In the past years, we can all remember ourselves moseying around a Consumer’s Beverages or local corner stores and seeing art on a can that catches your eye and often times, it pushes out a chuckle. I’d take a guess that many of those times, it was a Pressure Drop can.
Pressure Drop Brewing is yet another brewery to be born in Buffalo in the past decade, being apart of the new brewing class putting Buffalo on the map as a brewing hub. As mentioned, Pressure Drop is well known for their creative, eccentric names and designs on their cans. Their first beer that caught my attention (feel like this is definitely a shared experience) off of design alone is their Sticky Trees West Coast IPA.
Pressure Drop was founded by Western New York native Karl Kolbe when Kolbe felt drawn back to his hometown as Buffalo was beginning its renaissance it has had in the past decade. Kolbe had started his journey down the Pint Passage as a home brewer while living in California. He found himself inspired by the massive brewing community on the West Coast, eventually opening a brewery of his own in California, perfecting his craft of brewing delicious beers on a much larger scale.
When Kolbe returned to Buffalo, Pressure Drop was born when he joined forces with Lexi Crane, their current COO. Crane added the needed business touch to Kolbe’s creative visions, helping reshape his beers for the tastebuds of a Rust Belt city.
It was no challenge for the team at Pressure Drop, continually establishing themselves as one of the mainstay brewers here in Buffalo. Pressure Drop has become more recognizable in recent years with the opening of their taproom on Elmwood Ave., located just on the rim of Black Rock, sharing their unique, experimental flavors with beer enjoyers. Pressure Drop still brews where they started though, chugging out brews day after day in Buffalo’s historic First Ward.
So why Pressure Drop? Pressure Drop’s website tells us they decided to go with the name for two specific reasons. First off, the name is a homage to Kolbe’s return home from the sunny California shores to the frigid, rough Buffalo streets referring to the barometric pressure change that occurs when snow forms. Secondly, the name refers to the “pressure drop” that occurs when they transfer beer from one tank to the next.
Location: 1672 Elmwood Ave., Buffalo, NY, 14207
