Just a quick a calendar item, from Cricket Hill's Friday brewery tour ...
The Fairfield brewery makes its bourbon-barrel-aged imperial stout and a likewise-conditioned sour porter available at this evening's open house.
Time: 5-7 p.m.
Place: Cricket Hill Brewery, 24 Kulick Road in Fairfield
Phone: 973-276-9415
Whenever brewery history and New Jersey are uttered in the same breath, the names Ballantine and Krueger invariably come to mind, two breweries that called Newark home as far back as the mid-19th century.
Come Sunday, you can get a visual taste of that kind of past while you sip the present.
The Garden State chapter of Brewery Collectibles Club of America holds its annual winter swap at the Polish American Cultural Foundation in Clark, an event that promises to connect the region's rich brewing industry past with today's beer fans of all walks. (Time: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Address: 177 Broadway. Admission for general public: $5)
Trays, glassware, signs, tap handles, bottle openers, coasters, labels, and of course beer cans – the tactile stuff that joined forces with flavors to build brands – will be in abundance for collectors to buy, sell, trade, or reminisce over while they sip pints of today's craft beers paired with hearty Polish cuisine.
"I love the craft beer stuff," says Jack McDougall, 64, president of the 100-member Garden State chapter, "but I still like to think back to the days when I was drinking Rheingold or Schaefer. It's got a good feeling to me."
Closing in on four decades, collectors have been coming together for the meets. McDougall, now retired from the Exxon Bayway refinery, remembers his first, in 1977 at Princeton Day School, a gathering that featured 400 tables of memorabilia, or breweriana as it's called.
"It was all cans back then, and trade only, no money changing hands," he says.
A good find back then would have been flat-top cans from the 1950s, like a woodgrain Shaefer can. (It should be remembered that New Jersey lays claim to introducing canned beer to America almost 70 years ago, thanks to the Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company.)
McDougall's can collection numbers 1,000, with five times that many coasters (his cans are boxed up, though, not on display at home). Back in the day, a co-worker who was doing some home remodeling stumbled upon some Krueger Ambassador cans and gave them to McDougall.
"It was a premium brand by Kreuger in the '40s and '50s. It had an illustration of Bavarian dancers," he recalls. "When Narragansett bought (Krueger), they stopped brewing it."
No swap would be complete without beer itself, and at this one look for some Magic Hat, as well as some Jersey-brewed offerings from Cricket Hill and Climax Brewing, and possibly others. (McDougall says club members often show up with growlers from brewpubs they made excursions to.)
Climax Brewing owner Dave Hoffmann, a longtime supporter of the event, is sending a sixtel of Bavarian Dark Lager (5.2% ABV, a beer he pulled out of production (it's a dying style, he says) years ago but brewed again recently at the behest of Paul Kermizian, one of the owners of Barcade (Brooklyn, Jersey City and Philadelphia).
"It's like the real deal. It's got that real nutty, chocolaty, malty Bavarian dark lager taste," Dave says. "It's real balanced, easy to drink, and it's real dark. When you look at it, it's like my Nut Brown Ale.
"I used to make it all the time, but all of a sudden it started not selling. So I stopped making it, and Kermizian was all upset because that was one of his favorite beers that I made."
And now for the Mad Men moment:
A million-plus bucks worth of custom fabricated steel arrived in Somerdale on Monday and was promptly moved into place, as Flying Fish Brewing makes progress on its move from Cherry Hill, the original home of the craft brewer now widely known for the Exit Series beers.
Folks at Flying Fish project being in business at the new location around May or June. But make no mistake, setting up a 50-barrel automated brewhouse to feed fermenters three times that capacity is no small feat. So that projection is obviously subject to how the installation of everything goes.
The components that arrived on Monday, following a fortnight trans-Atlantic voyage, were the lauter tun, mash tun, whirlpool and kettle, which join a new kegger that arrived a while ago.
About the video: It's a tongue-in-cheek take on the new equipment's arrival, seen through the prism of silent film. Special thanks to Kevin MacLeod of Incompetech, who always seems to have the right music available for quirky video projects.
Via: Rehab International
This tumbled into the InBox last week, one of those offers of use as a way to promote the creators ...
It's visually entertaining, although if you want to quibble, the actual date of the 18th Amendment's ratification (not passage) was Jan. 16th 1919 (New Jersey wouldn't ratify it until three years later, practically bringing up the rear), with the stipulation Prohibition would not take effect until January 17th 1920.
