Buffalo's Big Ditch Brewing celebrates 10 years

In that time, the Buffalo brewery has become one of the largest craft breweries in WNY.

If Big Ditch Brewing’s first 10 years in business were marked by starts, stops, pivots, expansions, and Hayburner, brewery president/co-founder Matt Kahn expects the next 10 years to be quieter. At least, that’s what he’s hoping for.

Big Ditch celebrates its 10th anniversary this Saturday at its 55 E. Huron St. facility in Buffalo with a block party that’ll feature live music, giveaways, and the return of some special beers. It’ll run from 1 to 9 p.m. Tickets for the event can be purchased here.

In order to hear all about it, however, you’ve gotta catch up to Kahn for a few minutes. That’s exceedingly difficult, because he hasn’t been able to slow down in the last decade (the brewery actually started releasing beer in 2014 and opened its downtown Buffalo taproom in May 2015). Luckily, I was able to steal him away recently for a few minutes as he made the drive from Buffalo the brewery’s new taproom/restaurant in Lockport, Niagara County.

“It feels pretty good to get here,” Kahn said. “It goes so fast but yet it also goes so slow. I think the saying is the years go fast and the days are long. That’s how we feel. I think that’s pretty accurate. Ten years is a milestone and we’re proud to make it this far.”

Kahn and co-founder Corey Catalano met while working at a biotech firm in 2011 and started homebrewing together after they realized they shared a nerdy passion for craft beer. That quickly spiraled into thoughts of starting their own brewery. And after taking on two partners, Wes Froebel and Paul Iskalo, they found an Iskalo-owned building in downtown Buffalo, a former Verizon fleet vehicle maintenance facility, and began re-imagining the spot that seemingly had the perfect bones for a brewery.

Iskalo through his Iskalo Development Corp. has proven to be an ideal partner for the brewery as his firm has guided the brewery through three subsequent expansions and construction projects. I broke the news of the brewery planning a massive destination spot just off the Thruway in March 2020. That 105,000-square-foot facility in Cheektowaga, Erie County, was slated to open in late 2021. But the announcement coincided with the onset of the pandemic and plans were halted, at least for now.

To keep up with skyrocketing demand, Big Ditch added a 40-barrel production facility to its original 20-barrel spot during the pandemic. Again, Iskalo helped here. The new spot opened at 101 Oak St. in downtown Buffalo, just a few blocks from Huron Street.

Big Ditch started canning beers in 2016 and has grown into the largest brewery in the city of Buffalo, as well as one of the 10 largest independently-owned breweries in New York state.

The brewery started Rochester distribution in 2017 and during that time its flagship Hayburner IPA has morphed into a regional craft behemoth. It accounts for about 70 percent of the brewery’s production. Kahn estimates the brewery will make as many as 24,000 barrels of beer this year and could grow to as many as 30,000 barrels with its current capabilities and facilities. With a few more tanks, Kahn said Big Ditch could push as high as 45,000 barrels. Hayburner is the best-selling craft six pack at Wegmans throughout western New York, which is pretty wild when you consider the legacy brands and Rochester favorites (like Three Heads’ The Kind IPA and Rohrbach Scotch Ale) it competes against.

The new Lockport spot is located at 1 East Ave. in a historic old post office and was again made possible through the brewery’s ongoing partnership with Iskalo Developers. It opened earlier this year.

I’ll continue to trumpet the fact Big Ditch should continue its Erie Canal-centered growth 80 minutes east of its original home with a spot in Rochester. There’s no doubt Big Ditch would flourish here. But Kahn and the brewery are always more cautious and measured, which makes a lot of sense, I suppose, when you consider the current state of the beer industry. Big Ditch is well-positioned and insulated to come out the other side of whatever might happen.

It’s not how Kahn envisioned it. But here we are nonetheless.

“By the time it was year three or four, we were already way bigger than I thought we would be,” Kahn admitted. “The first five years, like until 2019, I was just trying to keep up. And now the last five years are like, ‘OK, what’s next?’ You have be ready, willing, and able to adapt. And we’re always doing that. We’re always flexible and adapting. That’s part of the reason that we’re still here and doing our thing.”

He continued, “I didn't expect this. I was on a rare vacation with family around 2018. And our sales manager Andrew (McDonald) called me and told me we had the number one-scanning craft six pack at Wegmans. That blew me away. I did not expect that. Our expectation was not to be this big. It’s been a blessing. It’s been amazing.”

Outside of producing quality beer, people are the secret to the brewery’s success, Kahn said. Many of the employees have been with the brewery since the start.

“We have a great staff,” he said. “The people are the most important thing. If you can get great people, it makes work easier and more fun.. Having good people makes it possible.”

So what are the lessons learned in the last 10 years — both as a business and an individual? For a second, I got Kahn to slow down and really think about this one. “Thinking about myself, that’s a really tough one,” he said.

The business? “You have to be flexible with just about everything, except for beer quality,” Kahn said. “We never take shortcuts there. With everything else, in terms of what we make and how we do it, it’s always about being flexible.”

Over the last 10 years, Kahn said the brewery has released more than 500 different beers. That's close to a new beer per week. (Important context, the brewery utilizes a 1-barrel pilot system for a lot of experimental, taproom-only releases.)

From a personal perspective? “You don’t know what you’re capable of,” Kahn said. “There were things I was capable of doing and am pretty decent at doing, better than I ever would’ve thought. Sometimes you don’t learn about what you’re capable of until you’re in a situation.”

(Pauses, exhales)

“Wow, I want to be able to answer it,” Kahn added. “I always try to grow as a person, as a co-worker, as a manager, whatever it is. It’s always been a lot of work. And just the kind of work has changed. It’s just different things every day. I am at the point where I want to start having some balance to my life. That is gonna be my focus for the next 10 years. Can we keep this going and also try to balance it out a bit more?”

And of course, I’ve gotta end the interview with asking about the future. Not that anyone can predict what might happen. But Kahn and Big Ditch are better positioned than most to wrestle with whatever might come next.

“It’s hard to have a five-year plan in this industry,” Kahn said. “Where do you want to be in five years? In this industry, things change so fast. So whatever you think it might be today and what it might look like in a year, those are going to be very different. We don't plan more than a year or two down the road. I think with Lockport opening and opening the brewery on Oak Street three years back, I don’t see any big capital projects or facilities opening in the next few years. I think we’re gonna try to hunker down and get the most out of the facilities we have.”

With the release of its non-alcoholic NA Burner last year, Kahn foresees more experimentation in non-beer or beyond beer categories.

“I don't know if they’ll be successful, but that’s where I see it going,” he concluded. “There are a lot of fun things we can do.”

A final note: It’s pretty wild to think I’ve been working on this independent publication for over two years now. In that time, I’ve published more than 250 newsletters, highlighted some of my favorite people in the industry, curated two beers festivals (that featured 150 participants and 4,600 attendees), and continued to break all the biggest news in the region (closures, consolidations, openings, etc.).

The Cleveland Prost remains the preeminent source for regional beer news. If you own a brewery, bar, or beer-adjacent business, this is the best place to reach the nerds you wanna be in front of. So I remain open to sponsorships, advertisements, and sponsored content. Feel free to reach out to me at clevelandprost@gmail.com for more. And more than anything, thanks for all the support. None of this would be possible without the devoted (and thirsty) audience.