April's good for Jersey beer growth

Looks like the second of two brewery launches in the Garden State will happen this month.

The folks at Port 44 Brew Pub in Newark say their opening is "so close we can taste it." That's from owner John Feeley, who took a few moments today to field a phone call about the brewpub's status.

The pub's interior is finished, and Port 44 has its federal license to brew beer, as well as its license from New Jersey regulators to sell beer. All that's left is a state license to brew and a bar license from the city of Newark. (In New Jersey, municipalities control the licensing to sell beer, wine and liquor for on-premise consumption.)

What's happening right now is some T-crossing and I-dotting – in other words, overcoming some lingering red tape – that could see Port 44 pouring beer at its Commerce Street site at least by mid-month, if not sooner. The first brews to flow won't be house beers, but rather craft brews from around the region, since the flight of Port 44-made brews won't be ready just yet.

Cricket Hill, in nearby Fairfield, has been a big supporter of Newark's second brewing enterprise (mega brewer Budweiser is the other) in eons – and first craft brewer, so you can expect CH to help inaugurate Port 44's taps. Look for Port 44 to to have its house-made ales on tap toward the end of April.

Port 44's jump into the world of better beer comes on the heels of New Jersey Beer Company launching as a production brewery in nearby North Bergen, making the two companies the second and third craft brewer enterprises to join New Jersey's beer scene in less than a year.

Iron Hill became the first new brewery in New Jersey to open in a decade when it began pouring its pub-brewed ales and lagers in Maple Shade in July of last year.

It won't be long now ...

Matt Steinberg is oh so close to drinking a beer – then brewing some.

As of today, Matt was forecasting the inaugural brew for New Jersey Beer Company to hit the mash tun at the end of this weekend or the start of next week, with folks being able to drink the first beer brewed in Hudson County in over a decade by the fourth week of April. (The last brewer in Hudson County was craft brewer Hoboken Brewing, with the Mile Square brand.)

In the meantime, he says, New Jersey Beer Company is making a mad dash toward the installation finish line at his location along Tonnelle Avenue in North Bergen. "Actually tomorrow will be a pretty insane day as we try to finish everything off," he said via email Friday.

After that, he'll have that beer to take the edge off the long bumpy road that is starting a craft brewing enterprise, relax for a while, then get going on the very first batch of Hudson Pale Ale, one of three brews that will anchor NJ Beer in the marketplace.

On the heels of that will be more brewing (Garden State Stout and 1787 Abbey Single) and greeting the public at brewery tours. But the latter is down the road a little bit (keep an eye on his Web site, Facebook and Twitter). "As soon as the fermenters are filled, we'll focus on the aesthetics of the place, get the tasting room together," Matt says.

If you subscribe to the Garden State Craft Brewers Guild newsletter and saw that NJ Beer, the guild's newest member, was brewing, well, Matt confesses to doing a little bit of marketing ahead of production in the monthly missive. Nothing wrong with that. At all. Because, like The Beatles sang, it won't be long. Yeah.

And we think NJ beer regs are unreasonable ...

Check this out. Things could be worse than the arcane, ham-handed beer regulations found in New Jersey.