We look at some origins of St. Patrick's Day in America and talk with Tom Whitmarsh from WNY Beer Trail about their beginnings and what the 2021 Trail Pass has to offer.
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Coming up, St. Patrick's Day is in the rearview mirror and warmer temperatures are on their way, so let's think about getting out and getting active. And I talk with Tom Whitmarsh from Western New York Beer Trail, their beginnings, the difficulties with COVID, and what to look forward to. The Buffalo Brews Podcast debut episode starts in three, two, one. Welcome, everyone. It's Brews Day, and you know what that means. I'm Jason Ettinger, your host, and thank you for joining me as spring is finally in the air here in Western New York. So the debut episode here drops on March 23rd, but I'm actually recording this opening on St. Patrick's Day night. I sit here wearing my lucky St. Paddy's Day t-shirt, exploiting my 4% Irish heritage according to AncestryDNA, and sipping some Jameson's Neat. You're asking yourself, but Jason, why are you not out celebrating tonight? Seriously, what are you doing? What do you mean, what am I doing? I'm talking to you. So have you ever wondered the St. Patrick's Day celebrations of today and how they came to be? Every March 17th, the U.S. comes together as this emerald-colored country for a day. We're wearing the green clothes, we drink the green beer, the green milkshakes, we eat the green bagels, and for some god-awful reasons, grits end up appearing on restaurant menus. Now, I spent a few years in South Carolina, and I seriously never got used to them. But outside of all that, you've got other cities such as Chicago that even dye their river green as part of the St. Patrick's Day celebrations. So we celebrate all things Irish by hoisting pints of Guinness, we cheer bagpipers, step dancers, marching bands, parading through city streets. And sadly, no parades again for Buffalo for the second year in a row. Thank you, COVID. Everybody say thank you, COVID. None of these things I just mentioned, with maybe the exception of the raised glasses of Guinness, are even traditions created in Ireland. They're all American-made. So in stark contrast to some giant party here in the States, March 17th is far more of a holy day than a holiday in Ireland. St. Patrick's Day has been a religious feast day to commemorate the anniversary of the 5th century death of the missionary that created this spreading of Christianity in Ireland, and has been around since 1631. For several centuries, March 17th was a day of solemnity in Ireland, with Catholics attending church in the morning, followed by food and fellowship during the afternoons. It reminds me of church fellowships that we had in Sherman growing up. There were no parades, and certainly green-colored food or drink. Did you know that prior to the 1798 Irish Rebellion, the color actually associated with St. Patrick was blue, not green? So saddle up, kids, you got a little informative history lesson coming along from the mouth of a man who was suited more as a color commentator for the final two minutes of a down-to-the-wire football game. As we may see it, Boston has long staked the claim to host the first St. Patrick's Day celebration. So dating back to March 17th, 1737, the same year my bloodline migrated from Bavaria, story at 11, more than two dozen Presbyterians who immigrated from the north of Ireland gathered to honor St. Patrick and form the Charitable Irish Society to assist distressed Irishmen within the city. The oldest Irish organization in North America still holds an annual dinner every St. Patrick's Day to this day, and I looked into them on their website at charitableirishsociety.org, and I'm quite impressed with the ways that they help out people young and old. Evidence has been discovered that St. Augustine, Florida may have hosted America's first St. Patrick's Day celebration. While researching Spanish gunpowder expenditure logs, it was found in records that indicate that cannon blasts and gunfire were used to honor the saint in 1600, and that residents of the Spanish garrison town paraded through the streets in honor of St. Patrick the following year, perhaps at the behest of the Irish priest that was living there at the time. So where did the American tradition start? Ironically, it was a band of redcoats. Always goes back to something, right? Redcoats are the guilty party. The storied green tradition of America's largest and longest St. Patrick's Day parade in 1762 when Irish-born soldiers serving in the British army marched through lower Manhattan to a St. Patrick's Day breakfast at a local tavern. The March 17th parades by the Irish through the streets of New York raised the ire of nativists, anti-Catholic mobs, who started their own tradition of patty making on the eve of St. Patrick's Day by erecting effigies of Irishmen wearing rags and necklaces of potatoes with whiskey bottles in their hands until the practice was banned outright in 1803. After Irish Catholics flooded into the country in the decade following the failure of the Ireland's potato crop in 1845, they clung to their Irish identities and took to the streets in St. Patrick's Day parades to show strength in numbers as political retort to the nativists' no-nothings. That was the term that they used for them, the quote-unquote nonothings. Essentially that many that had to leave Ireland during the Great Hunger had the memories but not the country, so it was a celebration of being Irish. But as it has carried forward to today, there's been