost four and a half years ago has grown to a company of over 60 employees.  The staff we’ve hired have fully embraced our energy and excitement over craft beer and the idea of making Buffalo better.  They are able to speak confidently about our beer menu – so much so, they might wind up being our biggest customers!

At the top of the tap room staff is Jon, who put this whole thing together from when it was a gravel pit to what it is now over the last 9 months.  Stand and feel your worth, Jon.  Kudos.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION!

First, in case you didn't have our address:

55 East Huron Street (corner of Huron and Ellicott Street)
Buffalo, NY 14203

Second, our hours:

Tuesday, Wednesday 3pm – 10pm

Thursday, Friday 3pm – midnight

Saturday noon – midnight

We may open on Sundays in the near future, but not yet.  We don't take reservations yet, but if you're concerned about long waits, please call ahead to confirm.

We also have brewery tours on hold while we figure out staffing, tour routes and times.  We’ll announce a tour schedule soon.

If you have a large group coming (>10 people) please call ahead.  We don’t take reservations right now and can make some suggestions regarding visit times to reduce your wait and give your group some space.  Our office phone # is 854-5050.

Yes, we still sell growlers and kegs.  Call ahead for keg availability, we don’t necessarily hold everything in stock at all times; this is particularly true for limited releases and guest taps, which we won’t sell in kegs, as well as seasonal kegs, which may be fairly limited.

Parking!  Currently, we advise that those that can't find street parking should use the Mohawk Ramp at the corner of Mohawk and Ellicott street.  It’s about a block from the brewery, mostly empty after 5pm, only $2 on weekday nights and free on Friday nights and Saturday.  We may work on additional parking solutions in the future.

That’s it!  We hope to see you soon.  Thanks in advance for all your support Buffalo.  Cheers!

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Final retail hours – this weekend…!

With our tap room nearly open, we are going to shut down our tasting and growler fill operation after this Saturday the 18th so we can focus on getting the tap room open.  This is good news, because it means the tap room is closer to opening, but sort of bittersweet as well, since we’ve really enjoyed running retail out of our converted office and intimately discussing beer with so many of you.  Some pics:

The office

Buffalo winter retail

Beer samples and merchandise = good times

Fortunately, we do have a few additional pieces of good news:

1) We'll be open normal hours this Wed through Fri, 4/15 - 4/17, from 4 to 7pm, but on Saturday 4/18, we’ll be open (with Jon and Erik running the show- hi guys!) from 11am to 7pm for extended hours! We'll even have a few menu items you can sample as well...

Additionally, we’ll be switching out taps every hour on the hour so you can try a number of different beers we’ve brewed, and a few that maybe you haven’t.  Here is the plan:

11am-12pm: Low Bridge, Excavator, Hayburner, Last Blacksmith
12pm-1pm: Low Bridge, Cinnamon Apple Amber Ale, Hayburner, Last Blacksmith
1pm-2pm: Low Bridge, Cinnamon Apple Amber Ale, Hayburner, Vanilla Oatmeal Stout
2pm-3pm: Low Bridge, Double Chocolate Excavator (made with 2x the chocolate malt!), Hayburner, Vanilla Oatmeal Stout
3pm-4pm: Low Bridge, Double Chocolate Excavator, Hayburner, Last Blacksmith
4pm-5pm: Low Bridge, Imperial Smoked Porter (preview of a tap room beer!), Hayburner, Last Blacksmith
5pm-6pm: Blonde Peach (test batch summer seasonal preview!), Imperial Smoked Porter, Hayburner, Last Blacksmith
6pm-7pm: Blonde Peach, Excavator, Hayburner, Last Blacksmith

2) During the month or so we won’t be doing growler fills at the brewery, you should be able to get growlers filled at Consumers Beverages around all of Western New York.  They’ll have at least one beer on tap at nearly all of their stores for the time being.

3) Assuming things go relatively well over the next 1-2 weeks, we should have an announcement on a tap room opening date very shortly.  Stay tuned!

Thanks to everyone that made our office more fun over the last 5 months.  We saw many more people than we ever would have imagined.  We can’t wait to see you again on the other side - literally.  Cheers!

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Final tap room update.

