It's a week to celebrate local brews and breweries. We highlight a few events coming up around the area surrounding some of your brewery favorites and take a look at how some future episodes will look as we look back at the Resurgence Kegs & Eggs event in February.
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Coming up, American Craft Beer Week is here, so we're talking cold and flavorful beverages from all around western New York, as well as the many to-do's going on as we make the charge toward the Memorial Day weekend. Episode 8 of the Buffalo Brews podcast starts right now. Welcome everyone and thanks for joining me just like you do each and every week for the Buffalo Brews podcast.
It's Brews Day and you know what that means. I'm your host, Jason Edinger, my melodious voice lightly seasoned and pan-seared like salmon and just as healthy for you, perhaps, or you know even though that's not been really proven. But hey, this week I'm drinking a Gaussian Blur from Beltline Brewing.
It's a sour IPA. It's made with dry citrus hops and it has a on the initial sip it's got great blackberry flavor and you get that bite of a grapefruit citrus behind it. 7.1% ABV for this particular one.
Now I was told about Beltline Brewing. I haven't had a chance to get down there as of yet, but that's located at 545 Swan Street in Buffalo and they opened in 2019 with a theme based around the old Buffalo Beltline Railroad that circled the city to make deliveries around the area as necessary. So I was informed during a weekend visit that this is definitely a place to go for some delicious IPAs as well as they seem to have a pretty good selection of burgers and wings and the Cajun wings came highly recommended.
So I'm going to take an opportunity here in the next couple weeks and hopefully get down to Beltline for some eats and some of those some of those IPAs. I'm recording this opening on Mother's Day and I'm hoping that all the moms out there had a wonderful day. The weather was certainly beautiful today because I was able to get out early myself and take in some of the trails that were along Zoar Valley as well as some time along the water itself.
So it's always great to connect with the outdoors and draw power from the water while reflecting on great memories. And for me, I'm thinking about my own mother and those memories now. I lost my mom back in 2013 and thinking about walking trails and walking along the water, I like to think about hot summer days growing up in Sherman and my mother, father, my sister, and myself, we'd take these long walks down behind the old property and you would go down about a half mile behind the property and hit the old railroad bed.
And then we could go either way depending on where we felt like walking that day, but either way you could get to certain bodies of water and access trails that came off of those areas. And there were a lot of beaver ponds down there. You get to see a lot of herring.
Once in a while we would fish down there and it was really a great memory, you know, especially walking along Zoar Valley and thinking about that. That railroad bed now behind my parents' old property is actually a Chautauqua County rails to trails that runs between the terminus in Sherman and goes up to Somerdale Road as you're heading toward Mayville. And then there's a bypass that goes on to a separate part of the rails to trails that'll take you up through Mayville and goes all the way up into Brockton.
So that might be something for a fun hike one of these days and definitely get to reminisce and go back to the old motherland. One of the areas I remember along that old rail bed was a scrap of metal that was down the embankment that my father told me was from a train wreck years ago. And as I got older I did a little research into it as I remembered it and found out that that was a train car derailment that took place on August the 24th of 1897.
And apparently had several cars had been derailed and ended up going down the embankment. So they emptied the contents apparently out of these cars and just left the cars there. So I'm thinking for a future hiking adventure going back to the old motherland I might go down what is now the rails to trails and try to find this car derailment wreckage again.
And you know the whole thing should bring back memories for me right? After my Zoar Valley hikes took a detour on the way home and ended up at Merritt Winery in Forestville for some wine tasting. And ended up bringing home a bottle of their XTC wine which is a sweet grape wine with natural pomegranate flavor that's added and it's a 12.5 residual sugar. So definitely on the sweeter side but for you ladies out there this makes one hell of a wine slushy.
They had some in the slushy machine there and enjoyed that as well. Also enjoyed their Saval Blanc, their Cabernet Franc. One that they had was a semi-dry rose that was called Isabella Sunset that was really good.
Very dry rosé. As well as some of the sparkling wine selections they had on hand including the Peach Fuzz which was was fun and the Bubbling Bella which was one of their sweeter more full-bodied reds that they had. And then one that really surprised me was one called 5CO2 which was a 5% residual sugar semi-sweet with tropical flavors in a sparkling wine.