this defiance because of the bigotry by the no-nothings against them. Bitterness toward the Irish began to lessen as tens of thousands served during the Civil War, going to war as second-class citizens and coming back heroes. And as the Irish slowly assimilated into American culture, those without Celtic blood began to join in St. Patrick's Day celebrations. So how about the meal? The traditional corned beef and cabbage that we idolize today, not me, because cabbage seriously wrecks havoc on me, it too is an American tradition. As ham and cabbage were eaten in Ireland, but corned beef proved to be a cheaper substitute for the impoverished immigrants, so it became a staple of Irish-Americans living in the slums of lower Manhattan who purchased leftover provisions from ships that returned from tea trade in China. Mmm, leftovers. So imagine ships coming in from South Street Seaport, women running down to the port hoping there were leftover salted beef that they could get from the ship's cook for a penny a pound. They would then boil that beef three times, the last time with cabbage to remove some of that brine. While St. Patrick's Day evolved into a 20th century party day for Americans, and especially Buffalonians as we know it, of really all ethnicities, the celebration in Ireland remained solemn. For decades, Irish law prohibited pubs from opening on holy days such as March 17th. That was until 1961, where the only legal place to get a drink in the Irish capital on St. Patrick's Day was the Royal Dublin Dog Show, which naturally attracted those with a one-day-old canine interest. Dogs forever, and I'll drink to that any day. Once television arrived, the party atmosphere spread to Ireland after they saw all the fun that we were having here in the States. So what happens? You're having fun, and everybody wants in. So the multi-day now, St. Patrick's Day Festival, launched in Dublin in 1996, now attracts one million people each year. So we get a day, they have a multi-day. Talking about oneupping it. The Irish are now adopting St. Patrick's Day traditions from Irish America, such as corned beef and cabbage. There are some American traditions, however, that may not ever catch on in Ireland, such as Green Guinness. St. Patrick's never drank the green beer, and neither shall they, according to the Irish. Hey, after listening to one of my beloved children's tales, let's switch gears and listen to an interview that I did with Tom Whitmarsh from Western New York Beer Trail. We talk about their 2021 trail pass, which is available now through their website at wnybeertrail.com, or you can stop in to the Totally Buffalo store at 3328 Sheridan Drive in Amherst. That's located next to the Walmart. The Totally Buffalo store is hosting their first outdoor artesian Easter market this coming Saturday and Sunday the 27th and 28th, and again on April 3rd. The hours on those dates are 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and while you're there checking out all the great crafts and arts that are on display, stop by the Western New York Beer Trail table and pick up an Easter basket, or perhaps grab a pass for yourself and or your significant other to enjoy a beer out on the trail in 2021. And now here's my interview with Tom. Tom, thanks for taking the time to talk to me. I really got interested in this once I picked up the trail pass for this year, and then I really liked our conversation right off the bat. And I know it's easy just to go on the website and find out information about how things began, but tell me how the Western New York Beer Trail got started. Yeah, so years ago I always liked craft beer. My wife not so much, but as our kids got older and got into school, we started doing date days. So we would go out to any breweries or craft beer bar that would be open at lunchtime, say, grab a bite for lunch, have a beer or two, and start experiencing, you know, the craft beer scene around Buffalo. It started out pretty simple, places like World of Beer and things like that over at the Galleria had the most access at the time. So we kind of just got into it just as a hobby, just, you know, out sampling and enjoying it. And we just loved it because we met so many great people along the way. Obviously the beers, the food that these places are putting together is amazing. The architecture in the buildings, whether they're new builds or buildings that they've refurbished, just really cool. And I can't say enough about the people that we've met along the way, just always interested in talking about their styles of beer, their craft, what they put together, what's upcoming. Really, we've made a lot of friends along the way, so it's pretty, pretty cool. So the actual start of the Beer Trail, though, started back in December and January between 2018 and 2019. And we were just having a conversation with some friends about the craft beer scene in Buffalo and how great it was, how much it was expanding. And I said, you know, it'd be really cool if something like Finger Lakes Wine Trail happened here in Buffalo, but for beer. I said, you know, something like Buffalo Beer Trail. And as soon as the words came out of my mouth, I thought, wow, that's a, what is it? The aha moment, right? So I started looking around on social media quick to see if anybody was doing anything. Weren't. So I started locking down the names. I talked to some friends that I had met through LinkedIn, networking, things like that. I ran the idea by them and they suggested, you know, not staying local in Buffalo, but go in Western New York Beer