What's happening this week, a review of my visit to @frothbrewing and a beer tasting movie day that I saw Marvel's Black Widow. Don't worry. Zero spoilers here.
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Flights before pints, right? Well, you can do the same thing and have your own little tasting party. Head out to Wegman's, head out to Consumer Beverages, create your own selection that you can sit down and enjoy with a good movie on a Sunday afternoon. That's what I did and that's what we're going to do here, a little review of a Sunday afternoon of beer tasting and, well, a Marvel movie.
But we're not going to spoil the movie for you, but we are going to spoil the beers. The Buffalo Brews Podcast starts right now. Yo, holla holla, it's another episode of the Buffalo Brews Podcast.
I am your host, Jason Ettinger. It is Tuesday, it is Brews Day, and you know what that means. We're going to sit down and talk to you about things that are going on in Western New York this week, and we're also going to sit down and talk to you about a beer tasting and a movie party that I was part of, tell you what was good out there, and tell you what was definitely not so good.
They can't all be winners, folks. Hey, join us every week, just like you do on your favorite podcast platform, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Castor Box, you name it, we're out there. And you can also use that opportunity to find whatever your friends or your family or your co-workers use as a podcasting platform, and be able to forward episodes or forward the subscription to the podcast to them, and then they can listen as well as you do each and every week with us here.
So, welcome, and let's jump right into things here this week, because it's definitely been an interesting couple of weeks, you know, bouncing around, getting things done. Hopefully, you dried out from the deluge that was Western New York over the past few days. Spoke to a lot of friends who just basically took a whooping from the amount of rain that we received over these last few days.
It was even causing a little havoc for myself, not so much my basement, but more so my car, because I thought it was causing some havoc with my engine, the fact that it had sat there for a few days going through everything. But I just realized it was a little hiccup with the air intake, and a little tweak, a little adjustment, a little smack with the hammer, and you know, we're back in business. You know, man, I always thank my dad for giving me the knowledge to be able to fix, you know, cars quickly, thoroughly, and with as few swear words as necessary, and that seems to be the case here.
So, yep, on to an oil change next, and then we'll move forward. But hey, I've been putting the miles on the car for sure. Like I said, over Fourth of July weekend, I made a trip down to Mayville and Bemis Point to visit family.
And this weekend, I am actually taking this coming Friday, as well as next Monday off, and I'm headed to Rochester to be a part of the Veterans Classic Golf Tournament. So this is my first ever tournament. No, I'm not scared, but I'll tell you what, there are definitely nerves there, but I have no reason to be nervous.
This is a group of guys, well, 15 guys, one girl, as I understand it, and we all play together as part of the PGA HOPE program, and Coach Brian Jacobs, who has been my coach for the past several years, hosts this tournament out in Rochester. So basically, this is going to be played as a best ball style tournament. I would assume that we're going to be broken up into teams.
It's not going to be individual play then. And then as teams, I'm assuming we're going to be playing this out over the three-day period as we compete and have fun and some camaraderie. It is a camping style situation as well.
I was informed that the land that we were originally going to camp on was also flooded as a result of the monsoon season that is western New York. So the location has been changed in the interim, which is fine, and I have sold a large part of my camping gear back when I was married and my son was back home. We used to camp a lot with him growing up, but now that he's away and has his own life going on in Hawaii and doing the single things, so I had taken the time to get rid of a lot of the big camping gear I had and instead have been basically repurchasing things to accommodate backpack camping.
So I have a little two-man tent. I'm going to go back to kind of my roots when I was younger. I've got the instead enjoying the comfy camping mats that go along with getting old as opposed to the cots which would do nothing but cause me sleepless nights.
So I'm looking forward to this weekend. As part of next week, I know what I said that even this week that we're going to talk about Main Street and Buffalo, but we're going to change that up to go into this tasting party that I was part of. Next week is actually going to be an audio diary of the weekend because while I'm in Rochester, I am going to visit a few breweries while I'm out there.
And what I'm going to also do is kind of go over the days because part of the things to do in western New York is we have a very large golf community here as well and that spreads out into Rochester as well. So there will be three courses that I'll be playing out there. I'm going to be talking about the courses themselves, the opportunities that we have to kind of explore the grounds and take in different parts of Rochester and some of the things that are going on out there.
So I'll share that as part of my audio diary for next week's episode. And then the following week is then when we'll get into the discussion about Main Street and Buffalo. So, you know, it'll allow me to tweak it and kind of build that up a little bit more.
