Good afternoon, beer lovers. You do remember that we’re open Thursdays as well as Fridays from 3-7, yes? And that we recently announced that we’ll fill your kegs with beer if you drop them off with some notice? Excellent!

Our new tap handles from Rusted Grain, in process…

It should be obvious to even the casual observer that up to now, all three beers in our Jam series of one offs — Manifest, The Answer and Reprise — have been IPAs. So when we told some people at the Ballpark Brew Bash that our next beer was also going to be an IPA, they rolled their eyes. The trouble is, an IPA requires hops. Specific kinds of hops. Lots of them. So while we liked Manifest, we couldn’t actually make it again because it’s easier to get tickets to the Lady Gaga concert than it is to get Simcoe hops. (Or so I hear. I have friends who are disappointed they can’t go to her show here.)

This IPA, though, it’s a keeper. The recipe may be tweaked slightly here and there, but it’s one that we can make on a regular basis. “Hooray,” you say! “When can I get some of this?” Now, if we were Apple we might tell you it will be ready in a few weeks. If we were Apple, though, I’d have an iPhone 5 instead of this dumb 4S that’s practically useless by now. No, we’re CBW, and so I can happily say:

Our new IPA is available today at our brewery!

Commence Yub Nub dancing. It will also be available tomorrow during retail hours and Saturday at the Bidwell farmer’s market. We’re keeping this batch to ourselves: we’re tired of telling people they need to get to us within an hour of opening, so we’re holding on to the entirety of batch one so it can last a reasonable amount of time. Want to try some? Come on down to the brewery!

What’s next on the brewing horizon? Well, in addition to a bunch of Buffalo Beer Week stuff that we’re not ready to talk about just yet, the cool thing that I teased last week is that we’re going to be making a black IPA for the Godspeed You! Black Emperor show on 10/15. It should be a great beer for a great concert!

The finished product (plus painter’s tape). Look for them soon!

Have you gone to the new Village Beer Merchant location on Hertel and Wellington yet? If not, this Saturday would be a great time to swing by. From 6-8 CBW and Flying Bison will be doing a tasting, so you can see what Buffalo breweries have to offer while checking out the new VBM digs.

Also on our agenda (that’s a joke, just wait) is our upcoming appearance on the Zoning Board of Appeals. You haven’t heard about them from us since they granted the zoning variance that allowed us to purchase 15 Lafayette and use it as a brewery. The ZBA is a nice group of people, obviously! They also set the hours we can be open for business, which is currently Tuesday-Saturday 3-7. That’s all well and good, but soon it’s going to be a tad too brisk to be at the Bidwell farmer’s market, and we’d like to be able to replace those hours with extended ones at the brewery. We’ll let you know how that goes.