*Yes this is the correct one; it's pore, not pour, in this case.
By now, you've at least heard, if not read, that Sam Calagione opened a shaken-up bottle of shut-yer-yap, spraying the grousing beer geek-noscenti in a BeerAdvocate post.
Actually Dogfish Head's founder was quite tactful in his takedown of those whose faceless forum commentary on the beers they drink can muddy the point of whether they liked them or not, or turn shrill when they feel the need to opine that something has grown too popular. (Actually, just saying you liked a particular beer can seem like a confession these days.)
Quite often that stuff comes across as turgid prose or some flowery mental masturbation to beer porno.
In any case, there's not a lot to add to what Sam says, other than this: fixating on brussels lace and how decanting into sparkling glasses of beer-clean quality, the russet brew produced a rocky tan head (you can substitute tan with alabaster), well that just sucks all the oxygen out of the drinking experience.
Maybe it's time to just count to 10, relax, and simply have a beer. Enjoy it. And back away from your keyboard.
It's official: New Jersey homebrewers are no longer legally obligated to pony up 15 bucks to the state to make their beer.
Governor Chris Christie has signed legislation to eliminate the 21-year-old permit requirement that most homebrewers had said fuhgettaboutit to in the first place, either because they never knew about it, or they had reservations about getting the state involved in their lives and their much-loved hobby.
On Monday without comment, Governor Christie signed the legislation that was introduced in spring 2011. The signing is noted on the governor's web site, amid a collection of other bills also getting his signature that day.
(If you're a craft beer enthusiast in the Garden State, it's hard to ignore the fact that Chris Christie has been a friend to beer since taking office in 2010. Last May he signed a proclamation for American Craft Beer Week in New Jersey; his lieutenant governor, Kim Guadagno, made a trip to Flying Fish Brewing last fall; and now the elimination of the homebrewing permit. That's more than any governor has done to give beer a boost since craft brewing was sanctioned in New Jersey in 1993.)
Homebrewing has had the blessing of the federal government since thoroughbred horse racing last had a Triple Crown winner (Affirmed), when Congress exempted 200 gallons made for personal consumption from taxation. New Jersey lawmakers said yes to the hobby 13 years later, in 1991.
However, there was a catch to Trenton giving its blessing, something that New Jersey homebrewing enthusiast Ed Busch, at the time a member of the American Homebrewers Association board of governors, saw as an unavoidable trade-off for getting lawmakers to go along with the idea officially green-lighting people making beer at home. (It should be remembered that after Prohibition, states were given great authority to regulate alcoholic beverages within their borders, and that Alabama still does not allow homebrewing, while Oklahoma finally relented in 2010.)
Thus the permit was born in the same breath as Trenton's proclaiming that making up to 200 gallons of homebrew per year was legal (echoing the federal law), thus giving Garden State homebrewers cover from overzealous local code enforcement officers who wanted to play revenuer.
Joe Bair, who opened his Princeton Homebrew shop in 1995, on Tuesday applauded the end of the permit, saying Ed had always envisioned it being scrapped at some point. Sadly, Ed died about five years ago, never seeing his intuition play out as reality.
"Ed Busch said it would eventually get changed, and I'm sure he's happy in his grave that it has," Joe says.
The biggest problem with the permit law, Joe says, was never the $15 fee imposed on homebrewers, but rather their taking a hit on their rights against search and seizure. Getting a permit meant state alcoholic beverage regulators could pay a call on you whenever they wanted.
"People were surprised when they got their permits in the mail to find that out," Joe says.
To the state's credit, the Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control kept its distance from homebrewers. Still, the existence of the permit requirement, though often obscure, turned homebrewers who knew of the obligation into scofflaws when they ignored it.
"It wasn't because they didn't want to pay the money," Joe says. "It was they didn't want to give up their rights against search and seizure."
Charging across the pond at this very writing, aimed at the port of New York, are a pair of freighters carrying Flying Fish's new brewery equipment.
That's the brewhouse being loaded at the port for the nearly two-week trans-Atlantic voyage (all photos courtesy of Flying Fish).
Ludwigshafen Express, a German-flagged vessel, departed Hamburg, Germany, last Friday. It has passed through the English Channel, heading into the Celtic Sea, from whence it will make way toward the open waters of the North Atlantic.
