We sat down with Seth Piccirillo from the Tap & Craft Festival to discuss the upcoming festival on Saturday, October 5th. What has 2024 produced for the festival with expansions into Canandaigua and Ithaca? Finally, Seth tells us about his new venture, The Lock Tender, located in Lockport. What do they have to offer and how have they been supported by the city and businesses in town. Tickets for the festival are available at tapandcraft.com.
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The Tap and Craft Festival is coming back around here for 2024, the third annual coming up. We are at Brewed and Bottled 444 Center Street in Lewiston. I want to thank Chris Bode for the for the space and he wanted to let everybody know that he had the pleasure of winning a Best of 716 award in 2024 for having the best beer list and with the multi-page beer list that we have I can agree with that. Best Bartender in Kenny Holmes. We all know Kenny if you've been here and you haven't encountered Kenny then he must have been here at a really off time then. And also with Untapped, if people know the Untapped app where you can rate beers and get to find out in certain places where selections are available. They had been listed most recently in their spotlight episode and that was the on the New York State list they are listed in the tops of beer to go which of course you can come here and get great things out of the cooler four packs, individual on-site events, they always have events going on here constantly. Lewiston is a hotbed of activity this summer and actually just coming up this weekend they're going to be having more that I'll mention in just a moment and they're also loved by their subscribers. So if you go on to the Untapped app and you look up brewed and bottled you'll be able to find their entire list which is updated pretty much to the minute. I've seen things that have kicked and he's gone into the system and changed out in Untapped just as soon as the tap switches over. They have coming up here this weekend in Lewiston is the Hops, the Harvest and Hops Festival. We'll probably come up here on Sunday to check that out because it was something that really piqued my interest. I was able to come up here for the Jazz Festival this summer that we talked about in an earlier episode and if you are into Oktoberfest and all things in all things Germany, Jack's Abbey is holding a Stein holding competition here. They're actually I should say that they're sponsoring this the Stein holding competition is going to be here at brewed and bottled on Sunday October the 6th at 2 p.m. I have signed up for this. We'll see how this goes. They're going to be serving their copper legend Oktoberfest Mersen as well as the Munich style fest beer and Bill's game is going to be on the TVs here. The men's and women's winner whoever they may be when you sign up you must be able to be available to attend Hofbrauhaus in Buffalo on October the 20th at 6 p.m. for the New York State Championship. We'll see how I do. I'm free that weekend so we might give it a shot. If you want to register you go to brewedbottled.com slash hoist and sign up and I am here with now three-time guest so you know you're getting up there with like Steve Martin and right you get the jacket and it's a Seth Piccarello from the Tap and Craft Festival among other things I mean you'll have to go through your list of accolades at this point because you've grown in leaps and bounds just in this last year. All right well Seth welcome and we're gonna again we're talking tap and crap but I'm gonna be asking you about some of your your other endeavors including what you got going on over in Lockport but I want to get right into it because this is gonna be the third annual for Niagara Falls and then what's exciting about it is you've grown and spread out with events coming up your first year in Canandaigua. You have a summer event that you just held in Ithaca and then you just told me before we hit the record button that the winter session in February is going to be coming back which we're super excited about here at the podcast. So tell me about the how what it took to get into like spreading out and getting into Canandaigua and getting into the summer summer event at Ithaca. Well first thanks for having me and thank you I always look forward to this because I can't believe it's been three now but you like having these conversations and your help and you know getting your audience has really helped us grow from really not know what we're doing three years ago not not to say that we now know what we're doing but to be able to grow so yeah we've had a fun year we've always loved doing work in Ithaca we do beer fest beer tents and things like that with a downtown Ithaca Alliance and in February we tried a winter tap and crap festival at the Hotel Ithaca and it was nice try it was a lot of fun right it was just we were just talking before that just had a great vibe and people having fun so we've expanded on that so we did we just finished up one in August a summer outdoor tap and craft in Ithaca we've got the October 5th tap and craft Western New York festival at the convention center which we'll talk about but then right also on November 9th we're gonna take it to Canandaigua the cool thing about upstate New York is that there's so many different areas that we'd love to go to and sometimes when you just start calling venues they might have you so we lucked out with Hotel Canandaigua which is a beautiful venue right on the lake it's a lovely facility they it was recently opened and renovated they did a very nice job and super excited to be there in November so yeah then we're gonna keep it going we're gonna we're gonna do a February event don't have a date yet in Ithaca again