And you get the first sniff of that and picked up a pina colada aroma off of that. Surprisingly good even though it looked like windshield washer fluid at first but I would definitely recommend it. A great summer sipper.
The winner of the trip was definitely their raspberry truffle specialty wine. It's a sweet grape wine that has natural dark chocolate and raspberry flavors added. And according to the ladies that were there they said this is a great one to pour over ice cream.
So perhaps one of these days I'll get a bottle of that and we'll have to play around with that as a dessert item. Now since I'm talking about Merritt Winery and the Lake Erie Wine Country I would be remiss if I didn't bring up their next event coming up in the month of June and that's called Red Whites and Barbecue. And that takes place over two weekends.
First weekend is June 18th through the 21st and the second weekend June 25th through the 28th. And here's what you'll do. You want to go to lakeeriewinecountry.org and you'll select a host winery where you will pick up your tickets.
Each ticket is $25 plus fees. You're going to provide your own transportation. You build your itinerary through the day and using the Lake Erie Wine Country trail you're going to visit these different wineries and enjoy the wine selections they have on hand as well as the food pairings that they'll have at each location.
The Lake Erie Wine Country boasts 20 different wineries that are spread out over a 55 mile range. The furthest to the west and south is Six Mile Cellars. That's located just west of Northeast Pennsylvania.
And the furthest east and north is going to be it's kind of a tie between Willow Creek Winery and Merritt Estate. The Merritt Estate winery that I just mentioned is in Forestville and the Willow Creek Winery is just outside of Silver Creek off of Interstate 90. Oh and I should mention that when you get to your host winery to pick up your tickets you also receive a gift.
So get everybody together, plan a weekend away in the Lake Erie Wine Country and go enjoy food and wine. So this week is American Craft Beer Week and it's considered the annual springtime salute to local beer and local breweries. Definitely a time to give praise to the gathering places that we love and those places in turn that give back to our communities through their unique flavors because guess what? And I would whisper this to you if we were talking face-to-face, local beer is better period.
So go and have a flight, hey go have a flight, post a picture and then you can hashtag that flights before pints or have that pint or grab a four or a six-pack, grab a crawler or even take your growler and have it filled. But either way go out and enjoy local beer because local beer is better. With that being said there are several of our great western New York breweries that are hosting events over the course of the next few weeks.
The first one you want to look at is 12 Gates Brewing. They're the closest one to my physical location where I record this podcast. You can follow them at 12 Gates Brewing.
It's the number 12 Gates Brewing on Instagram. So as part of the craft beer week they are doing a blowout sale with some specific beers and pricings that they're going to be announcing here in the next few days but as of this recording they haven't put those out as of yet. And for you Jeep lovers this weekend on Saturday May 15th from 12 to 8 p.m. they're going to be hosting an event called the Go Topless Day that's going to be taking place at the Ellicottville Distillery on 5462 Robbins Road in Ellicottville.
So 12 Gates will be there with their beer and then Ellicottville Distillery will be bringing their spirits as well. There will be water and soda on hand and the Coyote Cafe out of Hamburg is going to be running their food truck at the event. There will be music and again for you all you Jeep lovers out there I know you guys like to get together.
It's a great social time for you. I know a few Jeep lovers at work so get together this weekend down in Ellicottville for some food and merriment. Next up is Big Ditch Brewing.
Now they have an event coming up not this week but the following week which is going to be their sixth anniversary celebration and I'm going to be able to announce now that we will be doing our first ever podcast with a co-host for not next week but the following week as I'll sit down with my friend Kenzie and we're going to be exploring some of the beers that are available at Big Ditch as part of their sixth anniversary celebration. But at Big Ditch every Monday night from 6 to 8 p.m. they host a trivia night where you can win a $30 gift card and what would you do with a $30 gift card at Big Ditch? Get more Big Ditch beer. I have a gift card for them right now that I'll have to use to pick up some product next time I get down there.
So that's on Monday nights from 6 to 8 p.m. at Big Ditch Brewing. That's down on Huron Street in the city. Flying Bison is the next one up.
