Festival Fallout and Fresh Happenings ft. Jack's Abby Oktoberfest Lager

From stein holding competitions to a review of the Tap & Craft Festival where Jason saw friends and met new ones. A multitude of happenings are going on around the area. Where will you be for Buffalo Restaurant Week? There is a new bridge installed over the I190. The 18th anniversary of the October surprise storm. Finally, would you like to attend a Bourbon Tasting Dinner featuring a collaboration from RationAles, Hartman Distilling and Ellicottville Brewing Company? Episode featuring Jack’s Abby Oktoberfest Lager.

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Transcript

The Buffalo Brews Podcast. We are finally back to recording in the Mont Fortress Podcast studio. We also double as a laundromat, a golf dome, fitness center, and soon a hair care and tire center. But we had to get back down here and get busy with what we were doing. It was a very long summer, and the one part about the studio is, during the summer, this room can become insufferable. So that might get fixed sometime down the road once we get into a new studio setup. But this is what we've got, folks, and we have a new control board and a new setup here. I am Jason, and I'm running solo for this episode because Sabrina has been on vacation for a while. She goes on an annual trip with her girlfriends, and then it's a matter of getting re-acclimated into work because what's a job if you're doing the work and nobody's there to back you up while you're gone? So she comes back to a whole hot mess, so she'll be working on that this week. But you've got me solo, lucky you, right? I wanted to talk about what we're drinking. So it's Jack's Abbey Craft Lagers, and this one in particular is their Copper Legend Oktoberfest Lager. And I've had a few instances to try that, but I thought I would bring it out for this for a very good reason because I recently competed in two steinholding competitions. I'll leave it at that. I competed in two steinholding competitions, but more about that in a second. Jack's Abbey Craft Lagers is out of Framingham, Massachusetts. They value themselves as a proudly independent and family-owned brewing operation that was founded in 2011 by three brothers, that would be Jack, Eric, and Sam Hendler. Jack's Abbey has always become a mainstay of craft brewing throughout the Northeast and nationwide. I always notice their cans, especially when I'm at Wegmans. So this past week I've had the opportunity twice to enjoy the Copper Legend Oktoberfest Lager. They grew up in a family that promoted entrepreneurship and hard work, and they spent their summers with their grandfather working on the family ice distribution company. They learned the value of committed family members and loyal employees, the foundation of which Jack's Abbey is based. And while it's a great beer to enjoy, it's definitely one of the finer American-made Oktoberfest Lagers that are out there that I have experienced. They bill it as the perfect marriage of caramel and sweet toasty malts. I couldn't agree more because I really enjoyed this because I got to have it in a giant stein. Again, I was in a steinholding competition. So I entered the Jack's Abbey steinhoist competition, and this was at Brood & Bottled up in Lewiston about a week or so ago here. The winner got a bid to the United States Championship, which is being held at Hofbrauhaus Buffalo this coming weekend. So I got up there, had an opportunity. The bills were playing on TV. They were not playing well. And I spoke with Emily, who is the local rep for Jack's Abbey. I had a great conversation. I did not win, even though I am a relatively fit person. But the gentleman who did win, you could tell he was quite the gym rat. So I have something to work on there for sure. Emily told me that there was also going to be another competition that was going to be held that Friday at Nickel City Brews. So I was going to see how my schedule was going to work out for that. But I did end up showing up on Friday, and I did not win again. But I was able to hold the stein up for 30 seconds longer. So to me, that's improvement. So for my efforts, I got to keep the stein. And I will use that to train because coming next October, it's about to go down. I was able to enjoy the Tap and Craft Festival, which is something I love to do yearly. This is the third annual that took place in Niagara Falls. And it was extra special this year because my son, who is now stationed very close to home now at Fort Drum in Watertown, New York. So he was coming down for the weekend, and he wanted to join in on the festivities. Hey, why not, right? You and your son at a beer festival? Sounds like a great time. So we got there to the venue at the Niagara Falls Convention Center. We started our engines with the barrel-aged Hydra sandwich from Mortalis Brewing. So what we're talking about here is a fruited smoothie sour, blackberry, strawberry, raspberry together with peanut butter, marshmallow. Then you take that and you age that six months in a Garagista Meadery Rum Reboot Barrel. And that's a lot. It's a mouthful to say there. So that will help further amplify the PB&J vibes for that beer. And Garagista Meadery is an international award-winning meadery that's located in Tampa, Florida. They create and serve Old World traditional meads mixed with a South Florida style. So