We’re coming down to the nitty gritty of opening our tap room.  Here are some updates as to what we’ve accomplished and what to expect:

Construction.  The build out of our space is about 98% complete.  We’re only left with touch ups and punch list items.   The space looks great – but we’re waiting until we open to show you most of it.  A couple of photos we’ve leaked are below – have a look at our kitchen and our tap room beer cooler.

Kitchen

Tap room cooler: insert beer here

Food.  This has been the most exciting part of the last couple of months.  With construction of our kitchen, and hiring our chef (hi Mike!), we’ve begun preparing many of the dishes that will be on our menu.  Our menu is best described as “high quality pub food”; the food is meant to pair well with beer, and many of the dishes will use our beer during preparation.  There will be shareable appetizers, sandwiches, flatbread pizzas, burgers, a few entrees, and a few desserts.  We’re trying to involve as many local vendors as possible in preparation of these items.  Of course, it’s hard to write this and have you believe it without tasting it – but the food is really, really good.  Just as we are with our beer, we believe quality and freshness come first, and the food is no exception.

Grilled cheese anyone?

Staff.  We’ve spent a lot of time interviewing all the folks that will help us on this journey.  The excitement and response has been overwhelming and it’s been a bit humbling with the amount of positive feedback we’ve received.  The additional staff we’ve brought on over the last few weeks have been great and we can’t wait to get everyone else in here.  We still have a few odds and ends to finish hiring however, so if you know anyone with back of the house experience, please share, and have them go to our website (www.bigditchbrewing.com/careers.html) to submit an application.

Beer.  Our draft system is complete, and it’s sweet.  We expect to have 8 to 12 beers on tap at all times; right now we’re looking at about 10-11 when we open, which is awesome!  The beers will be the annual beers you’ve come to know (and, maybe even… love?), current seasonals and reprises of past seasonals; and then, there are the one-offs that are meant almost exclusively for our tap room.  These are the really fun ones, and we’ve been ecstatic over how good they are turning out.  For those that have followed our “Innovation Series” since we opened last fall, you may have got to taste at least a few of them; but certainly not all.  What’s more is that we plotted out a tentative schedule for the entire year of beers to release.  Right now, without accounting for 20 gallon “Innovation” pilot batches, we’re planning on releasing 16 new beers this year, most of which will be primarily destined for the tap room.  Of course, if we make a beer that you love, we’ll surely make more to spread around Buffalo and Western New York.

Timing.  Of course, the most important question isn’t it?  No, we don’t have a definitive date right now – sorry.  Luckily though, we’re weeks away, instead of months – which means we’ve got a pretty narrow window targeted for opening.  Rest assured, by the time this summer rolls around, we’ll be in full swing, and likely, we’ll be open well in advance of that.  So, hang on tight – by the time the snow is fully melted and you actually want to go outside, you’ll be able to stop down and have a beer with us.

Cheers!

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Event log: Winter 2015

It’s been a crazy 2015 so far!  Buffalo seems to party like no one else in the winter months.  There have been three beer festivals in the last month, with two more still to come.  Here’s a quick recap of where we’ve been and where we’re going:

January 10th: Tap Takeover, Aurora Brew Works.  Mike and Darryl put six of our beers on, including the last sixtel of our Imperial Smoked Porter.  Despite some really poor weather, we had a great turnout.  If you haven’t been to ABW yet, make it a priority.  Great beer, great atmosphere, great people.

January 17th: Buffalo On Tap, Convention Center.  We estimated that we served 4,000 samples at this event.  The very first keg we kicked was our Vanilla Oatmeal Stout, perhaps due to the nice write up we received earlier that day courtesy of the Buffalo Brewhound (Matt Krescenko) via wnycraftbeer.com.  A lot of positive vibes at this event.  Check out what Corey had to say about the festival here.

This blurry picture from On Tap pretty much sums up our month.  Courtesy of buffalo.com

January 23rd: Betty Crockski food truck was at the brewery! This was our first beer and food pairing with a food truck.  Their pierogies were absolutely to die for.  Look forward to more of these over the next few months.

