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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