Guild collaboration brew set for Sunday

How many Jersey brewers does it take to make 20 gallons of beer for a summer festival?

As many as can fit around a Tippy brew set-up at Carton Brewing on Sunday.

The Atlantic Highlands brewery, in conjunction with Kane Brewing from nearby Ocean Township, will brew a throwback IPA that echoes Ballantine India Pale Ale. 

The beer will be served at the Garden State Craft Brewers Guild Festival on June 22. 

Planned to track toward maltiness, the beer is also targeted to finish out at 8% ABV, with Bullion hops walking point. 

Joining the two Monmouth County breweries will be guild members Trap Rock brewpub (Berkeley Heights) and Uno's (Metuchen), and possibly some others. 

Black Belgian IPA, would you believe?

Another collaboration beer by South Jersey brewing neighbors Iron Hill and Flying Fish.

The previous one was a chocolate coffee stout, and this one isn't getting any lighter: Black Belgian IPA, a collision of styles that reflects a shared tongue-in-cheek nod from brewers Casey Hughes (Flying Fish) and Chris LaPierre (Iron Hill) to the trend of collaboration beers.

"I kinda like the idea of collaborations. It's always fun to brew with your friend, but I've always thought that they're more about marketing than anything else," Chris says. "I can't say that there are too many collaboration beers that I've had that I see they came up with something that either of the brewers wouldn't have come up with on their own.

"We both think they're kinda gimmicky, but we also think they're a lot of fun to do, which is why we're doing it. And because we think they're gimmicky, we decided to throw in every gimmick we could think of, and two of the big trends out there right now are black versions of beers that aren't usually black and Belgian versions of beers that aren't usually Belgian. So we thought we would do a Black Belgian IPA. And to make it even more trendy we're going to barrel age some of it."

But to be sure, the brew won't be all about parody.

Like last January's mashup of IH's Luca Brasi coffee stout and FF's Exit 13 chocolate stout, a collaboration borne more out of serendipity than actual planning (Chris was grabbing some yeast one day last fall at Flying Fish when Casey gave him a sample of Exit 13 that tasted like a natural fit with a coffee stout in Iron Hill's serving tanks) you can expect the results of the next crossover beer to put flavor ahead of gimmicks and trends.

There's just too much award-winning brewers' sense heading into it.

"We already know that Belgian yeast character works well with American hops. I do a few American-Belgos here; Casey won a gold medal with his American-Belgo (Exit 4). We also know that hops will work with black beers. We do a black IPA here that's very popular. Hops work with black beers and Belgian black beers work together, too. We're kinda combining all three of those, we know two of those things will work together and think three of them will together as well."

Unlike the chocolate-coffee stout collaboration, which was a firkin filled with a blend of beers that then got a little extra treatment (vanilla beans, cocoa nibs and Belgian yeast to prime it), the next brew will be designed from the ground up and will be full batch for Iron Hill's tanks (think 7 to 10 barrels).

The brew will be at least the second collaboration this year for IH: Chris did a saison with his girlfriend Suzanne Woods, of Sly Fox (although it wasn't a true Sly Fox collaboration) and third overall since opening in Maple Shade.

And it looks like this will be Flying Fish's third collaboration. Exit 6 Wallonian Rye, which came out a little over a year ago, was done with the folks at Stewart's Brewing in Delaware.

NOTE: The Black Belgian IPA gets brewed July 27th and will be released on Aug. 27th in conjunction with Iron Hill's IPA event. Chris has been been saving a quarter keg of every IPA he has made since about January and plans to tap eight of them that day, plus some FF Exit 16 Wild Rice Double IPA (a brew that debuted around March 2010).

Fire in mid-winter

Cocoa fuego, cocoa fuoco ...

By either name, this chocolate-chili pepper-cinnamon beer, a collaboration between brewpubs Basil T's and Tun Tavern, keeps the fire burning for the Jersey's Finest craft brewing ventures that kicked off in mid-January with a pairing of a stouts from two other Garden State brewers.

Chocolate Fire will also warm your mid-winter mug when it goes on tap at Basil's and the Tun in February, just in time for Valentine's Day. (Note: It may go on tap at the Tun this week.)