Betty Crockski brewery visit

January 24th: Niagara Wine and Beer Festival, Kenan Center, Lockport. This was our first time at this festival.  There were about 1,000 attendants, and we had a chance to interact with a crowd that hadn’t had much of our beer before.  It’s always fun talking to new people about our beer.   We brought our Cinnamon Apple Ale and our Vanilla Oatmeal Stout and we kicked both kegs.  We also got to meet the owners of newly opened Barker Brewing.

January 26th: Better Beverage Society, Gene McCarthy’s.  We’ve been going to Better Beverage at McCarthy’s and doing tastings for years now.  This was the first time we brewed a beer in collaboration with Old First Ward however.  High and Rye was a dry stout made with rye – it has a nice roast, is slightly spicy, and is very tasty.  We absolutely LOVE going to McCarthy’s.  We usually stay busy enough that it’s hard to find time to just go out and have a beer, but somehow we always find ourselves back here.  It’s a combination of the beer, the food, and the laid back atmosphere.  Highly recommend.

January 31st: Buffalo Winter Brewfest, Connecticut Street Armory.  There are two good things about this event.  First, the location.  Just a beautiful and historic venue for any event, let alone a beer tasting.  Second, there are some nice New York breweries that get to this event that are rarely seen around these parts.  We got to try some beers from Upstate, Galaxy, Abandon, and Binghamton a bit.  New York State is kicking out better and better beers all the time.

February 1st: Toast to the Big Game with Breadhive at the brewery!  Breadhive pre-sold bread bowls, pretzels, mustards and dips to go with $10 growler fills from us all day.  We stayed really busy and had a lot of fun.

February 4th: Caputi’s Sheridan Pub tasting with Buffalo Distilling.  We had our tasting the same night as Caputi’s monthly whiskey tasting night.  This was a really lively crowd with a lot of familiar faces that had tons of questions for us.  Fairly small, intimate tastings where we get to interact with customers are my favorites.  Serving beer alongside Buffalo Distilling was a nice surprise treat as well.

Coming up:

February 16th, Schnitzel & Co. Beer Pairing Dinner, 7:30-9:30pm.  Enjoy fine German food with a few of our beers!

February 19th, Polar Bites, Convention Center, 6-9pm.  Beer and wine tasting benefiting the Buffalo Zoo.  Also, the picture of this polar bear is ridiculously awesome.

Do NOT mess with this bear. He is hungry.

February 22nd, Kick the Casks tour, 2-7pm, various.  You need to reserve tickets for this event.  Participating breweries are Big Ditch at Blue Monk, CBW at Mister Goodbar, OFW at (of course) McCarthy’s, and Resurgence.  A $40 ticket will get you a pint of cask beer at each location with bus transport from place to place.  We’re planning on our oatmeal stout, minus the vanilla, plus a mystery ingredient.  Stay tuned.  

February 23rd, Armor Inn Beer Dinner, 7-10pm.  You need to come to this.  The menu is insane.  Here’s the plan:

Soup: Low Bridge Cheddar Ale Soup with a warm baked homemade pretzel garnish

Salad: Salad with Hayburner IPA Vinaigrette dressing

Appetizer: Thin sliced smoked brisket with goat cheese wrapped in bacon skewers, served with Excavator Rye Brown Ale

Entrée: Pork Tenderloin with Cinnamon Apple Amber Ale demi glaze and grilled asparagus

Dessert: Beer a Misu, a fun twist on Tiramisu, made with Vanilla Oatmeal Stout

Reserve seats with The Armor Inn to attend!

February 27th, Jack Astor’s Tap Takeover, 7-9pm.  We’ll be releasing our spring seasonal at Astor’s, which is based on a recent pilot batch we made.  Like your beers dark and/or hoppy?  You’ll like this beer for sure.  We’ll release more information on it in the coming weeks.  It will be served alongside several other of our beers for this event.  Big Ditch is also “Beer of the Month” at Astor’s during the month of February.  $3.50 pints of Hayburner for a whole month?  Yeah, you should go.

February 27th, Art of Beer, Niagara Arts and Cultural Center, 6-9pm.  We’ve been going to this event for years, but this will be our first time serving (instead of just drinking) beer.  Really cozy event with lots of local focus and proceeds going towards a good cause.  

