Beer Minute: Brewery count tops 2,500

A mid-year tally of U.S. breweries in operation finds the number has topped 2,500. The Brewers Association's count of 2,514 as of May 31 – the figure is up 422 from the same time in 2012 – goes beyond craft brewers to include the mega breweries, such as Budweiser and MillerCoors and their holdings. Of note, there are 1,167 brewpubs and 1,214 microbreweries. The BA's count of breweries-in-planning is at 1,559, up 331 from the same period last year. That breweries-in-planning figure can be deceptive, given that the threshold for getting on the list is rather low, and the BA had to clean up its list  late last year, purging a couple hundred entries. The BA notes on its blog page that brewery openings are on pace to crack 3,000 next year. At what point the trend begins to slow, where the ceiling is, and how far from that mark things settle is anyone's guess.

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New Jersey's craft brewing regulations were changed last year by convincing lawmakers in Trenton that craft beer can help pull the oars of the economy. So this tidbit from the economic think tank National University System Institute for Policy Research helps build on that case: San Diego's craft beer industry means big bucks to that part of California: nearly $300 million in wages, capital spending and contracts. The policy research institute cites 2011 figures, the most current available. (The policy institute itself has only been around since 2007.) According to the institute, craft brewing makes a bigger economic splash for San Diego than the annual Comic-Con, and employs 1,100 people. 

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Here's an older item out of the Brewers Association, but it's still worth noting. The BA recently hired an economist from the University of Iowa, Bart Watson, to study the craft brewing industry with an eye toward developing statistical tools for association members and state brewing guilds across the country. Besides doing the data crunching, the job calls for producing a state-by-state impact study.

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Portland, Maine, brewer Allagash notes on its Facebook page that its ever-changing Fluxus beer, an expected late July release for 2013, is a porter this time out, brewed coffee and chocolate malts, blood orange, and hopped with Perle, Tettnang and Glacier. An abbey yeast turns it all into beer. (Fluxus 2012, a Belgian strong pale ale, was brewed with spelt and pink and green peppercorns.)

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California brewer 21st Amendment's Hop Crisis is back for a third year. The 9.7% ABV imperial IPA that's part of 21st Amendment's limited edition Insurrection Series features new dry hops with New Zealand Motueka and Australian Stella blended with Northwest Cascade hops. The canned beer is being sold in four-packs. (Lower De Boom barleywine and Marooned on Hog Island oyster stout are the other Insurrection brews.)

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Here's one for the traveling craft beer enthusiasts: Stone Farms, where Stone Brewing has been growing produce for its farm-to-table Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens restaurants, is opening to the public. Tours are offered Saturdays and Sundays for 20 bucks, and 10 bucks if you're not drinking. Stone has five acres of the 19-acre property under cultivation, growing year-round and seasonable crops. Fowl are also raised on the farm, producing eggs for garnishes, specialty dishes and appetizers. 

– The Beer Minute is a quick-read round-up of notable events or news about breweries from elsewhere that distribute in New Jersey.

Beer Minute: StoneRuinTen release today

California brewer Stone has released a rebrew of its Ruination Tenth Anniversary triple IPA. Last year's observance of the IPA's milestone was well received, prompting Stone to put a rebranded version, StoneRuinTen, on the brewery's special-releases calendar for this year. Here's the beer's construct: 110 IBUs, a 50-50 blend of Citra and Centennial in a double dry-hop, and an ABV clocking in at 10.8%. The new name is a brewery and fan shorthand for 2012's Stone Ruination Tenth Anniversary IPA. Folks at the brewery suggest drinking this brew sooner than later to maximize the hops experience.

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For a fifth consecutive year, Pliny the Elder tops a survey of American Homebrewers Association members asking which is the nation's best commercially produced beer. Russian River's highly acclaimed Elder bested Bell's Two Hearted Ale, Dogfish Head 90 Minute Imperial IPA, Bell's Hopslam Ale and Ballast Point's Sculpin IPA in results released Monday. Alas, three of the five (Pliny and both Bell's beers) are not distributed in New Jersey. Pull out your travel plans.

