Buffalo’s burgeoning beer scene has been featured in Travel+Leisure.com. Not only has writer Sean Flynn managed to capture the lay of the land when it comes to breweries, he also managed to get a pretty neat rendering from Big Ditch Brewing Company that depicts the interior of the brew pub operation (inset).
Flynn discusses the Golden Days of brewing, the Prohibition Era, and what it took to get Buffalo brewing back off the ground – namely the Craft Beer Act. Today, breweries are not only opening up left and right in Buffalo, their craft creations can be found at almost every bar in the region. That’s pretty cool if you think about it, considering that all of this has happened in a relatively short period of time.
Today we have access to a lot more local craft beers for a couple of reasons. It just so happened that Buffalo had a bunch of empty buildings that turned out to be perfect for the blossoming brewery scene. Then there were people such as Ethan Cox (co-founder Community Beer Works), along with other at the NYS Brewers Association board (Executive Director Paul Leone and President Dave Katleski), who went out on a limb to hand deliver the outdated brewing regulations to Albany (with the help of Assemblyman Sean Ryan) in hopes of sweeping change. Thanks to those efforts, there are fewer regulations on local brewers. In fact, if a beer lover is so inclined to “down” a pint at Community Beer Works, that is not only possible, but quite trendy. Will wonders ever cease?
Lead image: Community Beer Works