Cash for Sandy, an IPA & a Beach Haus brewery

A new beer, a shot of cash for Superstorm Sandy relief and efforts toward a new brewery ... East Coast Beer Company has been busy lately.

OK, the Point Pleasant Beach contract-brew enterprise, like all of the state's beer purveyors, is always busy. 

But if a beer release targeted for next month isn't enough, the guys behind Beach Haus pilsner, Winter Rental schwarzbier and Kick Back amber ale are also hoping that by the end of 12 months they will have their own brewery in New Jersey.

Here are the latest details:

Kicking Sandy

If you live at the Jersey shore or its environs, then by now you're used to seeing the green-orange-and-white Servpro vehicles buzzing around (or, happily, you are seeing fewer of the flood-cleanup company's vans and trucks at this point). You've probably likewise grown accustomed to the buzz of saws and rapping of hammers. 

The shore is bouncing back from the Oct. 29th hybrid storm (a $30 billion hurricane cum nor'easter) that rewrote New Jersey's coastline, and displaced a lot of people. 

Getting back to normal has taken time and money. East Coast Beer's founders are shore denizens, from northern Ocean County, an area that saw extensive damage  from Sandy. As such, the guys felt compelled to help.

In short order after the storm, John "Merk" Merklin and Brian Ciriaco committed themselves to raise money through sales of their beers and channel it to storm relief. Three of their distributors – Kohler, Ritchie & Page, and Harrison Beverage – backed them up on the endeavor.

Last week, East Coast announced $4,068 had been raised for the Hurricane Sandy New Jersey Relief Fund, the organization founded just days after the storm by first lady Mary Pat Christie. 

"We went to the distributors simply with a print request, saying 'Hey, we're going to look to donate 50 cents for every case we sell to this fund, can you just print up the flyers and make sure to get the information out?" Merk says. "Our distributors said, 'You know what? This is a great idea. How about we match you?' So it wound up becoming a dollar for every case."

A dollar for every case, plus what others may have been inspired to donate after seeing the flyer. Merk says there were some instances of that kind of giving.

Beer No. 4

Beach Haus Cruiser IPA, East Coast's fourth beer to come to market in bottle and draft, is due out in mid- to late March. It's the company's hoppiest beer to date, a combination of Centennial and Horizon hops that clock in at 60 to 65 IBUs on top of about 6.5% ABV maltiness. (For comparison purposes, that's the flavor-profile neighborhood of Oskar Blues Dale's Pale Ale.) 

For hops fans, the beer will be familiar (think West Coast inspired) and assertive, but not over the top. "It's what you would expect from an IPA; you get all of that hop flavor. But we're not out for the moon on this one in terms of IBUs. For us, that was not the objective," Merk says.

Cruiser's about embracing the IPA style, a beer that is "something you can put a couple back, and do it having fun with the experience," Merk notes.

The beer has been on East Coast's drawing boards for quite a while. It would have seen introduction in late 2011, on the heels of the company's flagship pilsner, were it not for a reshuffling of the lineup plan. The reordering put it behind Winter Rental, which debuted as a fall season in 2011, and Kick Back, which came out in spring 2012.

Drafting new approaches

For any beer company or brewery, fine-tuning production is an ongoing matter. For East Coast, that has translated into some tweaks in managing their draft beer production, generally now treating it as seasonal while bottles are year-round. (The company distributes to six states now: New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, North Carolina and South Carolina.)

"We've had some success with the draft market, with obviously local accounts, and even national chains like Applebee's," Merk says. "But we noticed no matter who the account is – and there's a few exceptions which we're absolutely thankful for – we're never going to grab two (draft) lines. It's very difficult for anybody, let alone us, to say, 'Hey, we're going to have Winter Rental on one line and Kick Back on another.'  

"So what we've done is, we've kind of said, unofficially but just operationally, that our draft is somewhat seasonal. For instance, Kick Back is available for three months of the year; it's going to fall into late summer, early fall this year. The bottle (version) is available year-round. The pilsner ... again, draft is going to be available late spring throughout the summer, but the bottles are obviously available … Same thing with Cruiser. It's going to be early spring, mid-summer availability in draft, but you're always going to be able to get packaged."