And I look forward to delivering that to you. Now, things that are going on around western New York, I want you to take the time if you have it to join me and a bunch of my friends tomorrow as we head down to 42 North down in East Aurora. Now it's going to be tomorrow, which is going to be the 21st of July.
And why we are down there is because the Beaver Meadow Society is part of a fundraiser that's going on there and that's in partnership with Outside Chronicles. Outside Chronicles is the group that I'm associated with that does the Western New York Hiking Challenge. Update on that is that hike number 26 now of 34 is in the books as Franklin Golf down in Eden this past weekend.
I swear there are times when I can talk. So we did Franklin Golf and so there'll be a break in here about two or three weeks before we get into the next hike because, you know, it's summertime and things are getting really busy and I have things coming up myself. But the challenge itself is complete.
We'll be moving forward from there. So Outside Chronicles is partnering up with the Beaver Meadow Conservancy and you can join me and my friends on Wednesday night at 6 p.m. and that's at 42 North Brewery in East Aurora. It's right off of Main Street.
And for every pint that you purchase there a dollar of that pint is going to go to the Beaver Meadow Conservancy. While we're there we're going to be talking about all the great things that are going on including the 42 North Outdoor Chronicles partnership that they have for their hiking challenge. Two of those hikes I've already put in for and actually I still have to submit the photos for those so maybe that's something that I'll do after I get done putting this together tonight.
So it's, you know, it's a lot of fun time and I hope that you can join us on Wednesday. Also coming up this Saturday at the Hamburg Fairgrounds is going to be the the annual Buffalo ONTAP. Now as we know, like everything else that we loved and enjoyed, Buffalo ONTAP did not take place last year.
Normally it's held at the Convention Center and it's this two-part, day-long, you know, beer tasting, drinking, and camaraderie day, but they have moved this to the Hamburg Fairgrounds and that'll take place this Saturday the 24th and that'll take place from 12 p.m. to 7 30 p.m. Now the tickets for the event for general admission are $45 and you can do that either for the 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. time frame or the 4 30 to 7 p.m. time frame. I believe that there's also a, I think there's a $55 option if I remember this right. Oh I'm trying to end my notes here.
I did some poor notes on this. Why? Because originally I was supposed to go to this event. This golf tournament comes up.
I won't be able to attend, but that's no reason why you shouldn't be able to get out and enjoy things. Why? Because, you know, we're not in monsoon season currently. Who knows when that when that's going to start back up, but right now the weather is expected to be 81 degrees and sunny on Saturday.
So go out and enjoy it, which is a good thing because considering I have golf Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, and that the only day I really have to concern myself with is Sunday morning with a little bit of rain, I'll be fine with that. So head out to the fairgrounds on Saturday for Buffalo on Tap. Those tickets are available at buffaloontap.com and I'm going to be shooting for 2022 to be part of that event, especially as I become more partnered up with more breweries around the area.
So slowly getting out there and getting introduced to everybody. Now the week before last I had the opportunity to go back, or actually not go back, for my first visit ever. I went to Froth Brewing, which is located on the corner of Skillin and Military in Kenmore.
It just had taken me a long time to get into Froth and then the times that I was looking to get in there, for some reason that they had closed for a period of time, but it's great to know that they're back open and doing their thing. So I stopped back in there for one reason and that was to pick up a particular beer. I will talk about that in the second half of this show because it's going to be part of the tasting that I did for a movie day.
And while I was there, hey, flights before pints like I say. And I sat down and enjoyed first their Pineapple Kolsch because you have to appreciate a good Kolsch. For them a 4.8 ABV and it's a German style Kolsch that's made with real pineapple.
Great aroma and a great flavor right up front. It's, you know, a very light and airy Kolsch as it goes. Very tasty.
I enjoyed it very much. Went down quite smooth. One of the other ones that I moved to from there was called Loyal to the Grain.
It was their German pilsner. This one was, I mean, as traditional as a pilsner goes. German style as it was as well.
Very tasty. Very flavorful. Went down smooth.
It was a very clean pilsner which you have to appreciate. More breweries around the area are really perfecting their pilsners. They have a DDH Citra Mosaic and Eldorado Hopped IPA that comes in, surprisingly, at a 6.7 ABV which is completely respectable.
One thing about this is it's a hazier IPA but what you want from those hazy IPAs is that juicy flavor and this nailed it down. It was definitely a juicy, it lived up to its name, Juiced Life. It is a juicy double hopped IPA.
It's got that mix of the Eldorado, the Citric, and the Mosaic hops and it was a complete home run. I really enjoyed this. As an IPA would go, I would sit down with this and make this a part of my, you know, a summertime barbecue drink.
