It’s time to cast your vote, Buffalo. Yes, it is the last chance to vote… to help create Buffalo’s beer!
MyCity Brew’s (MCB) mission is to brew the ideal beer for the City of Buffalo, and bring our community closer together, over a beer that we can all agree on.
The team is one step closer to brewing the first beer, as chosen by the WNY community. The initial stage of the polling process is complete. Buffalo’s consensus is “lager”. Starting in January 2015, MCB collected about 5,000 votes from all over the region (the first round). That means that the initial leg of the journey is over – Buffalo will soon have a lager beer as its signature beer of choice.
While the overall “lager”decision has already been made, votes are still coming via the MCB website, Facebook page, and ballot boxes in various bars and restaurants, as well as at myriad brew festivals/events, notes Jonah Epstein, co-founder of MCB.
Eptein’s team is now in the process of narrowing down the lagers. Voters can choose between a pale lager, pilsner, a dunkel (descriptions and pictures on the poll), and suggest a different style of lager if one isn’t offered on the ballot. Beer lovers can also suggest an additional flavor or ingredient that they would like to add to the beer. Any common trends suggested among the community will be reflected in the test samples at the final selection event. Voters are asked to enter a zip code (so they know you’re from WNY) and an email address (voters are automatically entered into a contest to be taste testers on the final selection event panel). In the end, it is the voter that just helped to create Buffalo’s #1 beer of choice (the process takes less than 1 minute).
Once a particular lager is narrowed down, the team will formulate and brew four test batches which will be chosen by a select group of ambassadors during a taste testing event.
Adding to the excitement, Andrew Hardin, a lead brewer at Community Beer Works, will be formulating and brewing the samples for the final selection event based on the responses from the community. Jonah asked me to mention that he is also really grateful for help/direction from David Rivers, founder of Keg Works. It sounds as if Jonah has a lot of support in his corner, from some of the renowned beer experts in the community.
Beer lovers can still become taste testers in the MCB final selection event a few different ways:
- Vote. They pick weekly winners from our list of voters to be on the taste testing panel.
- Become an ambassador on the website. Any ambassador who refers 20 or more people to take the poll will be added to the taste testing panel. Just have your referrals select your name in the ambassador drop-down list.
- Follow MCB on social media. They do giveaways for taste testing roles and MyCity Brew apparel over social media regularly.
- Come to the events they are hosting. MCB is always promoting giveaways while they collect votes. You can find out which brew festivals and beer events they will be attending via social media.
MyCity Brew will select a Buffalo based brewer and distribute the beer to local restaurants, bars and retail outlets.
MyCity Brew is also crowdsourcing a few charities to donate a portion of the profits.
If you are a craft beer lover, be sure to vote for your choice today. If you have already voted, why not sign up to be an ambassador and take part in the final taste testing event?
Cheers!
Learn more… and more.