Trail. That way, whatever my future plans might end up with it, I could branch out towards Rochester, the Finger Lakes area and see what happens. So that's how the name came to be. The rest of it kind of felt like dominoes. A lot of people ask how, how does the, how did the idea develop? What's the big plan? Honestly, I always wanted to do something in support and in relationship to the breweries, but what the big plan was going to be, I didn't know then, and everything just kind of unfolds in front of me. So, like I said, like dominoes, another friend, a college friend from Texas visited and I was telling him the idea and he said, hey, do you know about PubPass? And I said, no, what's PubPass? So he, he's got friends up in Minnesota and Wisconsin and that area. And they have a thing called PubPass. Again, a beer passport, mostly out in the Midwest and further west. Same kind of idea. People go around, beer passport, discounts on beers. So I kind of looked into what they were doing. There's another one called Hop Passport. That's really more down towards New York City that does a similar thing. There's a pass in Cleveland. So there's a lot of different forms of it out there. Yeah, I've seen, I've seen the Hop Pass that's been advertised because, you know, Big Brother's not always watching through our computers though they really are. And I see Hop Pass come up quite a bit as something for me to check out. Yeah. Like I said, they're mostly down towards the city. I believe there's maybe five or six locations in the Rochester-Henry Lakes area. I think there's just one here. I think that might be 12 gates in our area that is part of that. I know, I think it's the New York State Brewers Association. They have a trail of sorts where they collect points and things like that. I think that's all app-based and it's really based on how many breweries you visit. So I didn't want it to be like that. So as the idea came together, you know, again, the main point of the whole thing is to offer a product that lets more and more people in on what may or may not still be a really good secret of the beer scene here in Buffalo. To go out and experience, to try it out, try it for a discount, support these small businesses, especially with what we're coming off of from COVID, and just go out and experience, you know, the beer scene. When you started these, so the first trail was in 2019. How many breweries did you have on board that first year? So 2019 was actually all development idea. You know, getting the different passes, coming up with the ideas of how we're going to do it. I didn't actually approach the first brewery until November of 2019 with the idea of getting released in early 2020. It took a lot longer to get together the locations, but the very first year I ended up getting 31, got everything ready to go to print, and just as I gave the green light to print the first run is when the first COVID shutdown hit. I thought, you got to be kidding me. Now what do I do with 300 trail passes? So I sat tight for a couple weeks seeing what the shutdowns would do, and again, an idea presented itself. I came across Western York Hospitality Relief. They were doing a GoFundMe, so I thought, well, you know, what better way to get off the ground? We didn't know what the in-person dining situation was going to be, but we launched anyway April 19th of 2020 with the idea that $7.16, 7-1-6, of each pass sale for the first month would be donated to the Western York Hospitality Relief, which actually went really well for having absolutely no background, not very many followers on social media or anything like that. It actually went better than I thought. We ended up donating $350 to Western York Hospitality, which was really cool. Wonderful. I thought, nice way to come out of the gate and give it back right away and support. So we spent the summer pretty much working on name recognition, just as much social media as possible, partnering wherever you could to get the word out, some other small businesses in the area related to the breweries, Traveling Growler, Brewmatch, there's a bunch, and really just trying to engage with everybody that we came across and just get the name out there a little bit and let them know what we're doing. Let the breweries know that we're here to support them as much as they're supporting me in my business endeavor. Again, my main goal is shouting them out as much as possible. Absolutely. We're finding that a lot of the craft breweries around the Western New York area, they're really, really in support of each other. I just was having some conversations about the Collaboration 1.5 event today, where we're finding out that you have 24 different beers from many different microbreweries from around the area that are all coming together for one, and making it a contest, making it fun and engaging. Of the folks that I've talked to so far, nobody wants anybody else to fail. Everybody wants to be able to be a whole piece of the puzzle and to make the craft beer scene, which has really become a serious boom in Western New York, bigger and better each and every year. So then you talked a little bit about the troubles of 2020. So fast forward here to 2021, and looking at the trail pass that I purchased, it looks like we have 38 in the book. And I think the only unfortunate casualty was in the mix, who stated on social media here a few weeks ago that they were going to fold up their operation. Yeah, we were able to move from 31 member locations up to 38, 39 when in the mix was there. They were looking to make the move to