and we're gonna try to move around upstate New York as much as we can okay and then you know with we talked about in a past episode obviously we had talked about it previously with the wintertime Ithaca event that's hold held at the Hotel Ithaca and you we had people come from all around Buffalo Rochester Syracuse all places east so it was a well attended event that at the last minute just like sold out like hotcakes right yeah it was it was a surprise to us too yeah and then I remember you know I remember a great room full of energy and you know it was just the room was just big enough that it wasn't crowded you know where you could get around and really talk to everybody I remember having great conversations with so many people the guy from Lake our was yeah was kind of sticks out in my head some great distilleries on hand and I liked it that the way it was laid out into the hallway and then goes into the room itself so that was really well spread out I found that I had a long conversation with Derek Edinger from Brewery Den and never even knew it was Derek because I had never met him before so one of the great things about what we're doing all the different things that we're doing right now is being able to work with Derek I would say anyone and everyone in your audience probably is already very well aware of our dens but such a cool campus great beer something for every season really enjoying their their cranberry sour is one of my favorite drinks right now it is awesome their pumpkin seasonal is really really good they just everything they do is intentional and also for a road trip from anybody from Western New York when you go to our dens you feel like you are not in upstate New York no it's it's you know I jokingly would say off the paved road but it's a paved road but it's just this you know it's an old farm stable that was converted over I guess there was the history of it there was a horrible fire there years ago but they were able to save a majority of the structure of the building that was rebuilt a meeting that meaning the horse stables not not when they acquired the property it's just it's it's great to drive up to in the daytime but it is a vision to grow it to walk up to and when it comes to the eve I've never been so that's that'll be on my to-do list but I think great a great overnight or a day trip to our dens in Geneva Geneva's actually they've got a lot of different options there too so it's a it's yeah it's a great area for beer you know just in that area alone I do a lot of touring around Seneca and you've got big Alice up there our den there's a twisted rail yeah twist the rail there's there's so many different options just there alone and then mind you you could take a drive around the lake and you know you've got warhorse at the three brothers campus you've got grist iron if you wanted to explore from the west side out toward penny and you got a relative risk you've got a band and it's yeah there's no shortage of what you can enjoy it's it's a great area and Derek's been awesome to work with and we're really excited to have have our dens on in October so they it's what's cool about doing multiple festivals now is now there's the kind of a we always want to try to bring things that are new but we also have staples that we always want to bring like grow is a staple at all of our events other half or tell us our dens it's it's fun to always have a kind of crew of people that you know that if they're there people are going to enjoy their beer right and so that's it's a really good base to start from yeah and uh you know bringing it back to Niagara Falls because Saturday October the 5th at the Niagara Falls Convention Center the VIP session runs from 3 to 4 and then the regular event from 4 to 7 so the VIP ticket $45 which is one of the best prices that you're going to find for a beer festival around this area pre-sale price but that does close out on October 1st so you got a strike at that now right and one of the reasons we're doing that is we're super excited that part of the VIP offering is mortalis is doing a fest beer that they're collaborating with us which is an honor for us to do so we want to make sure that we know we have a set number for VIP also we heard valuable feedback so anything that's available during the VIP once that VIP session closes that it will not be that's done it's done right so you know that's we want to make sure that the VIP is set and we have our number like you said it's important for us to have a reasonable ticket that's really the center of what we're doing wanted to be a fun night at a fair price and that's you know we're lucky to work with venues that allow us to use that type of price point and super excited for the fifth and you know it's a it's a great it's a great layout there their general admission is $35 and it's important that if that sells out you can't guarantee the tickets are going to be available at the door on the day of the festival they'll be 40 at the door too so we do suggest that people and I know that sometimes people don't like to use online fees and things like that understood we think that we will have general tickets available there we cannot guarantee it we would hate to turn anybody away that is not the type of hospitality that we want to give so we do highly recommend not just this isn't a hard sell but get your tickets pre-sale just to make sure that you have your tickets and also we can send you the pre-event email so you have information about parking and things like that right and then with that there's also a designated driver ticket that's that's $10 and then for that ticket you're receiving your event in the admission to the event you've got unlimited three ounce pours from over 40 different breweries wineries