There could be a few more events popping up now and again over the next few weeks, and there will certainly be a slew of other events coming up in March.  Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to keep up to date.  Thanks for your support Buffalo!

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2014: Year in review (and another tap room update)

This is the third straight year we’ve written a year-end review … but the first year we’ve written it as an open brewery.  Hooray!

Obviously, we got quite a bit done this year.  Yeah, things took a bit longer than we hoped.  But that’s all water under the (low) bridge, isn’t it?  A-hahahaha.  Ha.

To recap the year, we finished building out our brewery, installed all the equipment, brewed our first batch on August 12th, had our first public tasting on September 20th at the Ballpark Brew Bash, fully opened for distribution on October 16th, then opened for retail on November 19th in the middle of a full-on natural disaster.  We’ve done something like 40 events in the short time we’ve been open – which is great.  Much of the joy of craft beer is about education, and we love getting out there, educating on our beers, and getting feedback.

#Snowvember retail opening. 98% of this picture is real.

Speaking of the beers, we’ve already released 10 – which to us, seems like sort of a lot in just a few months of brewing.  You all know about Low Bridge Hoppy Golden Ale, Excavator Rye Brown Ale and Hayburner American IPA, which are our annual beers.  Hopefully you also got to try our Cinnamon Apple Amber Ale, which we released in the fall (and is still floating out there a bit), and our Vanilla Oatmeal Stout, which we released for the winter.

But we’ve also been busy with pilot and experimental batches as well.  We’ve called these small batch beers our “Innovation Series”; these are usually first batches of beers trying new and unusual combinations of flavors or ingredients.  For the most part, the results have been really, really good.  Our Imperial Smoked Porter was an example of this – it turned out fantastic, and will likely be on at our tap room when it opens (getting to that in a bit, promise).  Another really cool beer we got to make was “Excafetor”, a cask we put on at Mister Goodbar that we made with cold brewed coffee from Public Espresso.  We hope to make 2 to 4 beers a month to add to our “Innovation Series”.  The beer from these batches will mostly be available at the brewery, with the occasional keg going out to a few places here and there.

Excafetor

The actual point of the “Innovation Series” is to find out which beers we want to scale up and make big batches of to serve in our tap room… which brings us to what we have planned for next year.  

Things on the construction side of the tap room have taken a bit more time than we planned as they did with the brewery – again, all in the name of putting our best foot forward and getting all the details right the first time – except the work on the tap room has required even more time, being that we basically gutted more than half of the building to construct the space.  At the moment (don’t hold us to this – it is construction after all), we believe the tap room will be fully open in early spring.  

The tap room will feature two levels, with a total of 3 tap towers with 12 taps each, two towers downstairs and one tower upstairs.  Our annual beers and current seasonal beers will always be on, as well as some of the scaled down or scaled up “Innovation” batches. 

Wondering what it will look like inside?  You may have missed it – but we posted a single picture of the interior on our website:

Tap room rendition

And for those of you that are saying to yourselves “Well that’s just a rendition – it probably won’t actually be THAT awesome” – compare the exterior rendition to the current actual of the building:

Before

Rendition

Current

So, hold on tight for just a few more months kids.  It will be worth the wait.

Finally, as we always do on our year end reviews, we wanted to reflect on some great beers we’ve had this year.  Buffalo again saw some great breweries make their way into our market; my personal fave was the return of Allagash, with Midnight Brett leading the way.  Corey’s stint in Michigan allowed us to taste some great beers we normally would not get in this area; memorable were Jolly Pumpkin Bam Biere and Kuhnhenn Brewing, which is where Corey interned for a couple of months in February.  Kuhnhenn’s Bourbon Barrel Fourth Dementia is an amazing and fantastic beer and would be chased around town with the likes of KBS and BCBS were it ever released here.  Some great New York State beers we tried this year were Three Heads Rye Dye Smoked IPA, Ithaca Cayuga Cruiser, and Galaxy Brewing Andromeda IPA.  And, this year, we were able to try some great beers made by new Buffalo breweries.  It’s amazing how far Buffalo’s beer culture has come in just the last few years, this last year especially.  We were very impressed with Not A Pale Ale from our friends at OFW/Gene McCarthy’s, and we had to mention the Vanilla Cappucino Pumpkin Ale from Resurgence Brewing, which kind of became one of our favorite fall ales.  And how could we not mention Community Beer Works, who is now one of the venerable veterans of Buffalo’s craft movement at the ripe old age of (almost) three.  I got to have some Heatrays Barleywine a few weeks ago which was fairly magical, and dare I say, umami-ful.