– The Beer Minute is a quick-read round-up of notable events or news about breweries from elsewhere that distribute in New Jersey.

Beer Minute: NJ says 'can't' to new Sly Fox can

Here's another way New Jersey plays stick in the mud when it comes to craft beer, and it's a bit ironic, too, given that the Garden State takes credit for introducing canned beer in the first place.

The new Sly Fox cans with the lift-off lid aren't allowed in the Garden State. 

Yep, the ones the Pennsylvania brewer introduced in April as the "360 lid." Sly Fox's canned beers are still widely available here in New Jersey, just not in that attractive innovation that turns the can into more of a cup.

Getting blocked at the Delaware River goes back to a 1970s litter law that prohibits any detachable metal from the can. The law was a response to the pull-tabs introduced in the early/mid-1960s that consigned church keys to the collectibles bin. The pull-tabs were replaced in the mid-1970s by the stay-tabs everyone is familiar with now (pull tabs, by the way, are still in use in China).

Tim Ohst, Sly Fox's brewery operations manager, says the ban is disappointing, for a few reasons: The 360 lid is 100 percent recyclable (it, like the can, is aluminum); the lid passed safety tests for sharpness; it requires less metal to make the lid than a bottle cap, which is metal that detaches from a beverage container; the lid is no more of a potential litter menace than that metal bottle cap or a plastic cap from a bottle of Poland Springs. 

By the way, New Jersey, where canned beer became a new frontier for U.S. consumers nearly 80 years ago in Newark a la Gottfried Krueger Creme Ale and Krueger's Finest Beer, isn't alone with the buzz kill. New York state has a similar law.

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Troegs has released its stripped-down version of Mad Elf again. The Pennsylvania brewer announced Naked Elf's return on its website on Wednesday. You won't taste the chocolate malt, cherries and honey that are some of the hallmarks of Mad Elf in this 7.8% ABV brew that's among the brewery's Scratch Beers, because, well, it's naked compared with that 11% holiday seasonal. Still, the folks at Troegs describe the stripped-down version as an "unfiltered golden beauty that displays a pronounced yeast flavor that made the Mad Elf famous." That's a dressed-up way of noting Naked Elf's munich and pilsner malts and Belgian yeast. The hops are cinnamon spice-like Czech Saaz and earthy German Northern Brewer. Naked Elf is available in draft and six-packs at the brewery.

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Here's one that probably mostly interests the light beer-drinking crowd: Brewers can now add nutritional information, such as calories and carbohydrates per serving, to their beer labels. The federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, the folks who will have the final say over brewers' labels, issued a ruling Tuesday green-lighting "serving facts" statements. Such information also includes the number of servings per container, plus fat and protein content, which given that it's an alcoholic beverage, that zero-fat content can become fat on you after you drink it, depending upon your metabolism. The ruling is essentially a modification of a position the bureau took nine years ago with regard to liquors, wines and malt beverages. The bureau's rather densely worded ruling can be read by following the link off the press release found here. Singing the Miller 64 song from the commercial will probably be considered a violation among your craft beer friends.

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– The Beer Minute is a quick-read round-up of notable events or news about breweries from elsewhere that distribute in New Jersey.

Beer Minute: Sly Fox, Terrapin, homebrewing

Pennsylvania brewer Sly Fox is taking one of its offerings beyond its own taps and onto the store shelves. Grisette Working Class Ale, a spicy, unfiltered Belgian-style brew that scrapes the ceiling of session beer (5.6% ABV), debuted in 12-ounce cans at Sly Fox's Pottstown, Pa., tasting room and at its Phoenixville location this week. An off-the-beaten-path beer for U.S. brewers, as a style Grisette was to Belgian miners what Saison is to Belgian farmhands. The name is derived from the gray dresses worn by the working-class women who served the beer. In Sly Fox's world, Grisette has existed as an exclusive draft offering at the brewery's pubs and some select accounts. Sly Fox promises wider distribution down the road in all of its markets.

