Brown ale goes coconuts and coffee at Iron Hill

From left: Homebrewers Shawn 

Kaderabek, Mark Furfaro, Martin Webb 

and IH brewer Chris LaPierre

Bragging rights are always part of the prize whenever you're named a contest winner.

For winning homebrewers who claim a top prize of making beer on a professional brewhouse, those bragging rights get some extra lift when the beer you eventually make gets tapped for public consumption.

Such was the case Wednesday night at Iron Hill brewpub, with the tapping of Buccaneer's Bounty, an American brown ale dressed up with coconut and coffee that Gloucester County homebrewers Shawn Kaderabek, Mark Furfaro and Martin Webb brewed to take first place in this year's annual Iron Brewer contest.

The guys are members of the Barley Legal Homebrewers, the South Jersey homebrew club that meets at Iron Hill and has been part of the Iron Brewer competition since the Maple Shade brewpub opened its doors four years ago. Shawn, Mark and Martin brewed their prize winner on Iron Hill's system late last month. (See photos of their brew day here.)

Buccaneer's Bounty (6.0% ABV, 33 IBUs) was inspired by Koko Brown, Kona Brewing's toasted coconut-infused nut brown ale, and elaborated on with the addition of Sumatra coffee against a lineup of Perle, Styrian and Cascade hops. For a brown ale, the hops are a little more assertive in Buccaneer's Bounty.

"Two of our threesome here prefer a lot of hops, hoppy beers. So we went a little heavier on the hops in this beer than you might normally mix in there for the style," Martin says.

Iron Hill brewer Chris LaPierre is a veteran at taking recipes for 5- or 10-gallon batches and reworking them for commercial sizes of 15 barrels. Still, scaling up poses some conversion concerns, and when you add a food ingredient, like coconut – one that's less frequently used than say, honey or blueberries – things can gain a tougher curve to work against. 

A toast to Buccaneer's Bounty

"One thing that really surprised me about this beer is, if I were going to be making a beer with coffee and coconut in it, I never would have thought to put that amount of hops, particularly not American hops, in it," Chris says. "Any of the fruit or spice beers I make – the winter warmer, the pumpkin – I don't put (much) hops in it at all. So when I saw the (amount) of hops in this, I didn't know what to think of it."

Yet, Chris' working to Shawn, Mark and Martin's design produced a tilt toward a hoppier brown ale that gives Buccaneer's Bounty the quality of remaining pleasantly grounded in familiar, comfortable beer flavors. 

"Tasting the beer, I'm amazed by how well the hops play into it," Chris says. "It has a place in there; it makes sense. It kind of reminds you that it's a beer, despite all of the kitchen flavors, food flavors."

About the name

Shawn says Buccaneer's Bounty was a winning beer in search of a name. The moniker came after the contest judging and was arrived at through some resampling of the batch their contest entry was drawn from. Shawn and his co-brewers noticed hints of rum in the beer and a little bit of alcohol presence (there's no rum in the beer, or rum-barrel aging). That got them thinking about pirates, and after some word-associating, they came up with Buccaneer's Bounty. 

About Iron Brewer

The annual homebrew competition starts with Chris brewing Iron Hill's malt-monster beer, The Situation. The second runnings of wort are given to interested homebrewers to create a beer for competition. Top prize is the opportunity to brew at Iron Hill under Chris' guiding hand. Last year, Scott Reading and John Companick won with Om Nom Nom, an oatmeal cookie beer that also featured raisins, cinnamon and spice and vanilla bean. Scott and John, these days, are probably more notable for Spellbound Brewing, their in-development craft bre

•••

Also out of Iron Hill: 

The company last year cracked the top 10 of the Brewers Association annual rankings for brewpubs, based on beer production. This year, with the January 2012 addition of Iron Hill's Chestnut Hill restaurant in Philadelphia, the company improved in the standings, reaching No. 7. 