cideries distilleries which I'm actually going to read this list off again we actually did it on one of our last episodes yeah because we were that excited to just blurt out all these names you get the commemorative tasting glass you get free slot play credits from Seneca Nyack or casino there is live music by the far trio yes and they're great okay I can't say I've had the pleasure of listening to them before but they are forward to it they move all around upstate New York they're with us last year as well and oh yeah that's that's the same group kind of perfect the perfect vibe for our events we're excited to have them back then I did enjoy them yeah we have also it's an artisan and makers market that takes place there I know that I know there was a lot of energy we came home from the event last year and realized that the area the artisan area next to the stage we never even visited we forgot the whole other side so because we were so busy so this again going back to feedback so all of the non beverage artisans everyone's gonna be mixed in so it'll go you know brewery artisan you know it'll be it all be integrated in yeah and what we're really excited about is we're adding more food options this year so we have the urban rural barbecue we have save me a slice pizza we have TN smokehouse barbecue and we have a West New York empanadas what's the empanadas folks were there last year and I remember those that we when we took a little breather those were phenomenal they knew me a lot we loved them so we have we have and really those two barbecue places we work with them a lot so that what's cool about having a festival is that you get to work with food vendors that you really love the food right I love both those places and save me a slice is it's phenomenal pizza right so it's it's some really really good food vendors for you to choose from one and also one of the things that I like is you to have the opportunity to talk to talks to some of the brewers and people that are on hand a lot of places you're literally just they just you walk up there pouring or you got a volunteer that's pouring and you walk away and it's so overcrowded that you don't have the opportunity here it's comfortable you can have great conversations say hi to the people that you know and really make it a welcome friendly atmosphere that everybody can enjoy well I appreciate that that's what that's really what's most important to us is the experience of it so what's nice about the convention center in Niagara Falls it's it's a wide open space yeah so there's room to move you're never going to feel crowded no matter how many people are in there no not even was with as many as it was there in there yeah and then there's I really we've got some layout changes that we made this year to make it very easy to navigate and all of those things are you know like I said I can't believe we're in our third year but there's a couple additions we're making to this year like alchemy is coming with some wine wine and champagne options that are new okay just trying to to make it just make it something for everybody so even if you're not just there for beer there's going to be other options for you and just really brands that we love yeah they brought their their bubble trailer they're coming yeah to the jazz fest and we had a nice opportunity to talk to them it was really fun you know and we're talking about the VIP ticket opportunity with mortalis but there's others that are going to be curating during the vip is that my understanding yeah so they're you know with help again from magic bear and also brewed and bottled we have a really good vip list that we will put out on the monday before the event just so people know exactly what we're going to be having so we're also working with a one stop out of rochester they we do really you know they have great brands that they're bringing in so they've some great things last year yeah i'm a big fan of so i end up learning about new brands through one stop like a heavy real um is a is a kind of a fruited beer that i really like that i learned about through one stop they've they're always finding something new pushing the envelope bringing new things into this region okay things from out of state which is kind of cool too so excited to have them as a partner again too okay well in in just a moment because because what i want to do is to touch on your your glass is now empty yes um but what were what were you drinking i should say so i started with the four quarters phase um which is an ipa out of vermont i've never had this one so that's the cool thing about chris's selection he's got a little bit of something for everybody and yeah very good definitely uh definitely as an award winner for sure best beer list and i believe i had the other half um what was it here on this is it on the second page here let's see i think it was yep this one here the nectar diamonds yeah um let's see we took our space diamonds based uh based across the tasman sea there you go australia to new zealand and swapped galaxy for our hand selected nectarine from our friends at mac hops and uh new zealand lots of peachy pineappley goodness with some tropical fruit candies and just enough dark dankness to remind you that you are drinking ipa i might have to get seth to do some uh some beer live reads for us that'd be fantastic but yeah that this is really good here and as uh as you know as these hazies go i mean this is more of an imperial so it's like an eight and a half so yeah but i like this it's juicy uh and it's just uh just earthy enough for me to can't go wrong with their head i like that um so so again you know you go to for tickets you're going to go to tap and craft dot com uh that's where you would purchase your tickets from