Now Flying Bison this weekend they are doing a very special event. This is the Urban Running Spring Expo. Now for a number of my friends who are part of Team RWB they get together every Wednesday night for a running series down there.
So they'll run, they'll do you know a 5k or whatever mileage they put in and then they'll get together for a few for a few cold ones afterwards at Flying Bison. And then for us members of Team RWB we get together as part of our social Wednesday on the second Wednesday of every month and that takes place at Flying Bison currently. So then we get together and then it just falls in place with the folks that have been running that night.
So this weekend they're going to be doing a morning celebration all things running and fitness that is going to take place at Flying Bison. So the Sweat Society is going to kick off the day at 10 a.m. with a runner's strength fitness class. You get a pint that goes along with the $10 fee that they charge and that will be followed by their Urban Run series at 11 a.m. The Blend Food Truck is going to show up about 10 30.
They'll provide pre and post workout drinks. The Runner's Roost from Orchard Park is going to be there as a pop-up. They'll open about 10 30 a.m. and they have representatives from Brooks, Nathan, Picky Bar, Trail Butter and Coro's Watches and they'll be sampling a lot of their products there.
Sports City Pizza pop-up will start at about 11 a.m. They do pizza and other items there and then Flying Bison will have beer specials on hand as well. So it's going to be a really exciting day if you're a runner or a fitness guru and you want to go down there and take in some of what they have to offer. The last event that I want to tell you about is through Resurgence Brewing and that's down on Chicago Street in the city.
Every quarter they do their kegs and eggs event. They call it the Experimental Beers and Brunch where essentially they're trying out new beers that are only available for a very short time usually through that event and they'll be working with the folks in the kitchen to put together some really great things for you to drink and to eat. After the commercial break I'm going to play a segment from the last kegs and eggs that took place back in February that Kenzie and her husband Nick and myself went to and it was a big cereal themed piece.
I'll talk about that in a moment but this particular kegs and eggs they haven't got all the information out on it yet but right now it'll take place on Sunday May 23rd and then to participate in that you want to get a hold of them by calling or through the website reservation to pick up a time and then basically what you'll do when you go down there is they you could take part in two two flights that they have that they already have advertised. Now the first one is going to be a sour tea flight which includes a strawberry rhubarb iced tea sour, a plum iced tea sour, a peach iced tea sour which I'm very much looking forward to, and a watermelon iced tea sour. And then the second flight is what they're going to be labeling as a mixed flight which includes the golden buffalo current conehead.
It's filled with a golden current fruit puree. Then they're offering an evergreen IPA which is going to be using a new hop according to their notes that is new to their resurgence experiment, a raspberry ginger pills, and then finally a pink lemonade shandy. I'm a big shandy fan myself especially during the summer time.
And then they'll also have a chocolate lager, a little dessert that takes place after the flights, and then they have listed here as one of their specialties for their casks a fizzy bubbler which is a gin and tonic seltzer. So more information will be coming out about that here I'm sure within the week, but again you want to jump on to their website or give them a call to pick up your reservation. Now like I was mentioning back in February we were there for the kegs and eggs event and it was an entire cereal themed brunch.
So their flight offerings included a lucky charms lager and oops all the berries sour, a peach maple oatmeal sour, a fruit explosion muffin lager, a cinnamon toast crunch porter, a cookie crisp brown ale, and a peanut butter captain crunch porter as well as a trail mix stout. So if I remember right this was the one where we ended up getting the trail mix stout, the peanut butter captain crunch, the cinnamon toast crunch porter, and the cookie crisp brown ale. So you'll hear us basically in the clip after the commercial break tasting those and talking about those for a few moments.
Like I said not next week but the week after Kenzie and I are going to be getting together for the sixth anniversary at Big Ditch Brewing and then we're going to be talking about some of the flights that they have on hand and this is in hopes of bringing some future podcasts ideas to life for you as fans of the show. So enjoy our beer tasting conversation that took place at the kegs and eggs event at Resurgence Brewing on February 21st. So you don't like raisins so I can pick up the raisin in this one like I can actually pick that up as a very prominent flavor.
It is a little bit of nutty in there. Yeah but like the raisin is like it's amazing. It's super good.
