CollaBEERation Festival, which takes place at the Powerhouse on Apr. 5, have announced the complete list of collab brews that will be poured at the event.

The event features craft beer, cider and mead created by members of the Buffalo Beer Geeks community, who teamed up with more than 50 participating Western New York craft venues to create small batch beverages, many exclusively for this event. They were involved in every step of the creative process, from recipe creation to brewing, and everything in-between.

Collab brews include:

  • Southern Tier Brewing – Meet the Bockers Maibock
  • Pod City Beer Labs – Bollywood Wit (Classic Belgian style wit beer spiced with traditional Indian spices-including mango, fresh tubers, cardamom and coriander)
  • Eli Fish Brewery – Mr. Pink’s “Fu*k All That Gose” (Gosé brewed with pink Himalyan sea salt, coriander, lemons, raspberries, hibiscus, and pink lemonade powder)
  • Buffalo Olde Brewery – I Remember Mama… (Italian Pilsner brewed with Old Fashioned Lemon Drops, Lemon Drop Hops and Lemon Drop Oil)
  • 42 North Brewing – PeeWee’s Beer Adventure (German Dark Lager aged in an oak barrel previously holding Tequila. Un-barreled base beer also to be served)
  • Brewery Ardennes – Arm Candy (Spiced Peach Sour)
  • Mystic Hills Brewing – Miami Weisse (Florida Weisse with papaya, tangerine, and pineapple)
  • Queen City Meadery – Crouching Guava Hidden Dragonfruit (Metheglin with wildflower honey, dragonfruit and pink guava)
  • 1927 Brewhouse – Dark Helmet (Schwarzbier)
  • Beer Kind Brewing – Jason Mimosa! (Mimosa Hazy IPA)
  • Johnson’s Landing – 24 Karat Cake Topper (Carrot Cake stout made with real carrot cake, carrots, vanilla beans, cinnamon sticks, cream cheese flavor and lactose)
  • Spotted Octopus – Good Old Fashion Beer (Old Fashion-inspired cream ale) & Light and Magic Blue Seltzer
  • Brazen Brewing – From Brazen With Love (White Russian-inspired White Stout)
  • Smoldered Society – World Police DIPA (Fermented with over 90 lbs. of pink grapefruit, double dry hopped with Nelson Sauvin, Citra Cryo, and Riwaka hops and conditioned on marshmallow)
  • Sad Boys Brewing – Hawkins Experimental Sour (Hazy fruited sour with blueberry, pomegranate, Andean blackberry and lactose)
  • Solitude Brewing – Blood Orange Is the New Black (Citrusy twist on a classic, blending zesty blood orange with a splash of sour mix and hint of maraschino cherry)
  • Old First Ward Brewing – Most Valuable Pistachio (Pastry Stout with maple syrup, chocolate and pistachio)
  • Noble Shepherd – Concessions (Sour Apple Berliner Weisser)
  • Griffon Brewing – No Way Back Double West Coast IPA (New Zealand IPA with Rakau, Motueka and Kohia Nelson hops)
  • Pearl Street Brewing – Ruby Slippers West Coast IPL (IPL with Omega thiolized lager yeast Lunar Crush, Eureka hops, hibiscus, pink grapefruit concentrate and then dry hopped with Eureka)
  • Resurgence Brewing – IPA (7% NEIPA brewed with Citra, Mosaic, Anchovy and Cryo Pop hops)
  • Frequentem Brewing – Miami Vice (Heavily fruited sour inspired by the cocktail – half strawberry-vanilla and half coconut-pineapple)
  • Thin Man Brewery – Is That A Twizzler In Your Kinckerbockers, Or Are You Just Sour To See Me? (Fruited sour inspired by the Knickerbocker cocktail with raspberry, key lime, orange zest, and red licorice, aged on wood chips soaked in Appleton Estate and El Dorado 8-year rum)
  • Lilly Belle Meads – Hot Mess (Mead with light honey, tea, apricots, blood orange and hops)
  • Big Ditch Brewing – Cool As Rice Imperial Iced Rice Lager
  • Blackbird Cider Works – Hailee-Hatten (Snakebite, Manhattan style – 50/50 split between Flats & Drums Pale Ale & Rosè cider)
  • First Line Brewing – Jason Strataham (Dry hopped lager with Strata)
  • Brickyard Brewing: Smoke & Mirrors (Smoked amber lager)
  • OSB Ciderworks – Hakuna Ma-Guava (Tropical cider with mango, guava, and ginger with freeze dried star fruit garnish)
  • BriarBrothers Brewing – Mad Hatter (Helles lager infused with Oolong tea) and Town of London (Helles lager infused with Town of London tea)
  • Wayland Brewing – Ecto (IPA with tangerine, blue spirulina and Riwaka hops)
  • Bee Spit Meadery – Fonzie’s Float (Root Beer Float Mead)
  • Blood Brothers – Boya (Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Donut Stout with chocolate)
  • K2 Brothers – Silence of the ‘Nans – Bananas Jodie Foster (smoothie sour with mango and banana purées, caramel and cinnamon)
  • Mortalis Brewing – Jack Rabbit Slims
  • Butera’s Village Brew House – Pop Fiction (Light lager brewed with air-popped salted popcorn and sea salt) and Avatar’s Alchemy (Kettle sour malt beverage with natural and artificial blue raspberry flavor)
  • Shalooby Loofer – One Beer To Rule Them All (DDH IPA with NY Triumph and Rakau hops, cilantro and glitter)
  • Stoneyard Brewing – Red Carpet Barleywine (Red Velvet Cake-inspired American Barleywine)
  • Prosper Brewing – Sour Wars: Fermentation Strikes Back (Fruited sour with strawberry, apricot & lemon peel)
  • Rising Storm – The Forbidden Fruit (Marilyn Monroe cocktail-inspired sour ale conditioned on pomegranate & sweet cherry, aged in Rootstock Apple Brandy Barrel)
  • Illumination Meadery – Bustin’ Makes Me Feel Good (Ecto Cooler-inspired session mead)
  • Strangebird – Inconceivable (Vizzini’s Barrel Fermented Sicilian Pilsner made with Sicilian spices)
  • Community Beer Works – One Foeder to Rule Them All (Foeder aged sour with strawberries, plums & Niagara grapes)

