When we were asked by the WNY Beer Trail Pass to broadcast live from Brazen Brewing we graciously accepted. Thank you to Tom for thinking of us. The occasion? The release of the WNY Beer Trail Pass X Brazen Brewing collaboration, Trail Brazen, a deliciously light and inviting blueberry blonde ale. Jason talks with owner, Drew and brewer, Justin about the beginning of Brazen and what is exciting in brewing.
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The Buffalo Brews podcast. I feel like a DJ. Alright guys, I am Jason with Buffalo Brews podcast and we are coming to you live as part of Buffalo Brews podcast live from Brazen Brewing.
Working with these dual screens and trying to get everything up and running. We are at 5839 Genesee Street in Lancaster and we're here as part of the, well it's a collaboration. It's Brazen Brewing, it's the Western New York Beer Trail and they've come together to present a blueberry blonde known as Trail Brazen.
Cheers everybody. On this Thursday evening, the camera was turned around right now, it is snowing like nobody's business here right now. This is crazy.
So we're at Brazen Brewing and it's a husband and wife owned business by Drew and Ashley Schaub. Drew is going to be a special guest with us here in a few moments. And along with his father Herb, it was part of bringing this up and coming and they came to us in 2020.
They are Buffalo born and raised themselves. Brazen Brewing built around a seven barrel brew house, four seven barrel fermenters and one 15 barrel fermenter with 20 taps. I earlier had the No Grisette, which is a, a Grisette is a French hybrid farmhouse ale.
But we've moved on to the bell of the ball right now, the guest of honor, which is the blueberry blonde ale. Really good, really light, topped with blueberries. It's the only way you want to have it, right? So I wanted to thank Drew and Ashley for having me here for this event.
Going to be on for about 45 minutes to an hour. And also I wanted to thank Tom from the Western New York Beer Trail. He's a, you know, a two time guest of the podcast.
And actually bring that up there because I forgot my pass because, you know, what kind of guy would I be to actually be prepared for an episode of the Buffalo Brews podcast live? OK, so we're here. And again, we're at 5839 Genesee Street here until 6 p.m. But they are open until, I believe, 9 p.m. tonight, where you can come in and enjoy one of the many beers that they have on hand. 20 taps, like I said.
And one of the things that they are able to do tonight is bring you 75 cent wings. One of the, with 75 cent wings on Thursday night. And their chef came up with something really interesting for tonight, which was, this was the, I believe it was the, there we go, Flavor of the Week.
Favorite from a childhood cereal and the best cereal in existence. As they said, don't argue with them. And I wouldn't either.
Cinnamon toast crunch with crunch, sweet and a little bit of heat. And there's something to die for. So they do 75 cent wings every Thursday night here at Brazen Brewing.
They're going to be doing giveaways. They have half price appetizers when you sit down and bring in your pass from the Western New York Beer Trail. Come on in and have the Trail Brazen Blueberry Blonde.
Drew, you ready to go? Come on over. We're going to bring you up hot here. Yeah, you can, I mean, you can sit.
You can stand right where you're at. You know, what do you, so what are you enjoying here? Well, I'm drinking our bottom right now. Okay.
This is always a good stand by for me. I did have some of the Trail Brazen Blueberry Blonde earlier. So I'm switching over to something a little darker now that it's, well, it looks like a snow stopper.
It feels like, like a snowy box thing. All right. Trying to bring a, I don't know, for whatever reason, I think I, I don't know, did I bring up the wrong microphone here? Let's see if maybe that'll work for us.
Oh. Oh. Maybe I should turn the microphone on.
Maybe we'll turn it on there. That would help. I just run a restaurant.
I don't operate microphones. You're right. I do podcasts in my spare time.
There you go. So, Drew, so again, I was telling everybody that we're down here at 5839 Genesee Street here in Lancaster. And got a lot of, got a busy crowd here already tonight.
Yeah, it's good for a Thursday night, especially when, you know, snow's falling. And, you know, people decide to come out. So it's been good partnering with the Beer Trail and, you know, brewing the trailblazer, right? So I wanted to talk to you first of all about your, you got a homebrew background to start with.
I started off as a homebrewer 10 years ago. I'm sure there's plenty of brewers in Western New York and elsewhere that have started out that way. Me and Justin, the head guy, we started out in my garage and, you know, moved into my basement as things kind of escalated.
And then we decided to go full time. I was mentioning to you earlier, I thought it was, I like the fact that you guys went with a seven barrel system to start when you got going here. Yep.
Yeah. I wanted to talk to you about the facility because you guys, you've got a very unique story on how you actually made it to Lancaster as opposed to what was supposed to be. You were originally looking in the north town.