Buffalo in the old Black Button building downtown, but their licenses and things didn't come through in time. And just yeah, unfortunately COVID. But yeah, we were able to add on. We got things going in November. Once again, I don't think COVID fixed the beer trail, because what I gave the green light this year, again, for the printing is when the second shutdown happened in November. So I was like, yeah, this is impossible. But people, things are a much brighter outlook. So we were able to launch on Black Friday weekend following Thanksgiving. We've done a couple of in-person events. We were out at Buffalo Brew Fab for their grand opening event on that weekend following Thanksgiving. Went very well. We met some of our customers from the 2020 pass. Then again, we did an event early December with Dublin Corners Farm Brewery of Wynwood. They had a Christmas shopping event that they did, a tent event out there, which was really cool and met those guys. We got another upcoming event this weekend with Buffalo Brew Fab. We're trying to do something with Flying Bison. Another one of our pass holders approached me about working with the breweries to do an ALS for ALS. So I think we might have something going there with one of the local breweries. I like that idea. We'll keep you in the loop on that one. Definitely. I like that idea. That's just in the early planning stages, but that looks promising of doing something cool there. And much along the same lines as the collaboration, Curtains Up, if you've heard of it, Black is Beautiful, All Together was one where they're going to brew a beer and then donate a dollar of each pint to the ALS Foundation. Wonderful. I really love following a lot of these local breweries and when they come together with an idea. One I'll point out is 42 North, who is doing a promotion this weekend for, I think they call it the Brewski event, where you'll go and you'll buy a collection four pack and then you I'm sorry, not hike. I'm a hiker. That's why I say that. But I guess it's hiking or skiing some of the parks that are in the area that have access to cross-country skiing. So I told them I was going to show up there, pick up a four pack and then I'll be, you know, who knows? I like to do sunrise hikes, but it doesn't keep me from cracking a cold one after doing five miles in the woods. What I also like is that your social media influence has really picked up recently, especially on Instagram. And then what you have in the trail pass is you're talking about the Trail Stop of the Month prize giveaways with really promoting people's amateur and professional photos that they can put on with the different breweries that they have visited. Could you tell me a little more about that? Yes. So one of the things that I see in common with a lot of the passes out there is there's the incentive to complete X number of stops in their passes. I didn't really want to go that route from the idea, again, that one, there's no way to control, you know, who stamps what, where it comes from. But really the bigger idea was how do I amplify the voice? So along the way, one of the places I approached a manager informed me that they weren't really that interested because what's one guy going to do? How is one guy going to help them out? They're already pretty successful. And I was like, okay. So what I settled on was asking the pass holders to help us amplify that, right? So rather than complete 10 stops, turn in your pass for whatever prize. I did it from the aspect of help us shout it out. So take pictures of your trail pass in locations, and then we can stack all those posts up on each other and keep sharing them back and forth and really, again, reach many, many more followers to say, hey, this is what's going on. Look at these breweries, look at this trail pass and go at it that way. So one of the things, so one of the things that we've asked the breweries to do, it's no charge of the breweries to be a part of the trail pass. All I've asked them for is use of their logo, a space on their door to put a sticker, and then whatever they feel they would like to give one time a year for this trail stop of the month giveaway. And then we do it based on who's visited those locations, who's posted pictures, and then we draw from there to reward our customers and followers that are helping us shout it out. I love it. I love it. And I went back through just the other day Instagram and I was looking at some of the previous winners and you get some people who find the moment and they find the creativity to post something really cool. And I like it because it's not only putting a face on the Western New York Beer Trail Pass, but it doesn't matter how big one of these breweries are. One person can turn into telling 50 people about a great experience and then that just makes them even more popular. So I love where that goes. So now you mentioned a few of the places so far where you're working on collaborations as far as selling the pass, but where could you go today to pick up a trail pass? So right now the only real outlet that has passes besides on my site is Totally Buffalo Store. Yep, that's where I got mine. Okay, around Sheridan Drive next to Walmart there. Again, that was on the suggestion working with Traveling Growler who also has a table set up in there. And we've only been there since the beginning of January. But it is the only place as well to get pre-wrapped gift baskets. So we're trying to do different themes. We've had Buffalo Bills baskets over there. We've had the Valentine's baskets. We just put some