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Thin Man Brewery, Elmwood Village

Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2016 1:03 am
by Belgian
Was at (owner of Coles, ex~ of Blue Monk) Mike Schatzel's new brew pub in Buffalo on Sunday.

Many great beers including interesting sours operating on 12 of 24 taps so far, with house brew sales not yet in operation (licensing or such). Brewing setup in southern section at street level looks impressive through the glass behind the main bar.

Lots of airy, comfortable seating in the taproom, the main upstairs (featuring a duplicate taproom), cool upstairs rooftop, a third floor 'nook' away from the bar noise and sunny patio seating out along Elmwood.

Occupies two broad storefronts on the west side and five blocks south from where the Monk used to be. Which makes it not so far away from Allen, a fun place to go regardless and where good hotels can be found.

Thin Man Brewery is squeaky clean with a bit of modern industrial look, extremely youthful, so it's definitely not a pleasantly grubby ole sports bar with ancient heritage - and indeed who really needs two of those?

Had Drei Laag Apples and Pears, and Jolly Pumpkin Luciernaga, each a small goblet, probably about 9 or 10 bucks respectively with a dollar tip.

I'll be back soon to this palace of liquid pleasure. But I won't ever neglect Coles!

Re: Thin Man Brewery, Elmwood Village

Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2016 12:10 pm
by DeMarco
Oh wow draai laag is finally getting distro! That's pretty exciting to hear as well.

Re: Thin Man Brewery, Elmwood Village

Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2016 2:51 pm
by atomeyes
Belgian wrote:
I'll be back soon to this palace of liquid pleasure. But I won't ever neglect Coles!
the Elmwood hierarchy

ABV
Thin Man


Coles.

Craft beer expansionism in Da Buff

Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2016 10:00 pm
by Belgian
DeMarco wrote:Oh wow draai laag is finally getting distro! That's pretty exciting to hear as well.
It's good, well better than the few generally unimpressed ratings.
atomeyes wrote:the Elmwood hierarchy

ABV
Thin Man


Coles.
Duly noted, and thanks but I like the bar food at Coles so much. I will try the Allan's next time fo sho'.

Re: Thin Man Brewery, Elmwood Village

Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2016 3:23 pm
by TheSevenDuffs
atomeyes wrote:
Belgian wrote:
I'll be back soon to this palace of liquid pleasure. But I won't ever neglect Coles!
the Elmwood hierarchy

ABV
Thin Man


Coles.
After my first visit to ABV and Coles a few weekends ago, I would agree with this. The tap list at Coles seems to get worse each time I go there. Last time there were even better options at Mr. Goorbar, including bottles of Mexican Cake.

Re: Thin Man Brewery, Elmwood Village

Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2016 6:09 pm
by Belgian
Coles had some Bells including Two Hearted and surely far from a 'bad' tap list.
(I was let down with the Bell's Amber / Oatsmobile.)

Maybe fewer exotics there than some recent visits.
Wonder if they are re-focusing their different businesses to select markets?
Coles ten years ago (Pre-Blue Monk) was a beer mecca with many treasures, and comparatively really cheap!
It was sometimes hard to spend twelve or fifteen bucks including food.

Both USA / Intl craft beer & what is being ambitously imported has also changed a lot since then.
Mike S gets incredible stuff, no doubt partly thanks to a simpler import cost structure down there that doesn't cripple the process (as here.)

Re: Thin Man Brewery, Elmwood Village

Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2016 3:55 am
by Kish84
It's been a while since I've been to Buffalo.

Coles. I wanted to love the place, and my first visit was...weird. Bottles of Alpha King were on the menu for a ridiculously low price, still new to the craft game, and not caring about age, we ordered it. They said, "Oh that's a mistake." Not my problem. They found one bottle...Next we asked if we could move to the bar. They made us settle up, which I had no problem with. At the bar, no fucking service. Yeah, it's a Tuesday night, the Victoria Secrets fashion show is on the TV, I just wanted beer...They couldn't keep their eyes off that fashion show. Their reasoning for shit service, they had my credit card for a tab, but I told them I wanted to pay cash. They found that suspicious.

That was when we used ratebeer*, didn't leave the greatest of reviews. Mike msg'd, got specific details (date, time...) told us to send a msg next time we headed to Buffalo for a drink. We edited the review. 5 years later, timing has never worked, still no drink with swoopjones...

*I couldn't be arsed to do my own reviews, so kinda had a joint account with a friend.

Re: Thin Man Brewery, Elmwood Village

Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2016 12:46 am
by Belgian
Ha I did the same thing, because you pay more by VISA than if you set up a USA funds account with your bank here and withdraw cash from it, best rate possible, better than using any American ATM.

Never had a truly awful time at Coles, but once or twice the bar server was talking socially to someone for ten minutes when I was thirsty and it seemed more like twenty minutes. Oh, Russell... You are a character.

The food in Buffalo is just so American and I love it, like those pizza slices with buffalo chicken, those will do if you're in a hurry or need to spare your cash for $10 goblets of fancy Thin Man beers.

Re: Thin Man Brewery, Elmwood Village

Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2016 6:57 am
by El Pinguino
Every has their own experiences I guess, but I pretty much don't expect to ever go back to Cole's unless they have something really special on tap. Food all-around was lacklustre and service was spotty at best when I was there last. On top of that, I just didn't like the "vibe"...which hey, can't please everyone all the time, right? I really haven't actually found a "go-to" spot I enjoy eating and drinking at in Buffalo.

Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2016 11:26 pm
by Belgian
Well Coles used to be 'it' and now there's more. What can you say!

I do like that it looks like no place in Toronto, just the ancient quality. Radek told me about it on the patio at bar Volo maybe 8 years ago when Ralph was selling bottles of Westy 12.