Brewers scurry to craft Bills

Apr 10, 2024

This is Our House lager at 12 Gates Brewing in Amherst.

A can of This is Our House lager moves down the conveyor belt at 12 Gates Brewing in Amherst. More than 20 local breweries are making Bills-themed alcoholic beverages, with at least 40 different offerings.

For years, John Cimperman wasn’t interested in making a football-themed beer for his East Aurora brewery 42 North.

He felt like it would be off brand to jump onto the bandwagon in what’s become a crowded product marketplace of Buffalo Bills-inspired libations.

And Cimperman said he wanted to avoid having a beer on retail shelves that was purchased for its can colors, rather than its content.

But the allure was too strong. After some discussions with his distributor, retailers and customers, he was convinced that 42 North needed to get into the game.

So, last year, it became one of the last local breweries in Western New York to make a football-themed product with the release of the kölsch-style beer Where Else Would You Rather Beer.

“I was a bit hesitant because I’m focused on putting our brand forward,” Cimperman said. “We eventually came to the conclusion that we really needed to have a football-themed beer or we were going to be left out.”

The local market has been flooded by alcoholic beverages with names that play off the Bills and a few of their most popular players and some of the longtime sayings and mottos of the franchise as local brewers and even one of the bigger corporate beermakers capitalize on the team’s success.

They are good sellers but are more-seasonal products that typically don’t make a huge difference on any company’s balance sheet.

At this point, local beermakers are making these products just to keep pace with the marketplace. They are hoping to be the alcoholic beverage that’s preferred by Bills fans for their legendary tailgating and during games, whether that’s at the stadium or Bills watch gatherings. More than 20 local breweries are making these alcoholic beverages, with at least 40 different offerings.

Meanwhile, beermakers are careful not to infringe on any intellectual property rights on the cans or names of the beer to avoid license fees and potential legal trouble.

Brewers have created something for most tastes, from light and crisp pilsners to bready lagers and kölschs, hazy and fruity IPAs to old-school hoppy pale ales and creamy stouts, as well as hard teas and seltzers and everything in between.

They are also having some fun with it – with punny names for their products and contests like the one 42 North just ran, asking fans to submit tailgating photos to be featured on the newly released can design of Where Else Would You Rather Beer.

There are plenty of offerings with a Josh Allen and his No. 17 theme, as well as classic beer names like Community Beer Works’ Let’s Go Pils, Resurgence Brewing’s Circle the Wagons and Thin Man Brewery’s Pills Mafia, just to name a few.

Call your favorite local brewery to learn what beer will be available for pickup and delivery.

At one point, 12 Gates Brewing Co. in Amherst was making three football-themed beers. They are now down to two – This Is Our House lager and Pancho’s Legacy, a sweet Mexican lager honoring the late Bills superfan Ezra Castro aka Pancho Billa.

“You don’t want to be lost in the shuffle, especially with the increase of selection out there,” said Kevin Lalock, a founding partner at 12 Gates. “You’ve got to kind of run with it and hope that your product is as good or hopefully better than the other products out there.”

Even a national brewer is making these products. Labatt Blue Light, a corporate sponsor of the Bills since 2011, conducts annual promotions with the team that has produced products like Zubaz-themed cans and for the last three years, more innovative products like QB1 and Stampede – both flavored seltzers. This year, Blue Light has released Throwback Tea, a noncarbonated red raspberry hard iced tea, featuring a classic Bills red helmet with a charging buffalo logo can design.

“It’s really about growing and creating a product that we know Bills fans will be happy with and be able to enjoy during tailgates and during the games,” said Corey Berger, associate brand manager for Buffalo-headquartered Labatt. “At the end of the day, we understand how much people love the team and the city and we really want to cater to that.”

Matt Gordon holds a can of This is Our House lager at 12 Gates Brewing. The company also makes Pancho’s Legacy, a sweet Mexican lager honoring late Bills superfan Ezra Castro aka Pancho Billa.

Many of these products are ready to be canned and tapped by August as training camp gets into full swing and preseason games approach.

And Bills fans can’t seem to get enough of them, especially at the start of each season as tailgating and game-watching gets going again. Sales are consistent each year at retailers and inside taprooms, but typically taper off later in the season, brewers said.

An effort to appeal to the average tailgater with a lighter beer spurred Big Ditch Brewing Co. to make a second Bills-themed beer, No Punts Intended, said Matt Kahn, president at Big Ditch.

The American Pilsner is a bit easier to drink than the brewery’s other Bills-themed beer, the thicker and darker Make Me Wanna Stout. Big Ditch made its first batches of No Punts Intended last year and plans to can it for the first time this month. Having it canned on retail shelves is what really helps these beers take off.

“We’re always looking for ways to appeal to as many people as possible, so after making a beer that a lot of people like but we know dark beers are not for everyone, we decided to make something a little lighter,” Kahn said.

Labatt has produced its Bills-themed seltzers the past two years in time for training camp and it has sold out by the start of the playoffs. The company can only distribute these products within the Bills home market area – 75 miles around the stadium, but it’s able to sell them inside the stadium thanks to the company’s partnership with the team.

“They typically move pretty quickly,” Berger said. “Bills fans are passionate so when they see these products come to light, they seize the opportunity to buy them.”

The biggest challenge in making these products for local beermakers is trying not to brew too much to avoid sitting on inventory as the season closes out, Cimperman said.

A can of “This is Our House” lager moves down the conveyor belt at 12 Gates Brewing on Aug. 1, 2023. (Joshua Bessex/Buffalo News)

“It’s really about working with distributors and retail partners to figure out the right volume,” Cimperman said. “It’s the same way with seasonal beers. You don’t want to be selling pumpkin beer in November or Christmas beer in January.”

Cimperman, who grew up in northern Ohio, said he’s never seen a “phenomenon” that matches Bills Mafia.

That’s a positive for most local businesses but it also sometimes forces their hand in making products in the football-themed category, Cimperman said.

Kahn began making Big Ditch’s first football-themed beer even before the team returned to the playoffs during the 2017 season after a nearly two-decade drought that followed the Super Bowl years of the early ‘90s. Since then, the Bills have made the playoffs every season since 2019 and have been characterized as a Super Bowl contender the past few seasons.

“I guess we jumped on that bandwagon pretty early, but obviously there’s been a lot more companies jumping on since the team has been more successful,” Kahn said. “The interest in the Bills has been as high as it’s probably been since the 1990s.”

Pancho’s Legacy Lager from 12 Gates Brewing is so popular with Bills fans that it was seen as fans tailgated in the parking lot outside of GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Mo., during the AFC Championship Game on Jan. 23, 2022.

12 Gates took the celebration of Bills fans a step further with the release Pancho’s Legacy two years ago as a tribute to one of the Bills’ most popular fans, with the blessing of his family. Last year, part of the proceeds of the beer’s sales went to Harrison’s Playmakers, the charity of former Bills player Harrison Phillips.

“People live and die Buffalo, so they’re going to support something that is Bills- and Buffalo-themed,” Lalock said. “It’s amazing how much the Bills’ popularity has impacted sales. It’s great for our market and the community.”

But even if the team wasn’t as good, Berger said he is confident fans would still be purchasing these products.

“Does the Bills popularity hurt? Does all the success hurt? Absolutely not. But I tend to think that even if there is a down year, people would still flock to these products,” Berger said.

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