East Aurora Advertiser

EAHS Alumnus Matt Conron ’85, Chief of Brewing Operations at Old First Ward



Even at eight and a half years old, you can place East Aurora alumnus Matt Conron’s Old First Ward Brewing Co. in the avant garde of the mushrooming local beer scene. 

Eight and a half years might seem like small change when you consider that beer has been around for most of recorded history, but history has taken brewing for a wild ride. In the early days of this country there were a few thousand breweries, each serving its immediate constituency with what we would call, today, craft beer—that is, beer (including ales, pilsners, lagers, stouts, porters, sours, etc.) made in small batches from individual recipes that used distinct ingredients. In 1876, there were around 400 breweries in New York State alone. Prohibition, however, followed by strict brewing laws upon repeal of the Volstead Act, as well as production improvements and distribution advances, killed off many local beer makers and reduced the number of local breweries to a handful. For many years, national beer makers—Anheuser-Busch, Miller, Coors and the like, dominated the market, with their beer traveling hundreds of miles from brewery to consumer.

A loosening of laws during the 1970s brought home-brewing and craft brewing back. In the last ten years alone, the number of craft brewers in New York has quadrupled, now sitting at 440, with more being established even as your glass is emptying. Old First Ward wasn’t the first in Buffalo; Pearl St., Flying Bison, Community Beer Works and a few others can claim that distinction, but Conron and Old First Ward, located at Gene McCarthy’s Tavern, are considered founding members of Buffalo’s beer renaissance. Old First Ward is making sophisticated, top-quality beers that are sold and consumed in or near their places of origin at attached brewpubs, or at outlets close by.

“That’s as it should be,” Conron said, CBO (chief of brewing operations) at Old First Ward Brewing Co. on Buffalo’s Hamburg Street in the heart of a once-forlorn, but rebounding historic Old First Ward neighborhood. “Beer isn’t made to be distributed far and wide. Beer should be made to exacting standards and then should be consumed within a small radius of where it’s brewed. It should be fresh, non-pasteurized and not very old.”

The idea of local brewing is the philosophy Conron and partner Bill Metzger (known as the Beer Messiah in the trade newspapers he publishes) brought to Gene McCarthy’s iconic tavern when they bought it 10 years ago, and to the Old First Ward Brewing Co., which they founded next door in 2013. Today, Genie McCarthy’s, as it’s known, anchors a revitalized South Park Ave./Hamburg St./Ohio St./Elevator Alley/Buffalo River/Riverworks neighborhood that will soon be made even more popular when the Riverline multi-use, green space ribbon of land opens along abandoned railroad tracks in the coming years.

Conron’s journey from growing up on Hillcrest Road in East Aurora to his status as one of the most respected brewmasters in Western New York is unique, to say the least.

“I was stationed in Germany as a young lieutenant in the U.S. Army where I learned about the great beer they brew there. I began to think about making beer as a career. When I left active duty for the Reserves, I went to Canisius College and enrolled in what was basically a pre-med curriculum—organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry, biochemistry to prepare for brewers’ school in California. I knew the brewers at the big guys—Budweiser, Miller, Coors—were either chemists, chemical engineers or microbiologists. On my way back from school in California, I stopped in Breckenridge, Colorado, met the owners of Breckenridge Brewing Co., discovered that they were setting up shop in Buffalo, and became an assistant and then the head brewer for them here.”

Matt Conron, right and chief of brewing operations at Old First Ward Brewing Company, stands with Scott Sadeghian in Sedona, AZ. Both are from the EAHS class of 1985.
Submitted Image

When Breckenridge folded in 1998, Conron finished his biochemistry degree at Canisius and parlayed that into a job in medical sales. In 2010, the Army called him to active duty as a senior combat advisor in Iraq. 

“In war,” he said, “you realize how short and precious life is and you understand that you only live once. After I came home, I retired from the Army as a Lt. Colonel, resumed my job in medical sales, but decided to follow my passion. I bought Gene McCarthy’s Tavern with Bill Metzger. 

“I jumped into it, not really knowing what I was doing. Since then, we’ve concentrated on making good beer, running a good pub and improving the physical plant. The big tent out in our beer garden was key to helping us get through the pandemic restrictions. I’ve become very proficient at running a restaurant, something I didn’t know anything about. We built the brewery from the ground up on the vacant lot next to McCarthy’s. We made our original beers, excellent brews that we still serve today: Not A Pale Ale, Against the Grain hefeweizen and H.O. Oats stout. We’re constantly creating new recipes for new beers.” On any given day there will be another dozen of their rotating beers that are developed by both Conron and his brewmaster, Bryan Kirchmeyer.

Along with food, they still serve the usual bottled beers and they still attract some of the regulars from the old days. This brings up an interesting dilemma. To what extent do Conron and Metzger have to honor the legacy of the beloved, late Gene McCarthy and his once-upon-a-time quintessential working man’s bar that catered to railroad workers and scoopers from the heyday of grain shipping on Lake Erie?

Conron agrees that they have some responsibility to honor the history of the bar. “But that will diminish over time. It’s already a very different bar than it was in the beginning. It was pretty rough when we got here, and it’s a different crowd now. We’ve made improvements and we’ve had to raise prices occasionally, which upsets some of the regulars, the locals who are used to inexpensive, domestic beer. I can sympathize, but at the same time I suggest that if you aren’t going to support the beer that’s made in your neighborhood, maybe it’s time to find a new bar.” 

Gene McCarthy’s and Old First Ward Brewing Co. has a local connection with Matt Conron, an East Aurora graduate, leading the brewing operation.
Photo by Rick Ohler

Conron also suggests that the improvements he and Metzger have made to their bar, brewery and parking lot can have an uplifting effect on the neighborhood as a whole. Witness the new and rehabilitated businesses, the freshly painted houses, the better-tended gardens and yards in the several-block stretch of the Old First Ward.

As far as the future of the beer business, he doesn’t see the founding of new breweries stopping anytime soon. “Two or three years in, I began to see that everyone was going to have a brewery. Not only that, but none of them are failing. As long as brewmasters have passion and commitment to excellence, small-scale breweries like ours will keep opening. We’re not really in competition with each other, so much as we’re in competition with the public to improve their palate and their beer literacy and to show them why our beer is better.”
They’ve got plenty of work to do in the coming years. “All in all, the first ten years have been a success,” says Conron. “We appreciate the loyalty of East Aurora folks who come in often. We’ve got plans for the future—upgrades for the facility, expansion that would give us an event space. As good as our beer is, we‘ll keep improving the customer experience.”

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