Yeah, yeah. We originally were looking in like the Kenmore, Tonawanda area. You know, the original business was centered in kind of that area in a strip mall or elsewhere if you could find it.
You know, and it was a much smaller scale. We were going to keep our jobs. You know, we were lucky enough to, you know, start exploring other options and really being able to customize what we wanted.
And, you know, eventually it became apparent that we should, you know, we should just start from the ground up, right? Yeah. Do it right. To some in the industry here, you are known as the brewery that Pinterest built.
Is it? Okay. Yeah. So I guess according to some background stories, the first time I ever met either of you guys, it was actually at the collaboration event at the powerhouse.
And when the concept was put together, like I don't even think you guys had really any plans in place. This was 20, I want to say 2019 or 2020. Yeah, that was probably our.
Yeah, so we probably. We hadn't broken ground yet. We had a plan of, you know, where we were going to open.
I think we probably had just purchased the land out here. So, yeah, plans were coming together. And, you know, as anyone will, you start kind of, you know, looking for inspiration from different places.
And, you know, Ashley and I, you know, while I was a home brewer, we had traveled extensively around the US and we always thought ourselves kind of, you know, ended up at breweries. And we'd like to think we took a lot of what we felt was the best aspects of breweries, given, you know, the different areas of places we have visited. We've been to Asheville, Denver, Portland, you know, down in North Carolina and Asheville.
And I mentioned Tampa, you know, a few other places and they're escaping me. But, you know, we went to a few different places, I'll say. You know, and we pulled the best from those areas.
So, yeah, I mean, it's good research to be able to get out and see how everything. And one of the things that we learned is it's aesthetics that goes to making a great brewery. You've definitely got something here, you know, a giant, almost industrial style steel building.
Was there any point that you thought that this might have been not enough space or perhaps too much space? It's sizable, but as we see, it's filled in quite nicely. Yeah, I mean, there's always a desire to have a little bit more space. You know, if I had to do things again, sure, I'd size things a little bit differently.
But, you know, it's tough to predict exactly the direction where you're headed when you're just kind of pen to paper. So, you know, things like a parking lot, a bigger parking lot would be awesome. Do you get that once in a while? Oh, yeah, once in a while, yeah, about every Saturday, Friday and Saturday night.
But, you know, we do things like Fridays and Saturdays. In the summertime, when we're, you know, peak busy, we have a valet. You know, so we do complimentary valets.
So you come on out, can't find a spot, throw your keys to the valet guys, he goes park your car for free. Throw him a little tip when you're done. I love it.
That's all it is. I love it. You know, we kind of get creative and, you know, do with what we can.
Okay. All right. Now the, when you, with the construction of the, now we've got the sizable patio, obviously.
It was snowing quite significantly here about 10 minutes ago, but it's since decided. Obviously, no patio open tonight. Bummer.
But between the outside and the inside space, I mean, you've got quite a bit of land here. Yeah. What kind of acres are we looking at here? Well, the property's two and a half acres.
But, you know, because we butt up against the residential property, we lose 50 feet on that side. We can't develop it. Oh, okay.
With setback rules. So, but we, you know, our tap room is about 3,000 square feet. We've got a 1,500 square foot mezzanine that we use for, you know, kind of overflow and private events.
So if you're looking for, you know, showers or baby showers or, you know, birthday parties, we do all that upstairs. We do rent out our patio. Okay.
You know, we'll do kind of like a little private area on the patio for you if you want. You know, our patio is sizable, right? We can fit 30 tables or so out there. So, you know, it's a good size space, right, for all you have.
And we're currently working on finishing our pergola out back. Yep. So we got a beer garden that's going to be finished for this year.
We'll have some nice landscaping back there. And, you know, we'll be all ready for whenever the heck this weather breaks. I know you guys are fortunate enough with this property also that you're very family-friendly, dog-friendly.
Yep. Which is big with folks. Yeah.
Unique to us, you know, we have a good patio that's outside. So, you know, if you've got a pup, you want to bring your pup out, you can keep them on the patio, no problem, right? Unfortunately, health code can't bring them inside. Rules are rules.
Rules are rules. That's right. But, you know, patio's all game.
So that and the beer garden, you're all good. Okay. All right.
Now, even early on, you guys had a solid food game. And that continues now. I remember doing things like having your fly flight.
Go ahead. And your brunch that you do on Sundays. I've been out here once before for the brunch.