again the event saturday october the 5th um if you can't make niagara falls canada was coming up in early november and then of course like i said one of my favorites i'll be in iffica in february our goal is to reload and publicize our 2025 events by like november 5th so we're just going to keep it rolling we have a lot of fun doing this um and uh we uh we plan to keep it going through 2025 right uh let me read off this list real this list real quick of all everybody that's going to be available uh you know raise your hand out there if you uh if you hear one of your favorites come up here but like the aforementioned uh mortalis uh other half trillium alchemy bubble bar which you just mentioned frequentum grow who i love that they come out make that trip every year imprint beer kind who is brand new to the area um uh they're doing great work and they just welcomed a new addition to their i saw family so he's right back at it he hasn't missed a beat uh brewery our den beer tree uh everybody likes beer tree look same here yeah heavy real just like uh just like you mentioned was uh is well are they new or is this their second year so heavy real we did with uh august they're with us so they're they're new to our western new york new to niagara falls okay prison city uh briar brothers who you know we keep you know i keep beating the drum about them and ringing the bell but i mean they're just they're hitting elite status they really everyone should go to briar brothers yes uh brickyard black button distilling weyland who you know one of the best patios in all western new york and they're always making something great wild east blood brothers out of toronto lake hour like i said he he's a lot of fun to talk to the guys they're good guys they're fun um so it's american american stronghold meadery uh for you for you medieval uh mead lovers out there like myself uh let's see and uh is this vini estates viennese states states okay i uh pronounce this wrong like five times all right eli fish mystic hills uh who just celebrated their first anniversary tree hugger hard cider uh who i've seen at more markets and festivals than i can count and big ditch we're going to be talking about them uh in just a moment here resurgence flying bison uh chosy vineyards thin man community beer works cellar and folly whiskey sheep urtas sellers southern tier you can't have an event without southern tier hopshire farm which ithaca region region yep okay and then springbrook hollow farm distillery uh tulum brewing three three bear meadery which is down in castile sad boys blackbird wagner brewing that's great that they're coming out from seneca lake as well and then i believe there's their yeah their wine and their beer they're bringing woodbury winery winery and vineyards woodlawn distilling and then northridge distilling that is that's uh the best list yet we're excited we uh love a lot of those places some of them are new to us and um really excited to share it okay and uh you know so one of the other oops did i i wonder if i forgot to bring a sheet with me here here it oh here it is right here because we're talking about you here and the many projects that you're involved with because you you uh um is it uh you're hiking niger hike company yeah we yep we uh we kind of wrapped for the season but yeah that's something that we really enjoy yeah yeah it's something once the spring comes back around it's something to look into guided hikes um you know a lot of um a lot of people locally and a lot of people who come from out of town are between art park rural devil's hole it's uh it's definitely a place to be and yes whirlpool is it's a definitely a hiking destination um i think for the it's either the spring or the summer next year we're looking at doing a traverse from art park all the way out to goat island and back so it's going to be it's fun i mean i've done it it's flat rocks and you know the whirlpool park flat rocks where you basically you go down 500 feet of elevation end up in the flat rocks for us it's our favorite place to be it's amazing you got five class five rapids next to you and it's it's uh it's solid it's about 360 steps but it's worth it it's worth it yeah it's a workout it is it definitely is a workout but you just hang out at the bottom for a little while and uh catch your breath and come back up yeah uh and then uh you know what i'm going to talk about your uh your project uh i can't even say project anymore now it's open and up and running a lot of the lock tender and lockport um you know i i gotta ask you because it's uh you know it's it's one of those projects i remember seeing a picture of plans uh with your with your daughter standing next to them and i said okay this is this is what we're looking at here and i still didn't know the location and then i found out it was lockwork because i didn't know if it's going to be in lewiston or not no no i've been brewing bottleheads lewiston uh taken care of but uh yeah tell oh i mean yeah so talk about lock tender we uh in the end of july we were really excited to open up the lock tender which is a tap room and bottle shop at four lock street in lockport new york it is directly across the street from the erie canal and that's part of our kind of our theme we are a it's our salute to the old erie canal taverns so right now we have 10 taps we're going to expand that in our in our cases we also uh feature about 70 beer wine cider uh brands and what's cool is taking the relationships that we've built through tap and craft featuring those places in our shop featuring food pop-ups and barbecue pop-ups and pizza and live music it's really just our version of of hospitality right on the erie canal and also featuring the craft brands that are very important to us so uh