it's going to be an opportunity someday to be able to get down there and check out their operation. But this particular beer was a great start to the night. While we were at the table for Mortalis, we were able to enjoy Beholder, which is a peach fruited smoothie sour. It resembles like a yogurt parfait kind of taste. So if you're into those blended smoothie type sours, this is something for you. And Mortalis really has a great market corner when it comes to the fruited smoothie sour, that is. And this one combines the sweetness of peaches with the crunchiness of granola. And that's all mixed together. Kind of like I said, like a creamy yogurt to give it that consistency. And this was another winner for them. They have the tap room here in Buffalo located on Niagara Street. And they're paired up with Illumination Meadery. It is a great space to go into. Find the parking where you can, get in there. And they have tons of take home cans in the fridge. And they have a very wide selection on tap. If you have never been to Mortalis, they're ranked on the untapped app in the top three in the entire state of New York. And they have definitely earned that with this. Their offerings are off the charts. They have everything imaginable. For a first experience, definitely go in there and enjoy a flight. If you're in there with two people, enjoy two flights. And really break down the number of options that you can have. You can't go wrong. Some of the other offerings that we had at Tap and Craft included the No. 16 New England IPA from Frequentum. They're down on Louisiana Street here in Buffalo. Another transplant from the Finger Lakes region. I always love a good dry hopping that goes with an IPA. So you take the Azuka and the Nelson Savant hops. And this made for a real pleasant tasting, clean New England IPA. Very crisp. It was quite enjoyable. And with their bright, vibrant neon colors, it's a very inviting atmosphere. And that's another great tap room in Buffalo. A lot of open space. We're getting into the, obviously, the temperatures have dropped. So the outdoor vibe is kind of taken away now. But they have great indoor space. Plenty of seating. And a lot of great offerings. It's definitely worth going down there. There's a nice little grouping if you wanted to include yourself into a do-it-yourself beer tour. You've got Frequentum right there. You have Riverworks Brewing. You have, if you continue up that way, let's see, we've got Riverworks. You can even kind of bunch together all the way down to the arena. Southern Tier. Go up the hill to Other Half. There's so much to offer. And then you head the other way toward Larkinville. You've got Magic Bear. You've got Flying Bison. You've got Sad Boys. So there's a lot that you can do in just a small area down there. Wayland Brewing Company had three great selections on hand. Had a great conversation with their rep there. The Mosey Strawberry Sour. Tart Jammy. Real easy drinking. The Soothsayer Milk Stout, which was the big winner for me. That's with coconut. Think a sweet stout that is conditioned with toasted coconut flake. And it's a great drinker coming in at only 5.5 ABV. The Super Deluxe Hazy IPA. Really fruity, aromatic, well balanced. You've got a balance there of Simcoe, Idaho 7, and Citra Hops. That make that a delight. And one of my favorite things to actually smell is Citra Hops. When I have a beer that's Citra based, it's really kind of an intoxicating smell to me. Also, it's worth noting, congratulations to Wayland. Because not only do they have one of the best outdoor spaces in all of the breweries of western New York, but they just opened a new tap room this past weekend in Ellicottville. It's got kind of a ski lodge vibe to it. Just in time for winter, and it's exactly what Ellicottville stands for. So it's going to be definitely worth getting down there and checking that out. We had the opportunity to stop by Grow Brewing. Always love everything that they do. I had a little joke when I walked up to their table, because the usual, which are the owners, and they're one of the most ornate, beautiful looking jockey boxes of any brewery I've seen, they weren't there. So I said, okay, you're here, and you're going to be serving the good beer, but that means you have another festival going on somewhere. Because the jockey box and the usual suspects weren't there. So they were definitely located at another festival. Hey, that's all right. Spread the word, because Grow Brewing, and I didn't take a note on this, they just opened a brand new tap room. They're expanding by leaps and bounds, and they have some great offerings located out in the Auburn area at the northern tip of Cayuga Lake in the Finger Lakes region. Definitely, if you get out there, it's a place to check out for sure. We had their dormancy barrel-aged barley wine, so they were offering two of them. One was a peach, one was a cherry. I personally felt that the cherry was far superior to the peach, even though I like the peach as well. But the cherry is far superior and kind of a horror of speaks for cherry flavor, cherry limeade, things like that. So this was an easy win for me. And then going back to what I was talking about with Citra Hops, you can't go without a classic Sitmo IPA, and that's what they had with Resurgence Brewing, so I had to stop by and get one of those. Talk about another