What kind of things do you have as far as your food? How does that evolve? You know, we really like kind of keeping it fresh. So every three months or so, you know, my wife who's really in charge of the food program, she works with the kitchen and our lead guys back there to come up with some new and exciting things, right? So, you know, everything from the wing flavors that are coming out every Thursday. You know, like this Thursday, today, we've got a cinnamon toast crunch dry rub wing that we're doing on special right now.
So that's a fun one. It's got like a little bit of honey sauce. And then it's like just tossed in cinnamon toast crunch cereal.
Okay. And it's really interesting. But it works, right? It's like the sweet and savory, right? Sure.
They come up with something new every week? Yeah, every week we come up with something new. You know, it'll always be posted on Facebook and Instagram. You know, so we're working on doing some different burger flavors, some kind of more exciting things, you know, like peanut butter and jelly burger and grilled cheeseburgers and kind of mashing up some stuff, right? So, you know, those guys in my life are working on keeping it fresh.
So we always want to keep something new and interesting coming. Yeah, it's good. And then you have, what is it, Friday lunch specials? Yeah, during the day on Friday for lunch.
Yeah, we have soup and a sandwich, you know, half sandwich, half soup and a pint of beer. Oh, my God. I wish I could remember what the price was.
That's okay. It's on the side. That's okay.
We'll post it afterwards. Yeah. I mean, you would find it interesting that being as rural as you are that you actually do have quite a bit of business around here where people would roll in.
12,000 cars a day go down Genesee streets in front of us. So as rural as we are, we're not, it's seemingly rural, right? I mean, we're three minutes from transit. Okay.
So it's really not that far out. We get a ton of people coming in from out in Darien and Akron and Alden and all that good stuff. But plenty of people from Cheektowaga.
Plenty of people from Tonawada. Plenty of people from West Seneca, right? Yeah. It's great.
It's been great. It's always one of my favorite stops when I'm golfing out at Chestnut Hill. There you go.
And I'll come back through here. We get tons of golfers. Thurnman Club, Fox Valley, Chestnut Hill.
They're all around here, right? With most breweries around the area here, they get into their mug club, loyalty club, so to speak. But yours has a unique name to it. Yes.
Poor Decisions. Yep. Cheers to Poor Decisions.
Yeah. So we, yeah, we, I wanted to make something fun and, you know, kind of name it kind of in a fun, lighthearted way, right? Poor Decisions, right? Everyone gets to make a Poor Decision. It was so good.
It just, it was so malty, so, so, so, just juicy IPA. Like, it just, it was so good. I don't, it was like, it was like eating a creamsicle.
Like, it was so good. And it just, my God, like there was no lactose, there was no adjuncts, nothing in there. It was just pure hops, right? And we got such a great review of that, great reviews of that.
Great feedback from the bar. And that's one that, it's on the roadmap to come back. So, I guess, long story short, the good part is, being one of the owners, I can bring back those beers that I really love.
Might be a better question for Justin, because I feel like he sometimes gets stifled a little bit, you know, if he wants to brew something. But, you know, if it doesn't necessarily sell well, you got to follow that. Got to do what you got to do.
But that was a good one. That one's going to come back. So we're definitely going to can that one.
What would be a beer you would like to bring back? West Coast. Okay. Well, we do it West Coast all the time.
Here, have a mic. Come here, drag. We're going to drag him right in here.
Here we go. We're going to keep up this conversation. I wish I remembered that one name of a beer.
Who's Green Eye? Green Eye. Green Eye. That's the one I would like to bring back.
Okay. And that was one that we really enjoyed as well. Yeah.
We probably talked about that. We've been filtering through a bunch of different West Coasts. The balance of IPAs on the board.
Right. We do have a lot of people that seem to like the New Englands. And they also want something different.
Snowbird, right now. Okay. You were talking earlier about favorite beers and stuff.
Sure. To be honest, that's one that we've gotten a ton of feedback on. And people loved it.
So, honestly, it's one of my favorite beers right now, too. Alright. I like a lot of our beers.
I mean, I like them all. It's like your children, right? Right. I've got to say that? Right.
Is that right? Yeah. It's all amazing. Don't tell the others, but you're my favorite.
You're like eating sand over there. You're like, yeah. I don't know about that guy.
He's been staring at the ceiling fan for the last 14 hours. The sad thing is, that's me in the corner of the brewery. He knows that.
He's like, that guy, yeah. Don't touch that guy. When you're just running on fumes.
Well, I guess I should back up the questions a little bit. Because now that I've got you kind of in the captain's seat here. You've been cornered.
Right. So, we were talking about more of the beers that you have on hand. We were talking about historical, like you said.
Asking your favorite kind of beer. Like you said, all your children. It's hard to pick a favorite.
What would you say to actually how the future of brewing at Raisin. How does that look to you? I mean, I think we keep refining everything. That's the best way I can say it.
