Displaying Mission posts.

I’m going to lead with the time sensitive stuff, because this week’s update is a doozy.

I'm the map, I'm the map, I'm the map, I'm the map...

This Saturday! CBW will reprise its role in the production of Guys Brew Beer and Talk About Their Brewery at the Bidwell farmers market. I assume you’re all familiar with Bidwell, but it’s a farmer’s market. You can get rabbit there! And also things that are not rabbit.

We’ll be brewing a batch of In C, our APA, and will be fully staffed to talk to you about CBW, embeering Buffalo, beer, Discordianism, Terry Riley and all other manners of things. Perhaps you would like to yell at me because the Words With Friends tournament is taking so long (it’s moving, I swear!) Or you have questions about the TTB process, or the building, or our recipes. Or, you know what? Maybe you just want to say hi and get some fresh vegetables. You can do that too.

We will of course be selling t shirts, too, both the don’t-call-it-orange Embeer Buffalo design and what few we have left of the original beer glass logo. I know we push the shirts a lot, but until we can sell beer it’s our only source of income, and witty blog posts like this don’t come cheap, if you know what I’m saying.

We’ll be getting started bright and early and going until the afternoon at least, so please: come say hi!

Now then, less time sensitive but by no means less awesome: Buffalo Beer Week, June 19-26.

“Embeer Buffalo” isn’t just a phrase on a t shirt. It may be slightly silly, but we mean it. We are dedicated to improving the beer culture of our city. This helps our business, yes, but it’s also something we feel strongly about on a personal level. We’re starting a brewery in large part because we want to embeer Buffalo: we just didn’t have the words for it yet.

Well, we are!

That’s why we see Buffalo Beer Week as being core to our ethos: what better way to encourage beer culture than with a week devoted to showcasing the best the city has to offer? There are going to be special events, deals, tastings, all manner of fun and exciting things to take part in. We’re going to help with the coordination of the week in every way we can. Almost everything is still in planning, though, so official announcements will have to come a bit later.

Where will these announcements be? Why, take your social media pick! There’s the official website, of course, but for you Zuckertonians out there a Facebook page has been procured. If you prefer updates in more of a 140 character nature, @buffalobeerweek has you covered.

As the week grows closer, more bars and restaurants will be announcing specifics. Watch this space, and the Buffalo Beer Week websites, and maybe some of the other pages and sites of people and places you follow. Who knows!

See you all Saturday, hopefully.

Exciting times abound here at CBW.

Beer! Science! How can you not think this is awesome?

Are you going to Beerology this Saturday? We hope to see you there. I’m actually going to be part of the homebrewing area with the Niagara Association of Homebrewers, because of course I think that making beer is awesome and everyone should do it. It’s sold out (we tried to warn you), but for those of you with tickets CBW would love it if you’d pop over and say hi.

Also don’t forget our shindig at the Blue Monk on the 18th. It approaches quickly! The fine folks at Buffalo Rising have even written up a piece about it! In it, Ethan reveals our new slogan. Motto. War chant.

Embeer Buffalo!

I actually learned, while reading their article, that Ethan’s son was responsible for the phrase. I realized I hadn’t asked too many questions: someone had said ‘embeer Buffalo’ and I replied ‘hell yeah embeer Buffalo!’ And then Chris rolled his eyes at us, because it’s a bit silly. We get it.

However, it also perfectly encapsulates what CBW is, in my opinion. We’re trying to bring beer — great beer — to Buffalo, to help make it a place people name when they think of great beer cities, and we’re not going to take ourselves too seriously while we do it. We’re dedicated, passionate and not afraid to reference the Principia Discordia on our About page.

Ewige bierkraft!

All this rallying of troops comes at an opportune time, as well: today is the anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition. Prohibition was a Big Deal for the American beer culture, and for Buffalo in particular. Before the Noble Experiment, there were 25 breweries in the city (down from a high of 38 in 1875). After Prohibition, there were five. This increased to 10 in 1940 before dwindling down again, finally resting at 0 in 1972 (these numbers are from Rushing the Growler, which is out of print but available at your local library).

There are currently two breweries in the city of Buffalo: Pearl St and Flying Bison. This increases to three if you count the Buffalo Brewpub, which is technically outside the city limits. These are not our competitors. These are our allies. If we want to increase Buffalo’s bierkultur — and we do — then it’s a marathon, and a three (or more) legged one at that, because we all have to do it together.

That includes you. See you all at Beerology.

Let me tell you, being on the front page? Awesome and unexpected!

Oh look it's my foot!

(don’t get the paper? It’s also available on the intertubes)

The article does a good job of summarizing who we are and what we’re looking to do. It also spills the beans on the precise location we’ll be in, so let me be very clear: 13 Lafayette Avenue is going to kick some ass. We have plans, lots of them, and we hope to put the ‘community’ in our name to good use.

So then, what’s next? Our equipment is on order and the zoning board meeting is fast approaching. We’re hard at work making sure we’ve done our due diligence with the neighbors: we want you to like us, after all!

See everyone back here in a few days, for our weekly Thirsty Thursday update.

I Poop On Bass Pro: Look At Meeeeeee!

This blazing, humid, and generally oppressive week,  we’ve attended our first couple of neighborhood organization or block club meetings, partly in pursuit of a variance to use the location in which we’d very much like to establish ourselves.  I qualify with “partly” only because to be certain, even if we could use this space free-and-clear, we’d still want to get to know our neighbors and seek their blessing if not their, em, permission.  In any case, both meetings were very interesting and positive affairs.

