How did a beer from a small Buffalo brewery end up in HBO’s ‘Big Little Lies’?

Buffalo beer shows up in HBO series

A bottle of Flying Bison Brewing's 716 IPA was prominently featured in the HBO show "Big Little Lies." (Screen shot from Facebook).

BUFFALO, NY -- Flying Bison Brewing Co.'s 716 IPA is sold in a market that stretches from Niagara Falls to Jamestown in western New York.

Monterey, Calif. does not fall in that geographic region.

And so it was surprising to see a bottle of 716 IPA prominently displayed in Sunday night’s episode of HBO’s “Big Little Lies,” a show that is set in, and appears to be mostly filmed around, Monterey and California’s Pacific coast.

No one was more surprised than the folks at Flying Bison, located in Buffalo’s Larkinville neighborhood.

“I guess somebody loves us,” said Flying Bison founder Tim Herzog. “We’re still trying to figure out how that happened.”

The brown bottle with the green and yellow label appears in a scene in which the character Gordon Klein is looking at a model train layout. Klein is played by actor Jeffrey Nordling. (In the show, Nordling’s character is married to the character played by actress Laura Dern).

The character, Klein, holds the beer bottle in such a way that “716 IPA” becomes fairly clear, especially in a freeze frame.

“I mean that’s like tremendous product placement,” Herzog said. “We didn’t set it up, but if it’s free we’ll take it.”

It certainly seems more intentional than, say, a bottle of water left on the set of “Game of Thrones” or “Downton Abbey” during filming.

Herzog said he’s heard that another shot in the episode shows what appears to be Buffalo’s historic Central Terminal train station.

Is it possible that a crew was filming some exteriors for use in the show and brought some local beer back with them?

An HBO representative is looking into the the question of beer’s placement in the show.

“Anything’s possible,” Herzog said. “It is crazy, though. We’d love to know how it happened.”

Flying Bison is one of Buffalo’s oldest craft breweries. It opened in the Riverside neighborhood in 2000 before moving to its larger location on Seneca Street a few years ago.

“From the west coast of New York to the West Coast,” Herzog said. “It makes sense.”

Editor’s note: Here’s the answer:

Don Cazentre writes about craft beer, wine, spirits and beverages for NYup.com, syracuse.com and The Post-Standard. Reach him at dcazentre@nyup.com, or follow him at NYup.com, on Twitter or Facebook.

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