Something that I can enjoy, you know, throughout the day. It's not too heavy. So, you know, fruity, flavorful on top of it.
You know, you could really enjoy this all day long. And I finished off my, I finished off my flight with their Hang Loose. It's an Imperial double IPA and this, I won't even lie to you, was a firm punch in the face.
Comes in at a 9.2 ABV and it lived up to its hype. So, you were talking a West Coast IPA loaded with Columbus, Centennial, Simcoe, Idaho Gem, and Amarillo hops. Well, I think there was Cascade hops in this as well, if I remember from my notes here.
Yep, there it is. Cascade hops as well. And this one was, it had a hell of a bite, but it was incredibly flavorful.
There had a fruity back note to it and it took me about half of this tasting glass, which was about five ounces for it to, I mean, after having the other ones to really start coming down on me hard. Enjoying the Hang Loose Imperial double IPA, I realized I wasn't going to be able to drive at that point. So, one of the good things about Froth that you will pick up quickly when you're in there is that the Buffalo Brothers Burgers is located inside the same facility.
Now, you can follow them on social media at Buffalo Bros Burgers and they are actually a food truck, but they run out of Froth Brewing and they have a brick and mortar there where you can actually order at the counter and they have the kitchen right behind. So, it's literally the register, the counter, the door, and then the kitchen and back. They give you the sign, come out.
So, I enjoyed their burger. I enjoyed their pretzel bites. And so, the cheeseburger was very welcome after that tasting flight.
I enjoyed everything that I had and I look forward to another trip back to Froth. So, a simple question I once picked up on an email that I received was about tasting parties and tastings that I do. And they're really quite easy.
I mean, it's not something that you have to make a big deal about. I mean, you really could. I've been to some tasting parties where it's kind of laid out, kind of elaborate.
It's all what you want to put into it, the variety that you make available, the fun that you have with it. Because really, what are you doing here is just tasting different varieties. So, one of the questions that I've pitched to a few breweries that I've been at is when they deliver flights to you, how do you know how to present, like which order you should drink them in? A lot of times when you go to wineries, they want you to go from dry to sweet because of the different flavor profiles that are involved.
But there are so many different profiles that come along with beer as opposed to wine. How do you know where to go? Do you go from the lowest ABV to the highest? Do you go from, let's say, a lighter such as a Kolsch, working your way up to a double hopped IPA? But a lot of breweries will tell you that they don't have a specific way of doing it. Some of them like it based on flavor profile, how they would like to deliver it to you, depending on their variety, which I think is great.
And I'm always open to suggestions. So, if they deliver it to me and say, hey, I put this in order that I think you should try it, you know what? That's the way I'm going to try it because they have a reason to do it and they seem to think it works. And here's the thing about breweries.
They don't just serve you beer just for the purpose of serving you beer because they're in the business of creating good product. And if a product doesn't work, they won't do it again. So, what you learn is it's not about them telling you how it should taste.
It's how it should taste to you. If you remember back from last week's interview at OSB Ciderworks when I was talking with Elise Smith, one of the things that was brought up there is you can have 10 different people trying one product and they can give you 10 different answers. But it isn't about her or the brewery that would tell you how it should taste.
It's how it tastes to you because it's going to be different for everybody. So, one of the things that I enjoy doing is once in a while, whether it's a movie night or it's a get-together for dinner, is we will dig into consumer beverages or to Wegmans, you know, do a pick-a-pack and you'll be able to pick up items that are not only from the local area but nationally as well because you want to really try the field out. And we did that for the movie Black Widow.
Now, I'm going to tell you right up front, I am not going to spoil a single thing about the Black Widow movie. I will tell you this, I am a massive, colossal, huge, undeniably over-the-top Marvel nerd. I am.
I didn't read many comic books growing up, but I was very familiar with them because other people wouldn't let me read their comics. I was always, even though I was a DC fan as well, I was heavily Marvel over DC because I thought that the characters were more compelling and I was always drawn to one particular character and that being Captain America. Downstairs in my basement slash gym slash putting green slash podcast slash studio, quote studio, not really a studio, I have, you know, a lot of Americana, Captain America inspired merch as you would, I guess you could say, down there.
So, that's where my love of Marvel comes from. All the way from the first Iron Man movie all the way through to Endgame and I don't think that there was a story that I didn't like. You know, there was always, you know, different manifestations of the different superheroes.