"Next on the agenda: Beer. All in favor say 'Aye'"

In some respects it was pretty familiar to me, in that I have been marginally involved in the neighborhood group my family’s own house is in, just as my mom was in that house and organization before me.  So for that, I was acquainted with the types of people and personalities that tend to get involved in these great  organizations; the kinds of issues that are typically on the agenda (crime and abandoned houses, anyone?); the presence of a real(!) councilman  (viz. Mr. David Rivera, with whom we’ve previously met); the meeting location in a local community center and/or church… I was perfectly comfortable in the culture of the proceedings.

And yet, it was a bit odd to be not only not at my own neighborhood group, but also in the position of being an agenda item and wondering how people would take the concept.  I felt a bit–just a bit, mind you–like Daniel Plainview, talking to the landholders in Little Boston.  Were we not basically walking in saying: “Hey! We wanna open a small brewery around the corner from you, you know, make some beer and all… oh, and yeah, we’re also going to help make the place a little better, too, so, em… what do you think of that?”

"There Will Be Beer"

The reply we heard the most?  ”Did you bring samples?”*  I’d go with ‘that’s not bad’ on that one, right?  Well, other than having to affirm the negative on it, yeah.  I think, especially not having gallons of homebrew to (legally: homebrew!!!) share, it was helpful that we were otherwise very prepared.  We did a lot of preliminary research, devoured other’s blogs and experiences.  We’ve talked extensively with the city Zoning Board of Appeals, with the councilman’s office,  with others in City Hall and beyond.

Closer to the ground, we’ve  made outreach to grassroots organizations in the area with more to come, and we have ‘approaching area businesses‘ next on our to-do list.  We have a petition that’s been seen to by, you know, one of those fancy lawyer types! We’ve reached out to immediate neighbors already as well, and anticipated stakeholder’s concerns with respect to smell, waste, vermin, traffic, security, and the unsurprising “it’s not a bar, it’s a brewery” question, of course, the trickiest one.  I mean yeah: on-site growler sales, tasting room?  check… Events?  um, check… but no: music and drunken revelry at 3:00 am?  Not at all, ma’am.  And maybe we can help you next year to get volunteers for your block party… and that vacant lot?  You mean our future brewer’s garden and gathering space?  And would you like some spent grain for your garden mulch pile or urban-chicken feed?  In these and other ways, we will be part of your-our-community.  I think our sincerity and capability in this endeavor were well-estimated.

A steaming pile of future mulch or chicken feed!

All of this in pursuit of a mission, to open a brewery like Buffalo has not seen since–no: well before–prohibition, when it comes to volume and to process;  from the time of the first wave of breweries in the 1860s and 1870′s, at the cusp of massive  industrialization.  A brewery that is small, a process that is human-labor intensive and in touch with the myst’ree of brewing.  But the modern twist is the idea–still somewhat atavistic–of being this hyperlocal business committed to, rooted in, the people it serves.  A business that is truly a part of the fabric of its community.  Attending the block club meetings has only been a first step, and it has been inspiring.  It’s great fun to contemplate all the ways in which we are eager to be a constructive, beer-making force in our city generally and our neighborhood specifically.

And then, perhaps, neighborhoods?  Could we extend the model to other benighted areas?  Beer as social activism?  Perhaps; we’ll see.

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* Also: “How many jobs will you be making?”  Is that not a sign of the times?

... or breweries

There is more than one thing we intend to make at Community Beer Works, once we really get rolling.  Sure, we’re gonna make a whole lot of beer,  beer that you really, really want to drink! But we also formed this company because we strongly believe that a brewery–or any other business–can make a difference in the world, can help make the world a better place.  We don’t want to be simply in a community, we want to be of a community.

(This is one of the reasons, incidentally, that our efforts vis-a-vis location have been ponderous; we want to be a neighborhood brewey to whatever extent we can be so-situated.  Local zoning, however, wants us to be in a medium-industrial zone, as if we’re treading heavily on resources and gushing forth waste. O! outdated zoning code: free us, ZBA!)

Needlessly Static And Unresponsive

So, how will we do that? Quite frankly, we think simply making beer actually counts- it’s dual purpose!  Historically, alcoholic libations have tended, overall, to encourage positive social iteractions and generate productive conversations.  Sure, overindulging can drive that the other way, and some people maintain decorum better than others when under even a little influence, but as a whole, we think alcohol, drunk responsibly, is a beneficent thing.  Though Franklin didn’t say it, beer certainly is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.  Also Dionysus, Ninkasi and Tezcatzontecatl.

We’ve generated a number of interesting schemes, and we’ll be revealing them as we move along, but I wanted to take this Thirsty Thursday to point out one such initiative emanating from the retail side of things, specifically from our local mega-purveyor of things beery, Consumers Beverage.  You can go on to their specific page about it here, but let me sum it quickly for you: Between July 13 and Aug 14, you can donate your 5-cent bottle/can redemptions, on the spot, to the Buffalo City Mission.  It’s actually part of a larger program, which you can find out more about here or here, in which the City Mission is getting people to pledge to return bottles–anywhere–and donate those proceeds to their campaign.  But Consumers upped the ante by making it so very easy to give.  In fact, I’m off to Consumers right after I finish writing this.  I nearly always have empty bottles around, don’t you?

This Thirsty Thursday, a tip of the hat to Consumers, and why not make a personal pledge to clean out the recycling bin before Aug 14th, and help feed a person in need.  Thanks!