BUFFALO, NY - Lang, Schwab, Iroquois, Roos, some of the proud names that built a brewing empire in the Queen City, but the name William Simon outlasted them all.
William Simon IV's great-grandfather came to work at what was the Schusler Brewery in the 1880's. In 1900, he bought the place and changed its name to William Simon. After a break in brewing during prohibition, Simon reopened and kept putting out Simon Pure and Old Abbey Ale until the brewery closed in 1972.
Simon remembers the entire complex buzzing with activity. "When I was a young person I was in this building when it had a pasteurizer, labelers, bottle washers, this was a pretty active building right here."
And there are still many pieces of that brewing history tucked in the crevices of this massive complex, such as a bottle washing machine, down in the basement there are rusting old conditioning tanks, and in a dark corner, behind a wooden door, a reminder that even way back when, uncle Sam needed to get his share. Meters are in place that measured how much beer would flow from the fermenting tanks to the bottling area, so that they could pay tax on that beer.
Simon has a lot of ideas for his 5 building complex that sits on a 2-point-2 acre lot at the corner of Clinton and Emslie. "Some day in the future we might have things going on and people could come and visit, and there would be a museum. " As he stood among walls of cardboard Simon Pure cases, Bill said he has also been thinking for years about getting back in the beer business. "I own the building and the name and all the things that go with it, the popularity and the history, and the idea is with all the microbreweries around, craft breweries, that this would almost be a natural. "
While it would be a different style than his forefathers made, and on a much smaller scale, as a craft brewer, it would carry on a long-standing family tradition. If he is able to reopen, Bill says that would make William Simon the second oldest brewery in the country.