I much prefer the Tom Holland's, you know, Spider-Man over the Tobey Maguire. I am by far a bigger Mark Ruffalo fan than I ever was in Edward Norton and I honestly believe when Mark Ruffalo became the Incredible Hulk that it was an apology to all of us fans and giving us exactly what we needed and going forward they would never need to change a thing. Now, granted, probably in 30-35 years I'll bet you they do it all over again, but if you're going to collect everything that they have in the Marvel Universe, you have yourself many, many hours of entertainment.
Each character has its own addition to, you know, the Marvel Universe and Black Widow is no exception. So, you know, take in the movie where you can, whether it's on theater, whether you do it on Disney Plus, you know, it's not a free plug for them, but, you know, I'm liking where movies are going now where rights are getting sold to streaming networks because coming out of the pandemic, you're looking at people who are more comfortable doing it in their home and if there's a market for sales there, well, by all means, do it. To me, it's not all about the number of dollars at the end, you know, it's about the quality of the product that gets put out there.
There was maybe one, maybe two Marvel movies that I was meh on. Black Widow was not one of them. So, go out and take it in however you choose to and, you know, decide what you do.
If you're going to go out, hey, maybe catch dinner someplace at a brewery, hey, then take in a flight of your own. So, this is what we did. So, we did a kind of a lunch thing of Jamaican jerk wings and then there was some homemade maple bourbon habanero wings that were quite on point and I look forward to how those evolve and then that evolved into for the evening going into some flatbread pizzas, you know, the movie and obviously plenty of beer tasting throughout the day.
We started off with Resurgence and their tangerine kölsch which speaks for itself because it is all flavor, all up front. I could drink that one all day. I appreciate good kölsch.
I think I said that in the first part of today's episode. I appreciate a good kölsch. I'm enjoying German style beers more and more.
I cannot wait until my life and my schedule allows for me to take a trip overseas. Currently bumping around an idea for 2022, maybe possibly getting over to Belgium. Not sure if that's going to work.
We'll figure it out. How about we start with just taking one or two days off for a golf outing and not having hell break loose at work. That would be very nice, pumpkin.
Okay, so from the Resurgence tangerine kölsch we moved on to Shriner which is part of the Spatzel Brewery in Shriner, Texas and their Hill Country peach wheat. Now, I've seen this in many places available in six-pack bottles and I like good wheat beer as well. I think peach as a summer flavor right now is nice because the problem is you're running into too much blueberry out there and don't get me wrong, I like good blueberry beer.
I'm drawn to it but I'm drawing also to the peach because there are some great peach products out there this season. This is no exception. So the Hill Country peach wheat was very clean, great peach flavor.
It has that if you, for lack of a better term, that smooth, that almost smooth grit that comes with wheat beer and don't use that word grit too literal. It's wheat just has a unique flavor profile. It coats the tongue well.
If you drink beer, most people will just put it on their lips or on the tip of their tongue and think, well, you know, it's IPA, it's hoppy, I don't like it. They're gonna put it on the tip of their tongue and nothing. If you don't take a, you know, a good swig and coat your tongue with it because you can get different flavor profiles from different parts of your tongue.
The bitter, the sweet, the sours. If you're not coating your tongue, then you're just not doing yourself any service. You can't, you know, dip your tongue into it.
It's not like dipping your toe into a pool to see if it's too cold. Try it out and see if you like it. This I think anybody could like.
Wheat beer is easy to appreciate but a peach flavor like this is definitely a good combination and something to really, really appreciate. Now with highs such as this, there are, you know, tends to be some lows. There is nothing about a local brewery that I could speak ill of because the attempts are out there and a local brewery is going to know if they put out a poor product and they most of the time won't do it or they'll do it just to get by and they'll keep it local and house.
But I doubt that they would can it and send it out to the community. So I've talked about in the past. I've talked about here.
I like Kolsch's. I like wheat beers. I like a good Vienna.
I like Belgian beers. I especially like double hop IPAs. Interestingly enough, one of the ones that I have in my personal stock right now is the Double Dan Citra IPA from War Horse Brewery.
Shout out to them. They won first place in New York State in the brewing competition this past week out in the Finger Lakes. I am happy that I have a four pack of that on hand because now it is considered the number one beer in all of New York State.
So I'm looking forward to having that. I'll probably do that when I get back from the golf weekend because the event itself is dry, which I respect, but I'm going to enjoy some Rochester breweries while I'm out there this weekend. So like I said, with ups comes downs.
Now I'm going to talk about this exactly what it is. It's called Area 2 Experimental Brewing. Look that up yourself.
It is a pineapple. It's called Pineapple Sour D and it is a hazy hemp IPA with pineapple. Let that sink in for a moment.