aromatic beer. It's got a sense of white grapefruit, very citrusdominant on the nose. It's a great New England-style IPA because it also plays with that kind of West Coast feel to it as well. So it's pine and resin, and it's got those tropical fruit notes. Sitmo IPA is great. Double Dry Hops Sitmo IPA, even better. So I'm hoping to be able to get my hands on some of the DDH pretty soon. And I mentioned a little bit earlier about Other Half Brewing, and one of the offerings that they had was the, again, going into Citra because it seemed to be a Citra night for me, Citra Nelson Imperial IPA. So this is a little heavier. If you go back to our Barely Getting Started IPAs for Days series, we talk about double IPAs and Imperials in one episode. They're basically IPAs with a little heavier alcohol content to them, a little more body, a little more chew to them. This one coming in at about 8.5 ABV, so it's a Hazy Imperial. It's a dual hop series that you're taking in equal amounts that bring out, you're talking about orange, you're talking about lychee, or kind of a white wine spritzer kind of thing. Tropical fruit, little bit of dank note to it as well. Other Half, they're located in the base of the Seneca Tower. They are always worth a stop if you're, let's say you're going to Southern Tier. They're an easy walk up the hill to go there and try everything out. They always have a great selection, very well-known for their IPAs. That's always a great time to check them out as well. Also, when you're down in the Silo region, you can go to Breyer Brothers, and Breyer Brothers was there as well. Now, again, the usual suspects weren't on hand, but that's okay because I know most of the people that work there as well. So they were offering their Uncommon, which is a play on the Kentucky Common, California Common-style beer, which is brewed in collaboration with Frequentum Brewing. It's the second beer that's part of the Home at Home collaboration series, which is they're talking about bold, multi-characteristics with a classic style, very crisp finish, and then it was one to enjoy. Kentucky Common, I don't think I've really had a good Kentucky Common since probably Heroes Brewing outside of Rochester. So it was really cool to try something like this. It's in that farmhouse category. You either like them or you don't like them. I happen to like them, so this is definitely one to enjoy. They did not have this one at the festival, but if you're going to go to Breyer Brothers and you're going to be going soon, one of the beers that you have to check out is what's called the Hocus Pocus. It's one of my favorites of any beer around the area. I think it's up there with probably the Apple Fritter beer from Rusty Nickel Brewing, which they did not do this season, I found out, so sad face. But part of their Punch Bowl series at Breyer Brothers is Hocus Pocus. So you want to button up the flannel, you dust off the oversized beanies for the season. It's time to get out. It's designed to bring out the flavors of pumpkin cheesecake and cinnamon spice. The Punch Bowl series is usually more of a fruity thing. This is definitely a deserty beer, but it fits into that Punch Bowl series for sure. You wonder how you're tasting all those flavors without needing a fork. It's definitely worth it. It's an opportunity to stay spooky, get down there, and try something really fun. Breyer Brothers, it's one of those breweries that Sabrina and I, when we're talking on the podcast, they are really hitting elite status here in Buffalo and making so many fun, just everything from classic to a little bit of unique, like this one. There's something for everybody there. You've got to get down there. They're at 50 Elk Street, right there in the silos. Great parking. Go in and tell No Days Off Joel I said hello. Although he does take days off, I found out, after the fact. That's just a little coverage that we had of the Tappan Craft Festival. We will be back at Tappan Craft. We're not going to be able to attend the Canandaigua one coming up in November, but we will be back in Ithaca with a date in February to be determined. But also fun at the Tappan Craft Festival, not only is trying so many beers from 40 plus different breweries, but it's great to bump into folks. Some of the folks that we met when we were at Tappan Craft Ithaca back in February, we had an opportunity to say hello to them again. I got to meet Danielle for the first time, who you can find here on Instagram, at flightlog underscore Danielle. She is always, she finds everything in flights, whether it's, it's not just beer, but it's, she does cocktails, mocktails, mimosas, ice cream, you name it. I have seen her do so many different types of flights. So we're going to be putting our brains together here and coming up with something here in short order. Fun, fun conversation, a unique story to it. The high tops that they have where you can kind of take a moment to, you know, drink and talk with friends. And I saw one of her stickers setting on top of the high top. I have not yet had a sticker. Why? Because she and I, again, had never met before. So I thought keenly, I'll take it, put it in my pocket, put one of our Buffalo Brews podcast stickers there. And then I happened to see who I thought might have been her across the crowd. But I kind of pulled back from that because I couldn't see enough of