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Georgia brewer Terrapin (where Jesse Ferguson of Carton Brewing in Atlantic Highlands trained for a time) is adding to its year-round beer lineup – a session ale that will also be Terrapin's first brew in 12-ounce cans. RecreationAle (4.5% ABV) is described as a hoppy go-anywhere brew, thus a fine fit with the canned packaging (not to mention good marketing). Due out in early June in 12-packs (the beer plans were actually announced back during the winter), RecreationAle (hopped with Bravo, Centennial, Zythos, Amarillo and Galaxy) will be the second year-round beer added to Terrapin's lineup this year. Tree Hugger, a special draft release from 2012, was added to the Athens, Ga., brewery's year-rounds back in March.

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Homebrewing is legal now in all 50 states, with Alabama bringing up the rear. But despite that celebratory change from early May, the American Homebrewers Associations says there were still some Prohibition-era yokes remaining on homebrewers that needed lifting. Lawmakers in Missouri and Illinois recently passed bills to allow homebrewers to take their beers off the premises where they were made, as in legally take their beers to homebrew club meetings, enter them in contests or serve them at festivals. Governors of both states are expected to sign the bills. Homebrewers in those states were probably ignoring those transport restrictions anyway, like their brethren in New Jersey did before Trenton tossed the Garden State's homebrewing permit requirement and transport restrictions last year.

– The Beer Minute is a quick-read round-up of notable events or news about breweries from elsewhere that distribute in New Jersey.

Beer Minute: Magic Hat, Starr Hill, growlers

Things are turning ugly between a new Kentucky ale-maker and Magic Hat. Magic Hat has headed to court with a trademark complaint against Lexington, Ky., brewer West Sixth over its logo. The giant 6 looks a little too much like the style of Magic Hat's 9 motif for the one-time Vermont brewer's tastes. Magic Hat says trying to resolve the matter amicably turned sour and got uglier when West Sixth asked its followers to ask Magic Hat to lighten up. Magic Hat's owners (North American Breweries) filed suit against the year-old West Sixth in federal court last week. West Sixth tells the Lexington Herald-Leader the suit has no merit.

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Beer-makers like Stone (California) and New Belgium (Colorado) opening breweries in the eastern U.S. are helping raise the profile of craft beer for craft brewers who have long called that region of the country home. That's what Starr Hill Brewing's Mark Thompson tells Veer magazine. Thompson further notes how his state's brewing industry enjoys an assist from wineries there. Virginia's largest craft brewery and the maker of Jomo Lager, Northern Lights IPA, Starr Saison and Grateful IPA continues with an expansion that will boost annual brewing capacity to 55,000 barrels.

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One of the largest beer festivals on the East Coast is just days away. Sponsored by BeerAdvocate and Harpoon Brewery, the Sixth Annual American Craft Beer Fest at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston will feature 640 beers from 140 breweries. No Garden State brews are on the lineup for the May 31-June 1 event, but brewers regional to the Jersey area such as Dogfish Head, Troegs, Victory, Brooklyn and Sixpoint will be there.

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It's predictably heavy on wheat and fruit beers, but there are some IPAs in there, too. The Brewers Association, and its website CraftBeer.com, have a list of summer brews worthy of your glass. Citing a study by marketing researcher Mintel that says craft beer drinkers make their beer choices based on what season it is (imagine that!), the BA has put out the list of brews, which feature, among other ingredients, honey, blueberries, raspberries, banana and orange peel. Some gems on the lineup that are available in New Jersey are Founders All Day IPA and Flying Dog's Woody Creek Belgian White.

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Citing New Jersey liquor stores' ability to fill growlers, Delaware Gov. Jack Markell took the occasion of American Craft Beer Week last week to make the practice legal in the First State. Says Markell: “Delawareans who own craft breweries or liquor stores were at a disadvantage compared to their competitors across our borders." Thanks for the shout-out governor, but in New Jersey it's not as simple as every package goods store tapping a keg and sending growler customers on their way. Stores that are allowed to fill growlers here in New Jersey at one time in their existence were also actually bars. Thus, no bar license in their history, no growler sales.

– The Beer Minute is a quick-read round-up of notable events or news about breweries from elsewhere that distribute in New Jersey.