Steaming along at 19.4 knots (22 mph), Ludwigshafen has an expected arrival of this Sunday.
The other freighter, Atlantic Compass, flying the flag of Sweden, recently departed Liverpool in the UK and is cruising through the Irish Sea at 16.1 knots (19 mph), en route to the North Atlantic, with an expected arrival in New York of a week from today.
You can track the vessels here and here.
In case it's lost on anyone, there's a coincidental Beatles connection here (if you don't mind dated references).
Liverpool is where John, Paul, George and Ringo were from and got their start at the Cavern Club; they sharpened their act gigging at clubs along Hamburg's famed Reeperbahn nightlife and red-light district.
Not a bad little musical tangent for shipping brewery equipment that is destined to go into a building in Somerdale where LP records used to be pressed.
Meanwhile, of course, in anticipation of the 50-barrel brewhouse's arrival, the concrete pad for the equipment has been poured.
With a soundtrack of early-1970s Led Zeppelin spinning from vintage vinyl, Tuckahoe Brewing put its gas-fired brewing system through the paces on Friday, a maiden brew day aimed largely at mastering the 3-barrel setup featuring twin units of 1.5-barrel mash tuns and kettles.
For practically any startup brewery, inaugural batches are intended to work out the efficiencies of new brewing equipment and generally ensure the process of mashing grain, boiling wort and chilling it as it's pumped into fermenters goes smoothly and free of leaking connections or pump failures.
But a launch brew also heralds an entry into the marketplace. And for Tuckahoe, the brew day also set the company squarely on its planned course to launch year-round and seasonal beers into the Garden State's craft beer market.
Striking a mash for a flagship American-style pale ale on the linearly arranged PsychoBrew system marked a few firsts for Matt McDevitt, who will oversee brewing operations for Tuckahoe.
A homebrewer for a decade, with the past six of that time spent sharpening his brewing skills and confidence, Matt hadn't made beer before on a high-end setup orchestrated by pumps, sensors and a control panel.
But Matt reports everything ran smoothly with the inaugural commercial brew of DC Pale Ale, a 6% ABV beer assertively dosed with Columbus, Cascade and Willamette hops. "I love hops," Matt says. DC, by the way, is a shorthand for Dennis Creek, a waterway in the part of Cape May County where Tuckahoe is located. Tuckahoe's beer names, like the accompanying seasonals Steelman Porter and Marshallville Wit, will have local themes; some brews will feature locally sourced ingredients, while some special-occasion brews will get the bomber bottle treatment (most of the beer, however, will be in the draft market).
"As far as the equipment is concerned, everything has gone very well so far," Matt says. "I've been paying close attention to the pumps, the recirculation, just making sure the grain bed is setting, making sure nothing is getting stuck. So far, so good, just a few hiccups earlier. Also, what I've been paying attention to is the control panel; it's the first time I've ever operated this."
Prior to the inaugural brew day, only some preliminary checks had been conducted on the stainless steel brewing equipment – so new and shiny that from across the brewery you could still pick out sharp reflections of Matt and Chris Konicki, another Tuckahoe partner who helped with the mash-in on Friday.
"Three weeks ago, while I was on the phone with the manufacturer of the system," Matt says, "I ran a (test) run with just water in just one of the mash tuns, just to see the recirculation, just to set a temperature, see if it could get to the temperature, see how the regulated gas comes on an off, just to see essentially if it works."
Unlike larger brewhouse setups, the PsychoBrew system's mash tun uses an intermittently lighting gas flame to maintain a preset mash temperature, and pumps to recirculate liquid that seeps below the grain bed grate to keep the sugars developing from the mash from scorching and becoming unintentionally caramelized.
"Earlier one of the mash tuns stopped recirculating, so it was just a matter of opening the ball valve a little more," Matt says.
Founded a year ago as a partnership of Matt, Chris, Tim Hanna and Jim McAfee, Tuckahoe was licensed by state regulators just 10 days ago, making the brewery the latest startup in a very busy growth year for New Jersey's craft brewing industry. (Matt, Chris and Tim are teachers in Atlantic County; Jim is an architect who designed the brewery.)
This year alone, Tuckahoe is the fifth beer-maker to claim the mantle of "New Jersey's newest craft brewery." It's a title not lost on the crew who set up shop in Dennis Township in Cape May County and became that county's second brewery this year as well. (Cape May Brewing was licensed last spring.)
