What time, you ask? Why, beer festival time!

Next weekend is Belgium Comes to Cooperstown. I’m personally incredibly excited, since I’ve wanted to attend for years now: each year I’d say “Next year!” and, without fail, the next year I’d forget or be busy. “Next year!” I’d say. This year I’m going as a brewer. That’s pretty damn awesome, if I do say so.

Ahem. That doesn’t help you. What does is information on what beer we’ll have! We’re bringing two beers:

• Rutherford B. Haze, our Belgian pale ale with wheat, and
• Jam X, an unnamed Belgian IPA brewed with amarillo and pacific jade hops and fermented with Westmalle yeast

Personally, I think “Jam X” is a good enough name on its own. BEERS. IN. SPAAAAAACE.

The very next weekend is the Buffalo Brewfest! Friday, August 9th we’ll be at the First Niagara Center, pouring beer at what was certainly my first real introduction to the wide selection of craft beer, all those years ago.

The Brewfest will be like this, but we have beer now!

Farther out, but still closer than I tend to think, is the Ballpark Brew Bash. That’s Saturday, September 21 at Coca Cola Field.

The Brew Bash is near the start of 2013’s Buffalo Beer Week! September 20-29, 10 full days of excellent beer events in Buffalo and the surrounding suburbs. Events will be announced shortly, fear not, and I doubt you’ll be able to throw a stone without hitting something fun to do.

Don’t throw stones, though. You might hit somebody. Would you like it if you were just walking down Elmwood and then suddenly bam, stone to the head? No, you wouldn’t. Just check the internet first instead of relying on stone-based location mechanisms. Have some consideration for others.

We’ll have announcements in the near future about what our special beers will be, but rest assured: we’ll have them. Oh yes.

But first: Swans!

Tomorrow night Swans will be playing at the Tralf, and, being a huge fan of theirs, Rudy made a beer for the occasion.

If you’re attending — which you most definitely should! — be sure to try More Information, a stout made with wheat.

We had two tickets to give away, so we asked people to tell us their favorite Swans song on their social media platform of choice (as long as it was Twitter or Facebook: get outta here, Pinterest). The winner, as chosen by crazy random happenstance, was:

Mark Przybylak!

He chose “Blackout,” which you can hear at the top of the post. Mark, we’re sending you a message directly, but in case you read the blog first (which you should, obviously), congratulations!