Buffalo’s Resurgence Brewing Company and Toronto’s Blood Brothers Brewing have teamed up on a pair of cross-border and cross-coast IPAs – Bigger Brother IPA, which was brewed north of the border in Toronto, and Little Brother IPA, which brewed right here in Buffalo. The former is a hazy IPA, while latter is a West Coast IPA, a pair of hoppy brews that represent both sides of the IPA spectrum.
Bigger Brother, a hazy East Coast IPA, is 6.5% and features Idaho 7, El Dorado and Strata hops, a sweet, balanced bitterness, piquant aromas of stone fruit and tropical citrus, and a smooth finish. On the other hand, Little Brother is a traditional West Coast IPA with a modern hop twist. It’s slightly hazy, dry, and piney, balanced with tropical hop notes of mango, melon and pineapple from the dry hop addition of Strata, El Dorado, and Idaho 7.
Blood Brothers co-founder Brayden Jones, a self-professed fan of Resurgence Brewing and their beers, says that this partnership and these collaborative beers are a long time coming for the two breweries, which are only separated by 100 miles and the Niagara River. He says he has been visiting Buffalo and the brewery since their early days on Niagara Street and has been searching for something for the breweries to work on together.
Bigger Brother IPA
“This collab has been about a year in the making,” Jones says. “I started visiting Resurgence in the old location when in town seeing family. I’ve always enjoyed their beers and taproom. The staff was always pleasant and informative. In July 2022, I dropped off some of our beers to extend a friendly hello, and [then] we went back and forth over email and eventually came up with a date and a good reason to brew some beer together. [I’m] looking forward to being back in Buffalo and trying the collabs.”
Wondering what these beers taste like? I have you covered there. Little Brother is East Coast style haze with tropical and stone fruit notes with underlying berry and white grape, while Bigger Brother is a banger of a sessionable West Coast with light notes of pine are outpaced by ripe berry, all backed by punchy, slightly resinous hops.
Resurgence’s Andrew Zach adds that everyone at the brewery are fans of the beer Blood Brothers are brewing, and that Little Brother and Bigger Brothers are not the last time we will see the two breweries work together.
Little Brother IPA
“The collaboration has been a little time in the making – finding the right timing for both of us,” Zach, Resurgence’s director of brewing operations, said. “We really enjoy the beers that they are making and have a lot of respect for them. Getting to see their new production facility and brewhouse was really awesome. We look forward to getting a chance to collab with them in the future as well. The Big Brother / Little Brother name was a fun play on the beer that they brewed, being a higher ABV and also a hazy, vs. our version being lower ABV and a West Coast IPA.”
You can find both Little Brother and Bigger Brothers on draft and in cans at Resurgence.
For more information on Resurgence Brewing, visit https://www.resurgencebrewing.com. And for more information on Blood Brothers, visit https://www.bloodbrothersbrewing.com.
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 (@buffalobeerleague), and Facebook (@thebuffalobeerleague).
