The ranks of New Jersey beer producers is growing.Add to your list Hometown Beverages, based in Oceanport (home of Monmouth Park racetrack, which hosted the Breeders Cup last year).
We have a call in to Chris Curylo, one of the founders, who was in meetings today in New York with partner Bob Selsky. We hope to talk to Chris later in the afternoon.
Chris and Bob hail from Little Silver – a small Monmouth County train stop town along NJ Transit's North Jersey Coast Line. Here's the backstory on their foray into Jersey beer.
According to an email from Chris, their plan is to launch their contract-brewed tri-state lagers – named New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania – in December. And on the Nov. 12th post at MyBeerBuzz blog, we saw Hometown Beverages was among the breweries listed to be at the Split Rock festival in the Poconos this weekend. (NOTE: Split Rock's brochure doesn't list Hometown Beverages, but there's no telling when it was produced or if updated.)
From their site:
ReplyDelete"best tasting microbrewed lager to ever be found in the State of New Jersey"
Found? Not brewed? Please forgive my cynicism here, but contract brewing your beer somewhere else and then calling it New York/New Jersey/Pennsylvania Lager and then trying to claim some kind of authenticity is pretty lame.
Everybody has a right to make a living and start up a business, so I certainly don't mean to begrudge anyone. But if I'm looking for a great authentic New Jersey lager, I can go pick up a jug of Climax Helles. Now that's real New Jersey beer.