Resurgence Brewing teamed up with members of the Buffalo Beer Geeks Facebook group on a new beer line, the Buffalo Brew Geek Series, which saw the Beer Geeks collaborate with the brewery every step of the way, from what ingredients were used to can artwork and beer names. The first two beers in the new series, S’more Than Friends Imperial S’mores Stout and GenusCocos Imperial Coconut Stout, were released recently, and judging from the scores of positive feedback, this looks to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

In typical Beer Geek fashion, the beer release featured an early morning line share, including a host of rare and hard-to-find beers from Mortalis Brewing, Other Half Brewing, Bellwood Brewery, Tree House Brewing and Funky Buddha Brewery, among others, before the doors opened and the party went from the parking lot to the taproom. In addition to the pair of imperial stouts, the Buffalo Brew Geek Base Imperial Stout was also available, as were a few cask variants, an Imperial Coffee Stout and Imperial Mexican Cake Stout.

If you ask Resurgence Owner Jeff Ware, this relationship will surely be continuing for another round.

“Yes!” he said resoundingly. “Everyone I talked to had a great time. I loved the beers. We sold out of the pre-release and all of the four pack beers we had on hand.”

The unlikely relationship between Resurgence and the Beer Geeks stems from last year’s inaugural Beer Geek summit, which was held at Big Ditch Brewing. Ware says that he wanted to collaborate with members of the group in order to address their concerns with the local beer scene.

“We were sitting in the summit and some members of the Beer Geeks were saying that there is not enough beer stuff locally that they could get excited about,” he said, “and, quite honestly, it’s because they can sometimes be very opinionated. Which got me thinking, ‘are they that way because we are not including them?’ So we thought why not try to engage them? We approached the Beer Geek members that were at that meeting and presented them with the idea of brewing a beer as a collaboration, just like we would do with another brewery, with them having a lot of input on the beer. And they loved the idea.”

He admits that everything in the planning phases of the first two beers has been a lot of fun. “We met a handful of times, and all of the meetings in the process were really fun.” Ware credits most of the success of the series to his Director of Brewing Operations Andrew Zach, who he says handled most aspects of the project.

“We were wide open to all of their opinions; it really was a true collaboration and I think it has gone pretty well. I think it has been a real strong success so far; not only the beer itself, but I see an attitude change on the entire [Facebook] page. Right now you are not seeing a lot of negativity, and I don’t know if that has anything to do with us doing this in general, but I think that it has been a success.”

And in case you were wondering, the next installment of the series is already in the works.

“We’re already planning the next one,” Ware says, adding that the tentative plan is to [hopefully] involve different members of the Beer Geeks on the next beer. “We’re still working the kinks out of exactly how we are going to do it, but I think that we might have the first group nominate the next group. We might do a lottery to pick names depending on how it grows. And we’ve discussed perks for past Beer Geek members who we have collaborated, so that might be really cool. This is what they said they wanted, so we’re just trying to listen to our customers.”

Ware is hopeful that the success of this initial release will cause more breweries to join in on engaging the Buffalo Beer Geeks, leading to more collaborations down the line.

For more information on the Buffalo Beer Geeks, please visit https://www.facebook.com/groups/buffalobeergeeks (you can request to join if you are not already a member) and for more information on Resurgence Brewing, visit https://www.facebook.com/resurgencebrewing.

Brian Campbell is a co-founder/Brand Manager of the BNBA’s enthusiast arm, 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 buffalobeerleague@aol.com, on Twitter (@buffbeerleague), Instagram (@buffalobeerleague), Facebook (@thebuffalobeerleague) and www.buffalobeerleague.com.