Buffalo's Thin Man Brewery closing its original Elmwood Ave. taproom

Thin Man opened the Elmwood spot in 2016 and then followed with its Chandler St. location in 2019.

Thin Man Brewery announced plans Monday to close its original Elmwood Avenue taproom and restaurant.

The Buffalo brewery will shutter its taproom and restaurant at its original location, 492 Elmwood Ave., while continuing to operate the 15-barrel brewery there. Its second taproom at 166 Chandler St. will remain open to the public.

The brewery opened the Chandler location, with its larger 30-barrel brewhouse, in 2019 and maintains a partnership with Tappo Pizzeria. Chandler will remain focused on flagship production, while Elmwood will continue to pump out small-batch offerings. Another operator could come in and open a restaurant at Elmwood.

During its run, Thin Man has garnered a loyal following for its wide range of styles, vibrant labels, and huge (and I mean HUGE) number of collaborative beers. Thin Man’s flagship beers, including its Pils Mafia Pilsner, Minkey Boodle raspberry sour, and Bliss double IPA, are among the best offerings in this region.

Elmwood will close its doors Wednesday. Citing challenges brought about by COVID in 2020, the brewery said patrons never returned to the Elmwood location in numbers that matched earlier ones. The Chandler location remains super busy, according to Yvon Paul Pasquarello, Thin Man’s director of sales and marketing.

“It has been a challenge for us to keep Elmwood open,” Pasquarello said. “The industry itself has changed dramatically since COVID. We’ve tried to match those changes, but the crowds we saw pre-COVID, we weren’t really seeing them as much any more. It made the business there untenable. Having two taprooms open at the same time just became too much of a burden.

“It was a really difficult decision, but one we had to make.”

Pasquarello, who previously worked in sales for industry heavyweights like Three Floyds, Bell’s, and Oskar Blues, said demand for Thin Man’s small-batch offerings is skyrocketing. He added that the brewery can’t keep up with demand for Minkey Boodle, too. So the brewery isn’t changing what it produces, it is just shrinking its footprint in Buffalo. A new tenant will eventually take over the Elmwood kitchen/restaurant, he added.

“The brewery is still ours,” Pasquarello said. “We’re keeping it, because it’s vital to our business. It represents a huge portion of what we do, and that has never really changed. Anything that comes out that’s special from us comes from Elmwood — our ability to produce small-batch lagers, small-batch IPAs, sours, all the things that people follow us and love us for.

“We have to keep that Elmwood brewhouse open.”

Pasquarello said the brewery just added a second brewer to the Elmwood location to keep up with demand and might need to hire a third brewer there.

Personally, every time I see a Thin Man one-off drop in Rochester, I grab it. The brewery continues to pump out an incredible range of lagers, sours, and IPAs. I just had its seventh anniversary IPA last weekend and thoroughly enjoyed it.

As demand has increased for its experimental and one-off offerings, Pasquarello said the brewery has pivoted. It originally dialed back that production, “because we thought that’s what the market wanted.” But the core business, particularly in distribution, is up for the first time in three years. Minkey Boodle is up 30 percent, while its Trial by Wombat IPA is up 35 percent this year. “We didn’t expect this,” Pasquarello said.

Pasquarello joked that he can’t escape Minkey Boodle. He is reminded of it every day as he passes two tons of raspberry puree sitting right near his office at the brewery.

“We literally cannot keep Minkey in stock right now,” he said. “The production side has been off the charts.”

Still, it’s a sad day for Buffalo beer, Pasquarello acknowledged.

“That’s the space that built us,” he said. “A lot of wonderful people came through that space and gave us our identity. We’ll see what the future holds (for Elmwood). That little part of the business, which was a spiritually large part of the business, unfortunately just wasn’t tenable any more.”