Buffalo in the 60s: Which beers were Buffalonians drinking 50 years ago?

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

There were a handful of beer ads in the pages of The News 50 years ago this week (the week of Feb. 16, 1965); most of them were brewed in the Buffalo region if not in Buffalo itself.

Frankenmuth Bock beer was brewed in Buffalo after its parent company merged with the Iroquois Brewery of Buffalo to form the International Brewing Co.

In 1965, Genesee Beer was brewed in Rochester, NY, as it is today.

Koch’s Golden Anniversary and Draft beers were brewed in Dunkirk, NY until 1985. The Genesee Brewery, which bought The Fred Koch Brewery in 1984, moved all brewing operations to its Rochester home base until the Koch brands were phased out in the mid-2000’s.

Schmidt’s was brewed in Philadelphia, but was a low-cost favorite in the Buffalo market until the brewery closed in 1986.

Published by

Steve Cichon

Steve Cichon writes about Buffalo’s pop culture history. His stories of Buffalo's past have appeared more than 1600 times in The Buffalo News. He's a proud Buffalonian helping the world experience the city he loves. Since the earliest days of the internet, Cichon's been creating content celebrating the people, places, and ideas that make Buffalo unique and special. The 25-year veteran of Buffalo radio and television has written five books and curates The Buffalo Stories Archives-- hundreds of thousands of books, images, and audio/visual media which tell the stories of who we are in Western New York.