Cocoa fuego (the name in Spanish) is the version Tun brewer Tim Kelly made Jan. 6 in Atlantic City with the assistance of Basil's brewer Gretchen Schmidhausler, whom Tim approached last summer with the idea for a beer collaboration. Gretchen is using the Italian phrasing, Cocoa Fuoco – after all, Basil's features an Italian menu – for the version she brewed in Red Bank last Thursday with Tim's help. (Tim showed up at Basil's with a couple of in-progress samples pulled from the five-barrel batch made for the Tun; there's a chocolaty presence with a hand-off to subtle, unfolding heat.)

Inspiration for the beer comes from a chili pepper chocolate bar that Tim discovered. He mentioned it to Gretchen at the Garden State Craft Brewer's Guild festival aboard the USS New Jersey in Camden.

"The Red Fire Bar ... it's chocolate with a couple chili peppers, some cinnamon ... I thought it was a delicious thing, and these flavors might make a great beer," Tim says. "So I approached Gretchen last June at the battleship, to see if she would be interested in collaborating. She had some experience brewing with peppers; I've worked with chocolate and cinnamon before."

Six months later they put together a recipe that features ancho, chipotle and guajillo peppers, Dutch chocolate, and cinnamon. (The specialty malts range from aromatic, munich, chocolate and crystal rye.)

For the craft beer enthusiast, it's one recipe but two beers that will be alike, yet with some individuality owing to the different brewers, brewing systems (the Tun has a 10-barrel system; Basil's is a 7-barrel), and some minor variations between the grain bills and hops. (For instance, Tim used Nugget hops; Gretchen used Goldings.)

"I don't think they need to be identical. I think they'll be very close," Gretchen says.

Collaboration craft beers are trendy now, and one of the flashiest marquee examples is probably Infinium, the recently released brew created by Boston Beer and the Weihenstephan Brewery in Bavaria.

Last year, Flying Fish in Cherry Hill teamed with Philadelphia's Nodding Head Brewery and Stewart's Brewing in Delaware for FF's Exit 6 rye beer, then with Iron Hill in Maple Shade, under the banner of Jersey's Finest, married its newly minted Exit 13 chocolate stout with a coffee stout that IH brewed last fall.

Collaborations serve many purposes, Gretchen says, notably to create a buzz about beer brewed in the Garden State and to promote some camaraderie among Jersey brewers. It's also a touch of marketing for the brewpubs.

"After the first of the year, things tank a little bit. You've got the weather to contend with; sales are generally a little slower. So it's nice for us to generate a little publicity for the Guild, for our individual pubs and for craft beer in general," Gretchen says.

Mocha mash-up

Brewery neighbors Iron Hill and Flying Fish will pour a firkin of two blended stouts on Saturday (note the word firkin, limited quantity) in a union they've dubbed as a Jersey's Finest moment.

The collaboration finds IH's Luca Brasi Coffee Stout blended with FF's Exit 13 Chocolate Stout and parked on some whole vanilla beans and cocoa nibs for a month or so.

On his blog, IH brewer Chris LaPierre says the idea for a coffee-chocolate stout struck him during a swing over to Flying Fish in Cherry Hill to pick up some yeast in November.

While there, Chris sampled to the soon-to-be-released Exit 13, FF's most recent Exit Series brew, and immediately thought it would combine quite well with the coffee stout he shepherded through the brewing process with Scott Davi and Jim Carruthers, the winners of the homebrew contest IH sponsored last year.

The resulting mash-up brew first went public at an event Philadelphia in December, and now comes to Iron Hill's Maple Shade location for a noon tapping.

But, thanks to some fridge overstocking on our part – a leftover growler of Luca Brasi from Nov. 9 (the first day it went on tap at IH) and a bottle of Exit 13 – we can tell you what this brew will taste like, approximately anyway.

Made with cold press coffee and whole coffee beans kept in the serving tank, Luca Brasi (4-plus percent ABV) has a smooth, robust java signature, with a bouquet that's as inviting as fresh pot of joe on a Sunday morning.

Brewed with a boatload of Belgian chocolate, Exit 13 (7.5 percent ABV), in the words of FF brewer Casey Hughes, is like drinking a chocolate bar.

Taken together (in our case, blended in a pitcher*), you get a very pleasant nose of coffee, a stout flavor, a chocolate ganache and a sweet finish that answers the coffee taste that heartily peeks around the edges.

But you judge for yourself.

*Special thanks to Tim Kelly of the Tun Tavern in Atlantic City, Gretchen Schmidhausler of Basil T's in Red Bank and Mark Haynie of Mid-Atlantic Brewing News for helping out with the Luca-13 tasting last week. Speaking of the Tun and Basil's, stay tuned for their collaboration brew.