Mortalis Brewing will open its Buffalo taproom next month

Plus, details on an awesome breast cancer fundraiser at Birdhouse Brewing, a wild new coffee release from Joe Bean, and my plea to open a German-style beer hall in Rochester.

Avon-based Mortalis Brewing announced on social media Monday that its third taproom will open next month. This one will be in Buffalo.

And if you could hear the excitement in Paul Grenier’s voice during our interview Tuesday, there’s no way you would miss this. Grenier, Mortalis CEO and co-founder, loves Buffalo. He says Buffalonians have embraced Mortalis since it opened its original Livingston County location in 2017

Mortalis Buffalo, which will open at noon on Thursday, Oct. 12, will be located at 1250 Niagara St. in Buffalo’s Lower West Side neighborhood. It’ll feature a partnership with Illumination Meadery. (More on that later.)

The Erie County expansion follows Mortalis opening its first satellite taproom near downtown Rochester at The Richmond last year and the remodeling of its original space off Interstate 390 in Avon.

“It’s the City of Good Neighbors and that’s legit,” Grenier said. “I noticed it the first time we walked into the space and somebody popped their head in. I was actually carrying a box and this person offered to get the door for me. I was taken aback. ‘Who are you?’ I was not used to that, by any means.”

The Buffalo spot features 24 draft lines, which will include up to eight meads from Illumination (both session and still), as well as Mortalis’ famous hyper-fruited sours on draft. (This is different from The Richmond, where those beers are only available in cans.) Grenier said the Buffalo draft system can handle the froot and noted there is much more cooler space to store kegs. Illumination’s production space is in the same building. Grenier said to also expect tap takeovers with many of the breweries Mortalis has collabed with and special events, too.

Grenier said the Mortalis crew is also “mega-excited” about expanding its food offerings to encompass a lot of beer-derived ingredients and accents. Imagine a salad with Hydra Balsamic vinaigrette dressing, different empanadas, burnt ends with a barrel-aged barbecue sauce, beer nachos with an IPA lime crema drizzle, and more.

“We’re gonna infuse the crap out of the menu with beer,” Grenier promised. “I am really excited to showcase chef Ian Marshall’s talents here.”

Originally, Grenier envisioned a summer opening. But once they got into the new location, they realized the existing farmhouse aesthetic (originally for a cider company tasting room) didn’t fit the Mortalis brand. So a decision was made to completely re-imagine it.

“The vibe inside was completely farmhouse, which is very cool, but we don’t even make a farmhouse saison,” Grenier said. “After we got in there, we were like, we need to make this our own. We need to gut it and start over.”

But in the grand scheme of things, that’s really not that bad, considering Mortalis only announced the new venture in late May.

“We really made it our own space here,” Grenier said. That includes really brightening the space with lighter tiles, LED lights, an Instagram-ready plant wall (which will be outfitted with plants from Daddy’s Plants, Mortalis’ new neighbor and one of my favorite follows on social media), an expanded kitchen, and new window treatments.

Of note, the Niagara Street building is also home to Twin Petrels hard seltzer (in the original home of Resurgence Brewing).

Grenier is thrilled to be joining the expansive Buffalo beer scene, especially as two other Rochester-area breweries, Canandaigua’s Frequentem and Penfield’s K2 Brothers, will also have auxiliary spaces in the city. (Note: K2 already does.)

Photo (provided): Use your imagination here for a second, but this is gonna be a super vibrant plant wall with greenery provided by Mortalis’ new neighbor, Daddy’s Plants.

“There are a lot of craft breweries here,” Grenier said. “Buffalo is a massive beer-drinking town and we’ve got a lot of friends from our area coming here. We’re not the only ones who have realized the incredible potential in Buffalo.”

The plant wall is emblazoned with the hashtag, #WeAreAllMortalis, which has been the brewery’s guiding philosophy since its humble beginnings as a homebrewing partnership between Grenier and Dave Luckenbach. Mortalis garnered an early following through homebrew deliveries from Grenier and Luckenbach. It allowed the crew to gain valuable feedback and also connected them with future fans, many of whom became eager customers.