her face to know that it was her. If I was going to see this person again, I was going to say hello and ask the question, if I thought it looked like her. Fast forward about a half an hour, I pass by her, said to my son, okay, hold on a second. I'm going to say, I said, well, hey, do you happen to be Flight Log Danielle? And she's like, I am. So we finally get to meet, took a picture together. And now we're in a little bit of brainstorming. So we got some things that might be cooking, you know, sooner than later. If not, at least we can put some things together for Tavern Craft coming up for their fourth annual on 2025. I had an opportunity also to meet Mark, who is a huge fan of the podcast. We talk about him off and on in episodes because he he's the one who listens to us when he's hiking. Dan, who is on Instagram at the Western or the WNY beer guy, talked with Dan a few times at Collaboration, Tavern Craft Ithaca. So had an opportunity to talk with him and his father for a few moments. And then no beer festival encounters complete without seeing our friend Emily, who you can find her at Buffalo Beer Fluencer on Instagram. Emily, you can find Emily Instagram, TikTok. She has some great content. She's always doing some really fun, creative things. And she's always making me jealous, especially lately. She made a trip out to Salute Brewing here as of recent. I made a few stops in the past week to do a few notes and some writing for some future episodes. Stopped into Beltline Brewing for a burger and originally was looking to get their First Loop Hazy IPA, which is one of their flagship favorites. But I settled for the West Coast Flashes instead. I do enjoy a Westie, as we've talked about frequently on the podcast. One of the things I like about Beltline Brewing is because their burgers that they do feature an organic grass fed beef that they get from Green Heron Growers, which is in my hometown of Sherman, New York. If you go there on Tuesday nights, it makes for a great date night location because they do the two burgers and frites with two draft beers for $30. You can't beat that deal, especially right now. You couldn't go to Red Robin and get two burgers, two fries and two beers for under $30. There's no way you could do it. So it's a great time to get down there and enjoy that. It was my first time this past week at Allen Burger Venture. So I'll just say, and I'll leave it at that, is that I attended my first Comic Con since 1993, I think it was, this past weekend. But I'm going to do a side episode on that. So I just got to get finished writing that. But after that, I had a hankering for wings. So my intent was to go to Gabriel's Gate, but I walked by Allen Burger Venture. I didn't know it was on that side of Allen Street. So I was like, well, you know, they had the Oklahoma game on because I'm a college football fan, too. And they got their rear end soundly handed to them by Texas, by the way, in the Big River battle. But I was able to go in there and I had their classic number eight. And then that's the burger with the over easy egg on top, side of fries. And then I enjoyed the Autumn Skies IPA from Sloop Brewing. So that was my way of enjoying Sloop while Emily was off at Sloop Brewing itself. So I got to enjoy it in a home away from home, I guess you could say. Some of the fun things that are going on around Buffalo include the Ralph Wilson Park, which is a 100 plus acre waterfront park that's going to be that. Well, it is on the shoreline of Lake Erie in downtown Buffalo. It's rooted in a multi-year community visioning process right now, where the park is undergoing transformation to become one of the most beautiful and inclusive public spaces in the country, which serves nearby residents and visitors from across the region and beyond. If you're traveling down the Interstate 190 right now, you'll notice that the new Ralph Wilson Park bridge was just installed this month. It's a 266 foot bridge that was built in a facility just north of Venice, Italy, shipped across the Atlantic in four pieces. And it came into New York Harbor and then they took it up the Hudson River. And then it made it all the way to Buffalo via the Erie Canal. So it's going to be an opportunity for the revitalization that they're doing in that area of Buffalo. This past week was also the 18th anniversary of the infamous October surprise storm. As the snow started falling in that afternoon, it continued into the following morning. Trees, leaves on the trees hadn't even started to fall yet. So it made it easier for the snow to weigh down those branches and in cases bringing down branches and other cases bringing down entire trees. So that led to multiple power outages across western New York that affected over one million homes. The storm dumped an official 22.6 inches of snow at the airport, which is the most ever recorded for that day. What I remember is that I was watching Grey's Anatomy because it was a Thursday night when the power first went out. So it was right after 9 p.m. when that happened. I remember the power didn't come on obviously all night, but then the power didn't come on at my house for five days. In that five days, I woke up the next morning to hear that eerie silence with all the creaking and snapping that we all remember from that storm. I also remember the near foot of water that was in my basement and I didn't