 

After drinking their fill, festival goers vote for their top collaborations, with the winners taking home the Buffalo Beer Geek Championship Belt. Having won the title the last two years, Bloomfield’s Noble Shepherd Craft Brewery will defend their belt in 2025. The brewery took home the crown for their Pistashio Pudding Sour in 2023 and Spanish Announce Table, a pineapple churro sour, in 2024.

“CollaBEERation was created to bring together local beer enthusiasts and local breweries to create one off beers, ciders and meads that you’ll never be able to taste anywhere besides the event,” event organizer Joe Yager from the Buffalo Beer Geeks said. “You will get unlimited 4oz. pours from over 50 Buffalo and Rochester breweries. We will also have many beer and non-beer related vendors for shopping and multiple food options. The event is at The Powerhouse in Buffalo, a beautiful spot with plenty of parking and space inside.”

There will also be food and artisanal vendors on hand, including Pizza Plant, the Britesmith food truck, Brisket Love BBQ, Rationales, Prohibition Pie, Jenny & Cat’s Candy and Fat Daddy’s.

This year’s CollaBEERation features a “Hollywood” theme. While not required, guests are more than encouraged to dress up as their favorite Hollywood movie or TV character.

Erik Coleman, proprietor of Beer By Coleman Beer Concierge, says CollaBEERation is an event by the brewing community that’s for the community.

“CollaBEERation is a unique festival because you have a chance come and taste some unique, one-off specialty beers that you can’t get anywhere else and aren’t out of tap yet, brewed exclusive for this event,” he said. “You also get a chance to meet the actual people who are brewing the beer. The people behind the taps are the brewers, the owners and the people who can tell the story of the brewing company, the meadery, the cidery, as well as the product that they are pouring for you.”

General admission tickets ($70, includes unlimited pours and commemorative glass) can be purchased here. DD tickets are also available.

Brian Campbell is co-founder and Brand Manager of the Buffalo Beer League, and writes the weekly Buffalo Beer Buzz column. If you have beer news that should be included in the Beer Buzz, Brian can be reached at brian@buffalobeerleague.com, on Twitter (@buffbeerleague), Instagram, Threads and Untappd (@buffalobeerleague), and Facebook (@thebuffalobeerleague).