"It's a little scary and surreal," Matt says, "but I'm pretty happy and confident that after getting my feet wet and comfortable with the system, I think we can do something pretty good, and I think a lot of people will enjoy it."
Located in a light industrial building shared by a fish market and a coffee roaster, Tuckahoe Brewing is tricked out with a pair of 3-barrel fermenters in the center of the brewery space. A pair of similar-sized bright beer tanks are situated in a cold box along a far wall, where an array of 60 black, polyurethane sixtels and 20 half barrels are stacked. The brewhouse is moored along an opposite wall and accessible by a low scaffold trimmed with a berm and fitted with drains and plumbing that substitute for a trench drain in the floor.
A flight of stairs leads to a loft office, equipped with turntable and stacks of LPs to create that ever-important soundtrack for brew days.
The brewery entrance opens to a reception area done up in a mural of the South Jersey shore from Sea Isle to Atlantic City painted by an artist friend. Brewery open houses are planned, as soon a the foursome can acquire the necessary permit for the tasting room.
Amid the brew day on Friday, as work friends and neighbors stopped by with well-wishes, Matt, 36, a new dad for the second time (his son Jack was born around start of December), paused to reflect on a parallel between his life and his father's.
"It's funny, when I was born, the same year, pretty close to my birthday, my dad opened a new photography studio," Matt says. "It's kind of interesting and cool that the same month that my son is born, I open up a business. I like that. The continuity of that is kind of cool."
It's called Santa's Little Helper* right now, but that name could change.
Brewer Tim Kelly certainly hopes the beer does go through some transformation.
The first-ever barleywine Tim made as the guy who makes all the beer at the Tun Tavern went on tap a couple weeks ago as the seasonal offering at the Atlantic City brewpub.
Barleywines can have a longer pouring life than their flagship siblings at brewpubs, given the specialty beers' higher alcohol content and the smaller-than-pint serving sizes.
Santa's Little Helper clocks in at 11% ABV, so you can expect this brew to hang around and evolve some over its life as a draft beer.
That's just fine.
But Tim's taking a longer-range view. Like a couple of years, maybe half that.
Or maybe even much longer, since it's being left up to you.
Last week, Tim racked off about 12 cases of the barleywine into 750 milliliter bottles for retail sale.
And that was after conditioning the beer for a month on French oak soaked in dark rum and dry-hopping it.
(As far as the brewing went, throughout the boil he hopped it with Styrian, Nugget, Chinook, East Kent Golding and Fuggles, finishing it off with Cascade.)
"I designed this beer with it being bottled and aged in mind. Little nuances will hopefully develop and come out over time," Tim says.
The beer began its life as an answer to those who remember the Tun having a barleywine on tap but forgetting who made it.
In that regard, Tim's brew harkens back to his predecessor, Ted Briggs, who left nearly five years ago with a big golden barleywine aging in barrels that Tim, as pretty much one of his first tasks upon arriving, racked off into 750's, then corked and capped. (Ted's now brewmaster at Lander Brewing in Wyoming.)
Those bottles (pictured below) have been sold out for some time now.
But now that Tim's barleywine is on tap, and in bottles for sale, a new chapter has been written.
How that plot develops is up to you.
*Yes, Santa's Little Helper is a Simpsons reference, a nod to their race-losing greyhound.
Go big, go imperial, go to Cricket Hill.
Just in time for the yule season and New Year's Eve, the Fairfield brewery will pre-release the Russian imperial stout it produced from the winning homebrew recipe in Cricket Hill's pro-am contest.
The stout is getting the teaser roll-out at brewery tours (5-7 p.m.) this Friday and next Friday (Dec. 30) before hitting store shelves in 22-ounce bomber bottles in January as a Cricket Hill reserve series beer.
Shepherded through production by Assistant Brewer Patrick Lynch and contest winner Bill Kovach, the brew debuts as Reserve No. 16. Bill's entry bested nearly three dozen other submissions in Cricket Hill's 2010 competition to land in the pantheon of Cricket Hill brews. At 10.5% ABV, it's one of the biggest Cricket Hill has made over its decade of existence.
Brewery co-owner John Watts says the stout will be coming back around as Reserve No. 18 after it gets some bourbon barrel time. That version will be very limited and will be available only at the brewery.