we're having a lot of fun doing it we're about seven weeks in and you know lockport's been very good to us western new york has has given us a chance and checked us out and uh we're looking forward to going from there it's yeah you know a lot of people have been always asking questions about what would be available in niagara county you can go throughout erie county all the way down to chautauqua county and you've got your fill of of clusters as well as like community breweries that are there but you don't have too many that are there in the way of building a community and lockport has really stepped up to become this now this early hotbed of new activity between you know opening i noticed that there's restaurants that are opening you're there now i you know the recent purchase uh from big ditch of the um the old um the old was it the old theater space across yeah or the old post office yeah yeah so they've got uh things going on there and then i just you know getting all the information in it's trickling in a little bit at a time with the new the twisted locks project that's going on so it's lockport where people have had the knack for wanting to give it some sort of bad name it's really becoming a place it's going to be a destination very soon of places to go because you're going to have so much to do there i i completely agree so we knew we wanted to do this in our county we're you know our partners were all we have a connection in our county and it was very clear that we knew that we wanted to do this in lockport there is already a community of business owners there so it's not just you know big ditch coming was important to us and was one of the reasons of hey that that's a signal of there's gonna be more attention on this area but we looked at us at really joining the businesses that were already there and operational and everybody has embraced us more than i could have imagined you know we opened kind of quietly we didn't you know we wanted to make sure that we just got open and you know figured out a way to make sure everything worked we had a line waiting for us the day that we opened and that's lockport right those are lockport people saying hey something's new we're going to be supportive of it so uh we are really honored to have the reception that we've had and uh looking to now be a part of that or how do we help lockport become a destination for people that are interested in beer and wine or interested in the canal how do we add to that how do we add to what's already happening there and uh i i really think like you said and it's not just because i opened a business there lockport has momentum and uh it really does and that's even taking away what we're doing from it the fact that more people are now coming um i think it's a really exciting time to be involved in that city and uh you know we're not from lockport but i feel like now we are of lockport and uh and they've been great to us yeah i and that's what i like about it is that it's you know now you've got a community around you to be able to build up i know again like some great restaurants that are in the area so everybody's going to be embracing each other and you've got your own purpose that's that's there what's your uh what's your address there so it's four lock street okay um and uh it's like i said directly across the street from the canal you can see from our back patio you can see lake effect ice cream um we are in walking distance of stooge's restaurant which does a great job lock 34 steamworks coffee they're all i know within yards of us um right you can see the lockport farmers market from our back patio a lot a lot going on and we have um our loctober fest is this saturday so um right it's uh it's a town that absolutely enjoys its beer and the other thing too for us like we're not we're not precious about it like we we're always going to feature craft band beers we're passionate about it but they're also going to be miller life ponies and jenny like cream ale and all that utica club utica club there you go so we we um more than anything we just want to be a place where people want to come and we look at it as how do we build a bar and taproom that we would want to go to so um that's what our that's what our focus is and it's been really fun it's uh you know and what you just described about what you could see from the front and the back of your business is you could really just park in one spot and do one gigantic you know circle on a saturday and hit everything that you would want to hit i think too like if you think about maybe a year from now big ditch open excited about twisted lock like all of that is in real walking distance like we can see the top of the big ditch building from our front door it's it's a small town so right um you can spend a day and then what we've seen is it's a great destination if you like to cycle yep um all along the the erie canal on the empire state trail so a lot of different ways to get to us well seth it's always a pleasure to be able to talk tack tap and craft i'm you know for one excited i love this event every year uh let's let the people know where they can find you on social media so they can follow up with all the updates that are going to be coming in the next few weeks so uh it's basically tap underscore craft is our handle on both instagram and facebook uh tap and craft.com is our um is our website and the lock tender all one word is our handle uh on on uh facebook and instagram for the for the new place all right seth thanks so much thank you sitting down with me once again really appreciate it i do really look forward to this every year so uh it's good stuff thank you very much it's going to be a lot of fun it will it will
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