Southern Tier One Buffalo

OneBuffalo is Southern Tier's attempt (I guess it's being dubbed a "collaboration" with Pegula Sports & Entertainment) at creating a good "stadium beer". That is, something that's drinkable by the masses in a sports context. As a huge proponent of craft beer, I'm sad to see something like this dubbed as "the beer" of Buffalo, but so it goes.

This one's coming to us literally all the way from Buffalo. My parents brought it to me last time they came to visit, which is pretty rad. One Buffalo is an American Blonde Ale which Southern Tier touts includes 3 types of wheat and 2 types of hop. The beer comes across delightfully crisp with some substance to the body, but a very drinkable and inoffensive beer that your average consumer should be able to latch onto (especially with a little slice of Buffalo pride). That being said, would I drink this over a Molson? Well...

Prep/Cooking

The beer itself was a little flat coming out of the bottle (which I thought was due to age, but it seems like a lot of people have this complaint). The batter itself was incredibly light in color; not that the beer was super colorful itself. Flavor-wise, it picked up a familiar sweetness that a lot of other wheat beers tend to have in batter (and, ultimately, pancake) form. Hopefully it follows through like the others.

Results

These pancakes came out surprisingly dense given how flat both the beer and the batter were. At first the pancakes seem to be completely flavorless. Like, stunningly flavorless. But, slowly, flavor dawns on you after you get through a whole pancake or so, and the flavor is a delightfully crisp and subtle sweetness on the tail end. It's reminiscent of the beer itself.

The Decision

• Pancakes: Yes. The bar was pretty low for this one, so while the pancakes aren't groundbreaking, they're still better than the beer.
• Syrup: No. It wasn't exactly bad, but it ruined any uniqueness these pancakes had. It just tasted like syrup, which I guess is fitting for a beer that's supposed to blend in with whatever you're eating/watching/doing.

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