Yeah which is why that's probably not your your desire. It is not my jam but I don't disturb it. Like not dog that ain't me.
Oh that is good. A little bit of the chocolate. Yes yes.
That raisins right out front though. Raisin up here. Yeah.
Delicious though. Super good. I keep touching that cookie crisp brown ale.
I know. I think that's I think that's gonna be next because keeping it in the chocolate family considering this did have the chocolate and raisin vibe so I think cookie crisp is next. I liked that.
That was fun. That was really good. Trail mixed out.
I like that. That was really good. They didn't care.
The more times you drank it. It was delicious start to finish. Oh yeah.
It was it was just like right up front. It was just constant. Yeah.
Yeah there's a like a beer company in Ann Arbor, Michigan. They make uh it's called fig jam and it's potent too. So I'm like figs.
I'm like okay like first time you drink you're like that's a little odd. Drink it gets a little smoother. No.
So the more times I'm like okay. No it never does. It's just terrible.
It's just terrible. It's good. I like it.
Well if I have my friends like five to one I'll give you it. What's the old holiday song? Ring us some figgy pudding and I always go no thank you. Yeah no thanks.
No no no thank you. No thanks. Yeah my my ex's family um they were Italian like straight off the boat and at Christmas they would just be like here eat a fig and I'm like yeah.
Oh my god. Like the 97 year old grandma would just be walking around the Christmas party and be like why aren't you eating fig jam? I have a fig. No.
No I'm good. Irish. Irish.
Not touching that. Sorry. Irish and Polish not going for it.
Where's the potatoes? Great. Petzels are what should be consumed during the holiday. Just thin cookies.
Which ones? Petzels. They're like Italian cookies. I have a friend of mine on Grand Island who makes uh makes pizzells.
Homemade. I made a batch of chocolate ones in this past holiday. I haven't had those since like my one of my great aunts was still alive.
Anytime we'd go to visit her she'd always just have food. Oh eat. I'm like oh chocolate.
The one I think is funny for me and him is he has all sorts of designs for his pizzells. But I go. He must have multiple presses though.
He has multiple presses. I'm like do you need multiple presses? Oh yeah. That was actually the one thing Nick really wanted when we were doing registry stuff.
Like walking by all the kitchen gadgets. He's like oh yeah. I'm like fine.
Really praying that nobody would buy it for us but wouldn't you know. It was the one redeeming gift that we got from her because then she bought us a Thanksgiving kit and we all know I hate Thanksgiving within an inch of my life. A Thanksgiving kit.
Yes. So like the heavy duty roasting pan which I love because I can use it for other things. Sure you can use turkey ties and the roasting bag and all of these like.
Roasting bags. Please explain this to me. I don't know apparently it eliminates the need to baste.
No disrespect to my mother but my mother used to make roast beef in a roasting bag and I never understood it. It just regenerates the liquid so that way you don't have to. Yeah it probably just traps the moisture.
Yeah but like a package of those the turkey ties like the disposable meat claws to like lift the turkey. I feel like was it in a was it in a saran sealed basket? No she used the she used the the bait or the uh roasting pan and put all the crap in it and then did the. It was a basket.
Yeah. Yeah. And all of these little kitschy like me thankful towels.
Like does this woman not understand my abject hatred of this fucking holiday? Nope. Now don't get me wrong I'll buy some nice fall color ones that'll that are good through like post Halloween until I decorate for Christmas. Yeah.
But you won't catch me with turkey towels there will be no. Give thanks. Be thankful.
Family. Not gonna happen. All right and moving on to the cookie crisp brown ale.
The aroma is interesting not quite sure about that. Very subtle. I feel like there's like that alcohol hint to it like it's not as smooth as the trail mix.
It's good but I'm actually picking up on like ABV in this one. I think it's pretty smooth. But compared to the trail mix it's not as smooth.
And I say the flavors are more intense in the trail mix this one is more low-key. I don't know. I'm not I'm not feeling like oh my god that's cookie crisp.
Like with trail mix I could identify like that is absolutely trail. You got the raisins. This is like it's a sweet brown ale.
Yeah. I don't feel like I'm getting like cookie crisp. It's sweet yeah.
It's a sweet brown ale. It's okay they don't all work. No.