“We didn’t really deliver a lot of beer there (in Buffalo) during the homebrewing days,” Grenier said. “We didn’t advertise there. I don’t even know how word spread. But the second we opened those doors in Avon, it was really incredible the amount of people we got from Buffalo. We never understood it. I’m not sure we will ever understand what drove those people to come see us every week, for every release we did. After we opened The Richmond, the only other logical choice for us was going to Buffalo.”

Birdhouse Brewery run supports breast cancer group

At 11 a.m., Oct. 22, Honeoye’s Birdhouse Brewing, along with the WoodsEdge Retreat, are hosting the third annual Hopson 5K — Give Cancer the Bird. The 5k run/walk, this year, is supporting the volunteer-led Embrace Your Sisters, a local organization providing financial assistance to folks battling breast cancer. So not only does this event support a great cause, it’s a great excuse to go to Honeoye and enjoy some great Birdhouse beers.

Early entrants receive a t-shirt and a “coveted, heavy duty, insulated grocery tote bag,” according to race organizer Paul Erickson. The race begins and ends at the brewery. All participants also receive a finisher medal, pint of beer, donuts from Dainty Donuts, and local cider.

Joe Bean Coffee’s nifty release

Admittedly, I don’t know a thing about coffee. (I’ve had less than 10 cups of coffee in my life.) I get nerdy about other beverages, but this latest project from Rochester-based Joe Bean Roasters sounds super, super cool. It is releasing its Maritza carbonic maceration coffee, which is sourced from Nicaragua.

The coffee is produced through both traditional coffee and wine processing techniques. (I’ve had a few wild ales produced through carbonic maceration and I think the process is wildly fascinating.) Basically, it uses this new processing technique first introduced by Saša Šestić, winner of the 2015 World Barista Competition. According to a release from Joe Bean, this “fusion of the worlds of coffee and wine opens up new possibilities for coffee farmers, as well as coffee drinkers.”

Coffee cherries are sorted, then immersed in an oxygen-free tank closely monitored until the right conditions are realized. All of the “aromatics and flavors being produced have nowhere to escape, so they get infused directly into the cherry (and bean) — resulting in fresh, vibrant coffees with wine-like characteristics.

The new coffee, which features notes of fresh apple, pineapple, prosecco, sweet lime, and watermelon, is available right now at joebeanroasters.com and also at the roastery at 565 Blossom Road in the city of Rochester.

I don’t know squat about coffee, but I am super excited for this one.

Buffalo Beer Geeks fest

My buddies in Buffalo are looking for Rochester folks and breweries to participate in their most excellent yearly celebration, Collabeeration. It’s a cool opportunity, because beer geeks have the opportunity to meet with, plan, and then brew collaborative beers with participating breweries — both in the Buffalo and Rochester regions.

For more info, you can check out the pinned post in the Buffalo Beer Geeks Facebook group or visit the web address in the flyer.

Food for thought

Rochester really lacks a German-style beer hall. It needs big communal tables, plenty of TVs to watch soccer on a Saturday or Sunday morning. So that’s why I think someone (or even me) should open a Wolff’s Biergarten here.

My buddy and I recently spent a Sunday morning in Albany at the original Wolff’s location watching Liverpool of the English Premier League along with a bar full of other boisterous supporters. (I am not a Liverpool fan. I root for second-division Blackburn Rovers btw.) The experience featured great sausages and fresh steins of German beer. It was dreamy. And it got us thinking, why doesn’t Rochester have an establishment like this?

So I am proposing someone open a Wolff’s Biergarten location in Rochester. I’ve been to all three locations now and never had a bad time. There are now locations in Albany, Syracuse, and Schenectady. I’ll happily be a business partner in this venture. (And no, I haven’t yet cleared this with my wife. But what could go wrong?) Rochester needs a German-style beer hall.

(It never hurts to dream.)