Further tweaks to that are likely. 

"We don't see how producing draft year-round – it doesn't work out to our favor right now," Merk says. "The good part is, we're holding onto lines more and more. There are a number of accounts – it's starting to grow where we have 12-month presence with at lease one of our beers. But it's probably less than a dozen where we've got folks pouring two of our beers."

Homesteading

With the help of Tom Przyborowski, East Coast's R&D-brewer, Merk and Brian entered New Jersey's craft beer market in 2010 with Beach Haus Classic American Pilsener, brewed under contract by Genesee in Rochester, N.Y. Amid that, having a brewery in their home state was always on their minds. 

But back then, logic dictated that a brewery take a back seat to building the core brand in what has become a rapidly expanding craft beer market in New Jersey. Almost a year ago, though, East Coast began to give the brewery part of their business model more attention. Now it's front and center, with the company scouting locations and working through the options for equipping a brewery (i.e. new versus used equipment). 

"We're looking to be in a decent-size space, be a decent-size brewery, something that people want to come visit. We're pursuing it, operationally committing resources to it," Merk says. "It's going to help our business evolve. It's going to give us greater flexibility in terms of putting out styles and such. We've talked to a number of new equipment manufacturers; we've kept our eyes on the industry classifieds."

But, of course, settling the matter of a location must come first. 

"You have to get the location, and the location's got to get the approvals, so when you put equipment on order, it's not going to just sit in a warehouse after it's done," Merk says.

Just exactly where East Coast is looking to put a brewery is being held close to the vest. But some options look promising.

"There's a particularly interesting location, again without naming it, where it's fairly drop-and-go for us," Merk says. "Structurally, there's not much to do with the building. We'd like to get this done in 12 months. But this is a business where people say, 'twice as long and three times as expensive.' I certainly hope it's not twice as long. But there's a couple of properties we're looking at that, if it were to go through, we could be in and up and running in as soon as 12 months. It's exciting. It's driving us right now to make this happen."

East Coast's timing is appropriate, too.

Governor Chris Christie signed into law last September new rules that grant some freedoms that had long been kept out Garden State craft brewers' reach, namely lifting restrictions on how brewers could retail directly to the public during brewery tours. The result is, production craft brewers can now mine an additional revenue source to supplement the traditional channel of beer sales through distributors.

"Between tasting rooms and little retail rooms, it's amazing how much that can pick up the slack where you don't make money or where you lose money, between the licensing and being in compliance in various states, things like that," Merk says. "It's a good opportunity from a business-model perspective; it makes a ton of financial sense to do it. That wasn't always the case."

Beach Haus Kick Back Ale due in early May

The folks who bring you the contract-brewed Beach Haus Classic American Pilsner and Beach Haus Winter Rental black lager are exploring having their own brewery in New Jersey.

Big news, yes, but hang on for a second because there are some asterisks that go along with that information. Not to mention the fact that word of it shouldn't dwarf news that East Coast Beer is on the cusp of bringing a third beer to market, an American amber ale ale that will be Point Pleasant company's second year-round label and its hoppiest brew to date.

Previewed to the festival crowds in February and March, Kick Back Ale is scheduled to be bottled and kegged May 7th at Genesee Brewing (East Coast's contractor in Rochester, New York) and hit stores after the 11th. (In development for a while, Kick Back was actually supposed to be introduced last year, but Winter Rental was pushed ahead of it as a fall seasonal.)

At around 5.5% ABV, the brew is a sit and chill with friends kind of beer, says John Merklin, who  with his friend, Brian Ciriaco, launched Beach Haus pilsner in 2010 as their year-round flagship label.

"Beach Haus Classic American Pilsner and Beach Haus Winter Rental, they were kinda like the yin and yang to one another – one certainly more sunshine, spring/summerish feel (and) Winter Rental being part of the whole fall/winter motif," says Merk, as friends call him. "This (Kick Back) was just a departure of any season whatsoever, any single day or single event. It's just the everyday backyard setting, which is the first place of leisure for most folks."

Square Melon Communications, the Westfield promotions and graphic design house that has done all of the Beach Haus labeling, turned in some inviting companion artwork this time: an emblematic backyard stockade fence with a pair of kicked-off work boot slung over the pickets, while sunrays (setting or rising, you can make a case for either amid the hues) filtering through.