St. Patrick's Day and Sabres baskets there. We'll have some Easter baskets which I'm looking to maybe do a promotion with that for Easter and finding a golden Easter egg with a prize, probably a Westerner Beer Trail tshirt. So that's one of the cool things we have too, our t-shirts, our concert style. The back has the year and lists every single location just as though you were going to a concert. So and those are available on the site as well. Love that. I love that. So now we're in 2021 and the pass obviously is good until the end of the year. But what are you looking at for the future of the Buffalo, the Western New York Beer Trail pass? So despite a lot of people are like, holy cow, 38, 39 locations. That's a lot. And then I tell them, yeah, there's probably another 15 to 20 locations in the area that are not part of it. And I've had a few people, a few places already reach out. I've had a few places actually out of the Rochester Finger Lakes area that have reached out as well, expressing interest in doing it. So the big thing next is adding some more from the Buffalo area. Not sure how I'm going to put the pass together though. My printer is informing me that I'm pretty much at the max on size of the book with the way it's put together currently. So I'm going to have to explore that. I really would like to start, you know, chipping away at a Rochester pass. And then also this year we've included Buffalo Distilling. So it's the only distillery on the trail. But I've come, I've thought up the idea. I have the social media names to Western New York Spirits Trail as well, thinking about an idea for a Spirits Trail book as well. So got a few things going on. We've partnered up. I mentioned Drink Like a Girl before. She's got a new Kelly Guilfoyle, if you know who that is. She's out of Rochester, but she's done a couple of Drink Like a Girl backyard brew fests. Her newest one coming up in a few weeks is Curtain Up, Curtains Up. So she'll be doing a Buffalo pick up March 20th, I believe that is. I believe so, yeah. But we've partnered up with her those first two and did some giveaways. I think we might sit this one out just because we have a lot going on at the moment. But yeah, there's a lot of irons in the fire and ideas just keep opening up in front of us here and we'll keep going at it. Well, I certainly like the idea of a Spirit Trail as well. There's an element of our podcast where we'll delve in a little bit more into the spirits. But people see the first two words is Buffalo Brews and they immediately want to know what we're going to be talking about out here. I thought it was a perfect opportunity to get the word out and talk with you first. Like the book shows, you're already highlighting 38 different breweries around the area. Well, 38 and that includes one distillery. So now that we found out. So Tom, when I do these little interviews, I have a few personal questions that I ask that I hope you'll indulge me with, but they all relate to Buffalo. And because we're the Buffalo Brews, Brews, Views, and To-Do's podcast, where would be your favorite place to eat in the area? Anywhere at all? Anywhere at all. Or brewery related? No, anywhere at all. Well, I'm going to be honest. We don't get out too often. So where do we usually, what would be our first choice? I'm going to go with the last place we went to. I'm going to go with Dockside over in Tonawanda there, right on Sweeney Street. Super nice folks over there. The food was fantastic in the summer. Of course, the view was great out by the canal there, but yeah, I'm going to go with Dockside. And a great selection of beers on tap all the time. Every time I go there. Absolutely. And then is there a specific event that you're always drawn to in Buffalo? I mean, obviously we're looking at pre-COVID, but was there an event in Buffalo or the Western New York area that you just couldn't miss every year? Yeah. Well, we're a little old school this way, but honestly, the Polish Festival over in Chicago Town Park, the Pulaski Day Parade and everything, just the crowd they draw, the food, the music. My heart is old school when it comes to some of that stuff. We always like to stop into that event every year and hopefully that gets back on track. I like that. I like that very much. Yeah. Personally, I miss festival season. We really took a hit last year and I think it shows as a city we can persevere, but at the same time, we really miss what was held dear to us. Looking at the Italian Festival, the Polish Festival, the taste of Buffalo, just not being able to have that at our doorstep. It was just the summer of awe, I called it, because it was literally like, oh, I'm not going to be able to see that this year. Oh, come on. So hopefully, we have to kick out of this eventually. Yeah. I think everybody's feeling a little more positive about things. The good thing is we've sold over 300 passes so far, so I think that's just a good indicator there of how people feel about how the rest of this year is going to go. So hopefully when the weather breaks here, people can get outside again, things calm down a bit, and we can get maybe a little bit of normals, maybe not fully back to normal, but a little bit and get doing the Buffalo things again. Thanks again to Tom Whitmarsh from Western New York Beer Trail for talking to us about the 2021 Trail Pass. Again, you can pick those up through their website at wnybeertrail.com, or you can stop into the Totally Buffalo store on Sheridan Drive in Amherst next to Walmart.
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