It has been a great year, and we’ve accomplished so much, and we thank all of you for supporting us.  But, believe us when we say this: the best is yet to come.  We will make many more great beers in 2015, and we’ll have a fantastic place to showcase them for you in just a few months.  Have a great year, Buffalo.  Cheers.

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Events - week of 11/24

So much is going on next week - we just had to blog about it.

Beer

We are about to tap our winter seasonal, Vanilla Oatmeal Stout.  Roasty, smooth, full bodied, almost like a stout-shake.  6.8% ABV.  Available before next week is over.

Vanilla Oatmeal Stout - best enjoyed in snowy weather

We also have a limited amount of an Imperial Smoked Porter from our pilot batch series, which means only 20 gallons were made.  Dark, smoky, and warming.  8.0% ABV.  Also available next week.

Retail Hours

Retail hours extended to 12pm-7pm on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  Stop in and get a growler before the game, before Thanksgiving, and while you're out shopping...

(Planned) Events for next week:

Craft Tap House, East Aurora, Tuesday 11/25, 8pm-10pm
HandleBar, Buffalo, Wednesday 11/26 5pm-8pm
Coles, Buffalo, Friday 11/28, 4pm-7pm
Aurora Brew Works, East Aurora, takeover - coming soon...

See you soon, Buffalo!

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Open for growler sales and samplings November 19th! (plus: a tap room update)

We’ve been open for distribution for a whole month now – hooray!  Have you seen us?  We’ve done 20 different tasting events in that month at various bars and restaurants around town – check this list to see some of the places we’ve been at.

The question we’re still asked most often is “When are you going to be open?”  To which we usually reply “We ARE open!  For distribution!  You are drinking our beer, see?”  But of course, people really want to know when they can come to our brewery and get a beer.

Well, the tap room still has a few more months of construction to go, but that won’t stop us from granting your wish.

Beginning Wednesday November 19th, we will be open for growler fills, samplings, and merchandise sales at the brewery.  We have a small office area which currently houses a 4-tap cooler that is, at this very moment, filled with Low Bridge Hoppy Golden Ale, Excavator Rye Brown Ale, Hayburner American IPA, and our late fall seasonal Cinnamon Apple Amber Ale.

Tried this beauty yet?

Now, there are only 4 taps for the moment, but there will be fairly frequent rotation on said taps.  We’ve got three different pilot batches (that is, 20 gallons per batch only) going right now, and winter is just around the corner – which has to mean something doesn’t it?  Hmmm.  So, check back often to find out what’s on.

Our hours to start with will be:

Wednesday through Friday 4pm – 7pm
Saturday 11am – 4pm

Our growler prices are 7$ for a 32 oz fill and 12$ for a 64 oz fill; if you’d like to purchase one of our nifty growlers as well, the prices are 3$ for a 32 oz growler and 5$ for a 64 oz growler.  Of course we have shirts, and hats, and hoodies for sale too.  No glassware yet, we’re working on it.  Also, no tours just yet, but we will have them shortly.  We’ll keep you posted, for sure.

We gots merch, y'all!

Yup, and growlers too!

Finally: this is just a temporary solution until the tap room opens.  The tap room will have 8-12 beers on tap at all times, some of them regulars, some of them frequently rotating.  You’ll be able to get a pint, a flight, or a growler fill there; and there will be plenty of food, prepared fresh on premises for you to choose from, much of it sourced locally.  The tap room is still in construction; we’re currently putting the finishing touches on the outside, then it’s on to completing the inside.  We don’t have an opening date yet, but we do get closer every day.  Here’s a fairly recent comparison between our rendition and our progress:

Rendition

Actual (as of October 31st)

You can check it out for yourself when you come by for a growler fill.  Looking forward to seeing you at the brewery soon!

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