It's okay. I need to do a hawaiian one again and bring back the bomb pop sour. That was my first eggs and eggs and they did a hawaiian themed one with hawaiian food with all the spam and all the goodness and then they did a bomb pop sour.
Oh yeah. Could you say that again but say it slower? Bomb pop sour. That was amazing.
It didn't sound sexier but it definitely. Bomb pop sour. Say it with a haughty voice.
Did you forget who you're talking to? Yeah that one was good. The bomb pop sour. I just I love the idea of a hawaiian theme.
No that was me shot on trail. That was at O.G. Niagara street. So we agree we're pro spam.
Oh god yes. Spamaroni and cheese. Spam and eggs.
Well I still have those macaroni and cheese raviolis you told me about. Yes. That I'm gonna put the spam in.
Yes. It's happening. I just don't know when yet.
How do you prepare your spam? Usually I'm just like. Is it pan fried? Yeah it's pan fried. I cuban fry it for that so that way you get all the crisp and the caramelization 360 degrees to you know counteract the spoon.
I'm going to try that now. I would put it in an air fryer. I am so down with that.
I rustled in my air fryer and made some good wing creations last night. Yeah the buffalo wild wings asian zing. Because I always keep that around because I just love that sauce.
And then the second batch I took my homemade low carb barbecue sauce and then I put that together and that broiled up nicely. Got that nice mix of like dark and caramel on it. And then the third one I just after they came out a little melted butter on top and I sprinkled it with everything bagel.
Nice. And then put them in the oven for a little bit crisp up the outside. Oh my goodness.
Now you're speaking my language. Yeah the everything bagel bread from Trader Joe's. There's half a loaf in the freezer.
That was super good. It's okay that's a good brown ale but to me it just tastes like brown ale. Yeah a sweeter brown ale.
And I'm pretty sure this one had lactose in it and I'm not really getting that like milky sort of vibe to it. Yeah this one contains lactose and I'm not picking up on that milky sort of texture or flavor. Nope.
Nope. I do not. It's okay.
Kill it. Sure. Did you get a hit of that trail mix? I did.
I don't remember the glass getting passed. You weren't getting it from me so. I'm like yep.
I was saying like the raisin flavor was definitely as I call it intense for the trail mix or at least like yeah the dominant flavor. Yeah which is why it was not your jam. One thing I was like the other thing I was impressed with that was like when I would held it up to the glass it was like sticking to the glass.
It had some legs on it. Yeah. This is light.
This is light for a brown ale. Yeah. I do taste the lactose.
I don't. I'm not picking it up. At least not to the extent that I think of normally with their lactose.
Because I am a fan of the cow milk. It's probably what's giving it like that sweet along with the you know the cookie. There it was.
I was waiting for that one. Needed to be timed. I was very excited when I pulled up and I was like flipping through Facebook real quick.
I was like oh they have the flight. We were tooling down this way and I was like Jason's already there. Let go.
Something's motivated. The kitchen is very bad now so it's going to take a little bit. I'll keep the beers coming.
They're coming out quick and fast. All right. Thank you.
Sorry we'll just walk sideways out of here. It's okay. It's fine.
It's fine. End of the semester. I'm done.
I'm good. Push a few more cars out of the parking lot. I'll try.
It seems to be the officer problem. I swear to drunk I'm not God. They are so much busier than they were last time.
Oh my god. X-Maxx man. Yeah brings them all out.
Which is wild because they have like a seating is more spread out. Yeah. Does he have anything to drink tonight? No.
Are you offering? You look like you could party. I know you can drink sir. I walked out of the wedding when they played that.
You're mean. I told the photographers I was like I know the shout song is going to hit everybody on the floor except me. Like I am literally walking out like I will do anything except be present for that song.
When they came out with the when they came out with the circle the wagons and uh figure what the other one was that they did here I sent a picture she's I'm not drinking a swill. You're a name hater. You're a legit name here.
Then they then they re-bottled it into uh what was it uh from the circle or what do they call it the hockey one. The Sabres. Yeah.
I assume you're not a Bruins fan. During the playoffs yeah. Do you like the Knicks one? They're good.
All right. Right exactly.
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