Golden Snowbeer hits Buffalo Brewing and store shelves halfway to Christmas

He rolled it out last weekend, about a month later than expected, because he waited for the cans to look just right.

After all, an inaugural beer that celebrates the most snowfall in an upstate city the previous winter might turn those cans into collectors’ items.

“We wanted to make sure they would stun customers,” Domres said. “We didn’t even realize as we got closer that this beer would be available for the six-month anniversary of the Buffalo Blizzard, so it’s Christmas in July.”

He brewed his first batch in May at his Fillmore Avenue production brewery – and is gladly displaying the related Golden Snowball trophy Buffalo officially won this month after its latest 133.6-inch seasonal snowfall total more than doubled that of those in Albany, Binghamton, Rochester and Syracuse.

Like snow in July, Golden Snowbeer likely will go fast. It’s on tap in the Buffalo Brewing tasting room at 314 Myrtle Ave., on the fringe of Larkinville.

It will soon be available in four-packs at beer retailers in the region, Domres said.

He brewed a single batch of the seasonal brew, enough to fill almost 2,480 pints.

“Anytime you dry hop, it usually reduces the yield a little bit,” he said, “but we got a real nice yield.”

Much of the flavor comes from cascade hops, “a legacy hop” that made pale ales popular in the 1990s but has been replaced in many of today’s hazy, juicy craft ales by citra and mosaic hops.

He plans to share the recipe and invite other brewers to make it each year in the Golden Snowball-winning city.

Domres described Golden Snowbeer as light and refreshing.

“I’m happy with the way it came out,” he said. “It’s one of those beers where you can sit back and reminisce about how you don’t have to shovel snow right now.”

The hops, along with the beer’s pilsner and Vienna malts, were grown in New York. They were boiled in municipal Lake Erie water and a special ingredient that lent the beer its name – a mason jar filled with snow that Stephen Vermette collected a couple of days after the Christmas weekend blizzard outside his Buckham Hall office at SUNY Buffalo State.

Vermette, a geography and meteorology professor at the school, came to Western New York three decades ago and built his house in the Southtowns snowbelt.

He hoped the beer would premier last month, but Domres soothed the worries by reminding him that snow season officially runs from July 1 to June 30.

The brewer, who stored the batch in cold fermentation tanks, wanted to give TLF Graphics in Rochester ample time to perfect the cans.

Four layers of two-tone metallic and nonmetallic blue white and golden hues are used in the design, which includes piles of snow, snowflakes and the city skyline, along with what look like clear and golden water droplets sprinkled about.

“We’re very pleased with how they came out,” Domres said. “They used a special technique to make the condensation actually look like water. It took a little longer but, for me, I feel like the label is the selling point of this beer.”

A four-pack of 16-ounce cans runs $17 in the taproom.

Buffalo’s past enamors Domres, considered an expert on the regional brewing industry. He has brewed a themed beer for the Buffalo History Museum and expects to unveil another this summer that celebrates the Central Terminal.

Beer and snow have left indelible marks on the region, he said.

“The first thing they did in after Buffalo was burned after the War of 1812, they built a tavern and they built a brewery,” Domres said, “because breweries and taverns were looked at as kind of centralized meeting place where things happen, where things were done.”

The Golden Snowball competition – and its trophy – has become a touchstone of that combination.

Meteorologists across upstate helped launch the contest after the winter of 1976-77, when a record 199.4 inches of snow walloped Buffalo during a historic blizzard and other storms that season.

The contest dried up after several years during a consolidation of National Weather Service offices, Vermette said. It re-emerged in 2002, when blogger Pat DeCoursey started charting state and national snow totals for cities with a population of more than 100,000.

Buffalo News columnist Sean Kirst wrote a 2020 column that rued Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown’s decision to abandon the trophy. Domres emailed Kirst afterward with an idea to brew a related beer in Buffalo. Kirst mentioned the idea to Vermette last November while writing another column about the competition after a lake-effect storm buried the Southtowns, then connected the two men by email.

The related trophy ended up in Binghamton after that city won the 2020-21 competition. Vermette picked it up there last spring after Buffalo won for 2021-22.

After the city’s latest win for 2022-23, it now sits in the a display case in the Buffalo Brewing taproom with city brewing heirlooms.

“What kind of captivates the rest of the world in terms wherever I go and say I’m from Buffalo, it’s usually either the Bills or holy ... you guys get a lot of snow.” Domres said. “This could have sat in the mayor’s office, which isn’t open to the public. Now it’s come into a public space where people can see it and people can talk about it.”