Label aside, the Beach Haus brand has made its name with beers that are accessible to folks who still hang around the Budweiser tent, but the brews also hit the spot with craft beer enthusiasts. Kick Back follows that arc, and Merk describes the flavor profile as hoppy but balanced.

"It's an American amber ale, so you're definitely going to get some good hop presence. It certainly will be our hoppiest beer," Merk says. "To style, it's going to have a really rich aroma, (which) will also have equal part as far as the maltiness. Besides the color, what keeps it from being an IPA is the fact that it's a little less on the hoppy side. That equal part in maltiness really balances it out."

Now about that Beach Haus brewery in New Jersey (and those asterisks). For starters, Merk says, things in that regard are embryonic and that farming out their beers to another company to brew remains part of the Beach Haus business model. But having a local brewery was also part of the company plan that came together five years ago. Additionally, Merk says having a brewery will "give us a little added flexibility in terms of introducing new styles and new brands ... getting more beers out to market in a more timely fashion."

"We're in the early phases of looking at properties and working out financing," he says. "It's far from a done deal, but we're taking action on it probably a year or two earlier than we had initially thought.

"It's always been part of the entire picture, the long-term picture. It's something very interesting to us. Not to get away from contract brewing, I'm certain we will always contract brew. We're very happy with our relationship (with Genesee). We've actually made some really outstanding beers we feel have had a lot of success."

Here's another asterisk about the Beach Haus, something else to consider when you think of contract brewing ...

The fact that Beach Haus beers are contract brewed shouldn't be misconstrued as Merk, Brian and Tom Przyborowski, East Coast's beer-development point man, just writing a check for a brewing and kicking back while Genesee does all the work. All three Beach Haus brews have been pilot-brewed by the trio first, the recipes refined, then handed off to Rochester. And then, the trio will put their hands on whatever tasks Genesee allows.

"The best way to put it is we do every non-union job they let us, which is quite a bit. Everything starts as a brew in my garage, not just a single event," Merk says. "For instance with Kick Back Ale, we went through four different iterations – and it was 18 months worth of development, all in my garage – before we even took the first trip to Rochester."

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Oct. 18 release for new Beach Haus brew

East Coast Beer Company is poised to release its second label, a fall-winter seasonal follow-up to its Beach Haus Classic American Pilsner, which debuted in the Garden State craft beer market a little over a year ago.

Beach Haus Winter Rental, a German schwarzbier-inspired black lager (5% ABV), was brewed a couple weeks ago in Rochester, N.Y., at High Falls Brewing, East Coast's contract brewer.

East Coast president John Merklin says the beer will be bottled and kegged Oct. 17 and brought into New Jersey Oct. 18.

John describes the dark-ruby colored brew as a medium-bodied beer with a maltiness and roastiness, a hint of chocolate and some subdued hops.

"We think it's really in line with what we're trying to do as a beer company – accessible but rich styles. We gravitated toward that as a style because it's the right fit for us," he says.

Don't look for a big release party, but John says the East Coast crew will be hitting the trail soon, radiating out from the company's Point Pleasant home base to promote the new addition to the Beach Haus brand. (A pale ale that has been on East Coast's drawing boards for a while is being targeted for April.)

"We're going to be here, there and everywhere, talking about Winter Rental with folks," John says.

Since East Coast's launch into the New Jersey craft beer market around Labor Day of 2010, the company has extended its reach outside the Garden State.

Beach Haus entered the Pennsylvania market back in June (it's in 14 counties now), and East Coast has met with New York distributors, although it has not signed on with anyone yet.

Back at home, Beach Haus cracked into the suburban chain restaurant scene (the pilsner is in 25 Applebee's locations up and down the state), where craft beer in general has been making deeper inroads against the likes of Bud Light and Coors Light, the long-established brews found at the eateries flanking the malls and shopping centers.

Craft beer's growing presence in such establishments (think Harpoon's IPA at TGI Friday's) is a reflection of its surging popularity. Finding Beach Haus, or any other Garden State brand for that matter, mirrors that trend.