have a backup sump system or a generator at the time. I've since corrected that problem just in case that ever happened again. And well, I don't live in that house anymore either, but I still have the generator just in case I ever needed it for something. One of the things I do remember is bailing water using a gigantic trash can and the drainage system in the area still worked. So I was just literally spending two hours at a time bailing water and dumping it into my, you know, my dump sink. Like I was, you know, emptying my washing machine after a load of laundry. And then I would do that two on, two off. And I did that for almost four days straight just to keep from everything getting damaged. And if I knew that the insurance company was going to do what they did, I would have just let the whole thing flood and gotten a new furnace out of it. But we live and learn, folks. So, you know, I mean, that's the storm of 2006. I remember that's when that was. I remember a horrific storm that we had that buried downtown Buffalo in 2000. And then if you, you know, lived in Buffalo, you obviously remember the blizzard from last winter. I don't think we're going to easily forget that one. Right now it's restaurant week in Buffalo. This is going to take place now through what's going on right now through the 20th. I'm just going to jump over to the website here real quick. I'm just going to just pick a couple of sites out of here that are currently doing some specials. You can go to so many places around western New York. What you can do is go to visitbuffaloniagra.com slash buffalo dash restaurant dash week. And it will give you a listing of all of the places that are doing specials right now. And just a couple that I'm going to pick out of the list here. The Andele Cantina in Williamsville. The other one in East Amherst. The tequila bar that's on Seneca Street. Going down here, the Blue-Eyed Baker in East Aurora has specials going on. You can go to Butera's Craft Beer and Pizza down in Main Street in Hamburg. Don't forget to go across the street for dessert and Main Street ice cream. You know, friends of the podcast. Right next door, Coyote Cafe as well, down in that area. The new District 37 Kitchen and Taphouse in North Tonawanda, which I'll be doing a full review on them. I think the first week of November is when I'm scheduled to stop in there. Eagle House, which is here in Williamsville near me. The Fally Allen in the city of Buffalo. It just goes on and on. There's a huge list of places that you can go and enjoy great food and drink specials for Buffalo Restaurant Week. That takes place now through October the 20th. Also, if you're looking for something in the coming weeks that's going to be interesting, they are having a bourbon pairing dinner on Thursday, October 24th at 6 p.m. at Rationales. That's on Main Street in Williamsville. It's a collaboration between Hartman's Distilling Company, Rationales, and Ellicottville Brewing Company. They'll debut an exclusive barrel-select bourbon, which is aged in Ellicottville Brewing Company's Chocolate Cherry Bomb Imperial Stout Barrels. Here we go. So I go back and rewind that a little bit. So we've got bourbon that's aged in Ellicottville Brewing Company's Chocolate Cherry Bomb Imperial Stout Barrels. Then that barrel, that bourbon, which is truly like anything that you've ever had, will be part of a four-course dinner that's paired with two craft beers and another whiskey that they'll present as well. That'll include that new release, and then one lucky guest will be able to take home a bottle of that exclusive bourbon on the house. Seats are limited, so reserve your seats now by going to Rationales' website at rationales.beer. And then I would say there's more than enough good reasons to be able to do that. So I think that's going to be a fun opportunity to get out and do something. Unfortunately, I can't make it that night. They did have a change of date. So the original date I was going to be okay with. The change date I can't work with. So that's something to definitely check out. Again, go to their website at rationales.beer to be able to sign up for that. And then that's it. My incessant babbling that you have listened to as part of 125 episodes comes to a close. Next week we'll be back with our next episode of Barely Getting Started. We're in our Let's Talk Lager series. So if you want to listen to any of the other series at any time, Blissfully Belgian, Sour Power, UK in a Day, more, there's much more that are available. So download on your favorite platform or you can listen right on our website at buffalobrewspodcast.com. As always, everybody, I thank you so much. We are four years into this project and without you there is no podcast. There is no fun to bring to you. There is no yammering about the things that are going on around the area. We're getting ready to tie on our travel shoes again. One of the things we were supposed to go to the Asheville, North Carolina area in November, which we unfortunately had to pull out of because of the devastation that occurred as a result of Hurricane Helene. So many families that are affected, the loss of life, businesses and livelihoods, towns completely leveled, not going to be part of the problem. I'd rather be part of the solution. So while they're doing their thing to recover, we're going to kind of pull back.