And the other thing is just trying new things. I love when Drew and Ashley give me a lot of free reign. To basically do whatever the heck I want.
Which, the nice thing, within limits, obviously. But it's amazing. One of the ones that I'm very excited about is Liche.
We have a sour that we're going to be coming out pretty soon with Liche in it. And I just had Liche fruit for the first time in a drink. Never had it.
Yeah, it is. It is incredible. And I cannot wait for us to have it.
That's going to be exciting. Yeah. And it literally was from one of the gentlemen that worked here.
And he went ahead and gave me. He's like, hey, try this out. And I go, what has it got in it? He goes, Liche.
And I'm like, oh my god. It's a substitute. And that's what it was.
So, we're going to have a sour. But one of the other ones that I'm really excited about, too, is the one that I actually brewed today. Which is going to be our Dry Rushed Apple.
The name might be pending. We changed some things. We did some things.
But we're also, hopefully, if we can get everything in place, which, if I can announce it now, is we're going to have Nitro. Which I think will be more exciting than anything. Because it just adds a different element to beer.
A little smoother. A little creamier mouthfeel. Yeah.
And I think it would be cool to have that side-by-side comparison. Right? We came off a few. We put something in Nitro.
We have something in Nitro. Just to give that element of difference. Sure.
There's something to be said for tiny bubbles. Anything? Yeah. Well, that's basically it.
It's, you know, we're all about trying to, you know, improve quality. Right? So, anything I can do to improve customer experience or quality. We put in the Lucre faucets.
We serve two of our lagers out of the Lucre faucets. We have side-pulls. Right? It allows you to get a little creamier mouthfeel.
A little more wet foam as they advertise it. But it definitely does impart an improvement in the beer. Right? So, you get a better experience.
Right? So, you know, Justin and I are really focused on trying to improve that quality and that consistency. You know, to bring it to the tap room. And, you know, really just try that at home in every decision we make.
So, you know, I'm excited about the lychee beer and, you know, the dry ice that we got coming. You know, we're going to try it on nitrile. We're going to see if we can get it poured like a Guinness.
And, you know, it'll be another kind of, you know, another experience that we'll be able to offer to people. I love it. I love it.
You guys are, you know, it's five years you're coming up on. Three. Three.
Three. Three. Three.
Three. Oh, my gosh. It feels like five.
Ten. Yeah, ten. 2020 concept.
2022. We were working on brazing since 2019. It takes a lot of effort to get to where we are.
You know, even just opening your doors isn't the stop of things. Right? As evidenced by, you know, we talked about the sidebowl faucets and, you know, the nitrile faucet. And different opportunities that we have to improve things.
It just, you know, it takes a lot of effort. Well, I mean, you've got a fantastic facility out here. You've got, you know, 24 white hot taps here that are going on.
Probably before I leave, I'm going to have to mess around with this rosé beer because I like rosé and hibiscus. That's a fun one. And again, a fun concept.
Yes, it is. That's actually one we're going to bring to the Brewer's Invitational. Yeah, we'll have it.
Because it will be unique and different. We like to do that. We always like to promote that festival because it is for that.
The brewers are bringing whatever they want, which is great. Yeah, that's one of those weird ones we like to do. It's purple.
Like, it looks like wine. It's just, that's the whole idea. It's to be a wine-inspired beer, and it really nails it.
Guys, thank you so much. Maybe we'll finish it up with a cheers. A third of a glass cheers.
Hey, I want to give a shout-out to Western Spirit Trail, too. Tom's hanging out here. Tom's just off-camera here.
He's just off-camera. He's just observing. But, you know, thanks to him for kind of approaching us on this collaboration idea.
And, you know, the beer trail's been great. You know, it's one of those, you know, those great kind of collaboration efforts. You know, he puts out a great product, and I'm so excited.
I'm so happy that there's, you know, something that really connects kind of the community here and really drives a lot of traffic to places like us, right? People seek us out because they have a trail pass, and they've never heard of us. They see that in the book, and it really helps, and we appreciate that. Yeah, we see how many people come in with that, and it's incredible.
It really is. It's just, you know, any way to help the breweries and the local community, to have partners like that, it's amazing. Because Buffalo is a great place for beer, right? And we've got to keep embracing that.
Yeah. And somebody to aid that with us, to get people who've never had beer before just to buy these passes. It's exactly, absolutely, exactly.
Yeah. So, thank you, Tom. Thank you, Tom.
Thank you, Tom. All right, guys. Thanks so much.
Cheers again. Thanks for joining us. Appreciate it.
Cheers. Cheers. Salud.
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