CollaBEERation Fest, which features brews created by members of the Buffalo Beer Geeks community, is quickly becoming the Super Bowl of local craft beer events. It’s one of my favorite dates on the beer calendar for several reasons – the atmosphere, the vibes, the beer, the people, the venue, and the list goes on and on. The reasons are too numerous to list as to why CollaBEERation is as special as it is.

If you look at the official collab list (link to it below), you’ll realize how tall of a task it was to even generate this list. This is a list of a dozen collabs I’m most looking forward to, but there are plenty more I want to try this weekend. I tried not to go too crazy though – this is the first time in a few years that I do not have to work before, or after, the festival. You’ll find numerous lagers on this list, naturally, but there are also many other styles to be had, including a double dry hopped Double IPA with loads of grapefruit, an IPA with blue spirulina, fruited sour brewed to emulate one of my favorite beach drinks, as well as a snakebite – half cider, half beer. But the lager, oh the lagers. There’s an Imperial Iced Rice Lager (um, what?), smoked amber, Italian Pilsner, barrel-aged German dark lager, light lager with air-popped salted popcorn and more. In short, there is going to be a lot of fantastic beverages at CollaBEERation.

Here are a dozen beers and ciders I’m most looking forward to (this list does not include VIP beers, which they are still announcing):

  • Buffalo Olde Brewery – I Remember Mama… (Italian Pilsner 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)
  • 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)
  • Pearl Street Brewing – Ruby Slippers West Coast IPL (IPL with Omega thiolized lager yeast Lunar Crush, Eureka hops, hibiscus, pink grapefruit concentrate and dry hopped with Eureka)
  • Frequentem Brewing – Miami Vice (Heavily fruited sour inspired by the cocktail – half strawberry-vanilla and half coconut-pineapple)
  • Big Ditch Brewing – Cool As Rice (Imperial Iced Rice Lager)
  • Brickyard Brewing – Smoke & Mirrors (Smoked amber lager)
  • Blackbird Cider Works – Hailee-Hatten (Snakebite, Manhattan style – a 50/50 split between Flats & Drums Pale Ale and Rosè Cider)
  • BriarBrothers Brewing – Mad Hatter (Two Helles lagers, one infused with Oolong tea and one infused with Town of London tea)
  • Wayland Brewing – Ecto (IPA with tangerine, blue spirulina and Riwaka hops)
  • Butera’s Village Brew House – Pop Fiction (Light lager brewed with air-popped salted popcorn and sea salt)

If you’re heading to CollaBEERation this year, and you should be, I recommend you make your own list of must-drink brews. To see what will be poured, click here. And if you don’t currently have tickets, but would like to correct that – there are still General Admission tickets left ($70, includes unlimited pours and commemorative glass), which can be purchased here. DD tickets are also available.

If you are attending CollaBEERation, I’d love to know what your favorite beers are. If you see me or any of the other guys from the Buffalo Beer League at the event, make sure to say hello – let’s take a photo and I’ll probably have some stickers on me. In the spirit of self-promotion, call the Buffalo Beer League hotline at 716-486-BEER and leave us a voicemail letting us know.

CollaBEERAtion will take place Saturday, April 5 (2-6pm) at The Powerhouse. For more information, visit http://collabeerationfest.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, Threads and Untappd (@buffalobeerleague), and Facebook (@thebuffalobeerleague).