It is a hazy IPM made with hemp with pineapple. I will never, I did this, I coated my tongue with it. I've never had something nastier as a beer goes cross my tongue and I've had some, I've had a few beers that just don't appeal to me.
This was the definition unfortunately of wretched. My first encounter with a hemp IPA and might very well be my last because it is a flavor profile that I just do not appreciate. I don't know what they were thinking.
They put that out there and to whomever is going to drink that and go, that's good stuff. Well, good on you, but all of us that were in, that were present for that tasting all had the exact same opinion. It was one of the most wretched things that had ever touched their tongue.
Never again. We dumped the it out. We were done with it.
Moving on. So Rusty Nickel, which is located in West Seneca. Their location is behind the Ebenezer Ale House in West Seneca.
And I told you a few weeks back about my incident where I left my debit card there by accident and I had to go back. So I ended up getting a Crowler. So I picked up their Imperial Porter, which is called the Violet You're Turning Violet.
And it is a blueberry Imperial Porter, which I, it was hearty, just popping with blueberry flavor. And I enjoyed it immensely. It was, it was liked in the group as well.
And we, uh, we, we basically burned through the entire Crowler before we moved on. So it was, uh, it was definitely a hit. I look forward to going back to Rusty Nickel to try more.
This is actually, that was part of my second visit that I had been there and there's still so many more things and they put out new product all the time there. So you ever get into West Seneca, like I said, behind the Ebenezer Ale House, stop into Rusty Nickel. They have the garage doors to open up to the patio out back.
Summer nights, everything's wide open. The music's playing, great atmosphere there. And, you know, taking it, taking a great flight and pull up, pull up one of their tables out back.
We moved on to Watermelon Kohl's that's also known as Seed Spitter. That is, uh, that was from 12 Gates. One of their newer ones that came out for the summer.
And, you know, I met across the table with, you know, it was a, it was a good beer. Not sure how watermelon trans, uh, translates, but it was a good flavor. I like watermelon, uh, as it, as it goes in a beer.
Uh, so we, uh, we enjoyed that. 12 Gates is always another one that has, you know, so many great new products that are coming out. You know, don't worry about where, about the location.
You know, once you get back there, they have a great outdoor space and it's really good for them to bring a lot to Western New York. And they're, they're set back off the road enough. You don't get the road noise back there.
The inside is a great ambiance. I was, you know, at the craft event with, uh, with my friend Nick, who will, I'll be golfing with this weekend and he had never been inside. And he was even commenting on how the ambiance is there.
Uh, good food there. And there, uh, they always have musicians, uh, that, that come in pretty much every week. Uh, so take a look at their schedule on the, on the web at 12 Gates and make sure that you stop in and take in what they have going on, you know, throughout the summer.
So Stone Brewing was up next. That's out of San Diego County. Now Stone Brewing has been around since 1996.
And, uh, this was a hazy IPA that was brewed with tangerine and pineapple. Now pineapple, of course, you know, coming in, really coming in as one of the summer flavors, especially out West. And, uh, this one was called the Tangerine Express.
I enjoyed this because I, I do like when good fruit flavor is, is married together in a brew. I like hazy IPAs because again, you get fruity, you get juicy, you know, and, uh, it really makes those flavors pop. So this was a great, a great opportunity to kind of, uh, you know, exploit one of those West Coast, you know, West Coast style IPAs.
So, you know, we were off, you know, off and running on that one. We moved on there to what was a, uh, interesting favorite of ours, uh, was, uh, Thirsty Dog Brewing Company, which is out of Akron, Ohio and their Raspberry Ale. That was an absolute winner with everybody that, that was in attendance.
You know, raspberry is a, is a great flavor in beer that translates a great pop full of fruity flavor, but you still get that ale, you know, that wholesome ale taste that comes with it. Uh, I noticed that it was from, um, Akron, Ohio. I had recognized the name.
So my, uh, my friend, uh, Chelsea, who runs the Moms Who Keep It Real podcast, you can find them on social media at Moms Who Keep It Real for all you ladies out there. Talk about a young mom with two young kids who talks about transitioning through, you know, pregnancy, you know, life at, you know, afterbirth, postpartum. She brings so much information to the table.
She has guests that she brings on. I encourage you to, uh, to, uh, check them out. Moms Who Keep It Real.
That's with my friend, Chelsea. Chelsea and I, and at some point we're going to be doing a little, uh, group tasting, uh, once we, uh, you know, figure out how to, how the logistics are going to work on it. So, uh, definitely look forward to that.
And this, uh, this raspberry ale was a huge hit with everybody in attendance. And then we finished it off with, uh, like I mentioned.
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