Mark Edelson

The Rock Bottom brewpub chain continues to occupy the top slot. (Maple Shade continues to be the busiest of Iron Hill's nine locations for beer sales, while the Media, Pa., location leads in overall sales. Iron Hill plans to open a 10th restaurant in Voorhees this August. The long-range picture is for the company to double in size over the next seven years, expanding along the edges of its Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania market.)

Mark Edelson, one of Iron Hill's co-owners, acknowledged this year's list (published in New Brewer magazine back in mid-spring) and extended a healthy portion of credit to the Iron Hill food menu and the company's kitchens. 

"We'd be No. 1 if it were based on the kitchen," Mark says. "When the Brewers Association does the rankings, it's based on beer sales. If you look at those rankings, and they say the number of pubs each group has … you divide it out … there are some people in there who are selling either a lot of beer offsite, or they just sell a lot of beer. 

"We're probably lower than that on the amount of beer sold per pub, but that's because we're restaurant driven. We sell so much food, and food helps to drive the beer."

Medal works

Call it the Bronze Age, Iron Fish edition.

Flying Fish, now officially calling Somerdale, NJ, its home, took a bronze medal at the Great American Beer Festival, while Iron Hill Brewery notched a silver, plus a pair of bronze medals. (Here's the complete winners list.)

Bronze finisher Exit 8, a chestnut Belgian Brown ale, debuted just before spring 2012 as the last new Exit Series brew to come out of Flying Fish's founding location of Cherry Hill.

You may recall FF's Exit 4 won gold in 2009, while its Abbey Dubbel won a silver the year before.

Speaking of Exits, Exit 16 is now a year-round beer in 12-ounce bottles and draft, giving Flying Fish shelf and tap representation in the double IPA heading.

That tidbit has been out in the beer headlines for a little while now, but it's worth repeating. Double IPAs have been immensely popular for sometime now, and this wild rice take on the style is worth your glass.

Meanwhile, Iron Hill kept its winning streak alive with a silver medal for its Rauchtoberfest (Lancaster, Pa., location), and bronze medals for its Roggenbier (Phoenixville, Pa.), Black IPA (Wilmington, Del.) and Russian Imperial Stout (Media, Pa.).

This year's medals extend Iron Hill's impressive winning streak to 16 years. That's how long the nine-location brewpub chain has been in business and more than half the existence of the GABF. 

About the pictures:
Flying Fish held an open house back on Sept. 29, an event that coincided with a town festival in Somerdale. It was a one-off open house, since the brewery is putting some finishing touches on the new digs before it begins brewery tours on a regular basis. Check the brewery's multiple feeds (Facebook, Twitter and website) if you have any questions about tours.

A talk with Iron Hill's Mark Edelson

"Where we'd like to be long term," says Mark Eldeson, one of the founders of Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant, "is opening one a year for the next couple of years. We'd like to double our size in 10 years. That's what it's going to take."

The subject is Iron Hill's plans for another restaurant/brewery, it's 10th, this time in Voorhees, 10 miles south of the brewpub company's first New Jersey location in Maple Shade.

It's a Monday night in early June, and Mark's ensconced at the corner of the bar. A pair crutches propped up behind him lead your eyes to the left foot he injured during a recent soccer-coaching mishap. A healthy-size crowd swarms the bar area around him, turning out for the brewpub's release of Spéciale Belge, a smoky amber ale brewed in Belgium last March by Brasserie DuPont's Olivier Dedeycker, with Iron Hill's Maple Shade brewer, Chris LaPierre, and Marlton homebrewer Vince Masciandaro, lending a hand to the makers of the storied Saison DuPont for the one-off Belge brew.

The beer christened Philly Beer Week 2012, on the preceding Friday, at the 10-day event's Opening Tap ceremonies. But having it on tap at Chris' home base still makes for a marquee night among local beer enthusiasts.

After sampling a pint of Spéciale Belge at the bar and greeting some well-wishers, Mark retreats to a quieter back dining area to talk about that 10th brewery-restaurant, to open toward the end of this year (or early 2013) in the Voorhees Town Center, the former Echelon Mall partially razed and reborn as a cityscape – a wide thoroughfare lined with trees, street lamps and retail shops topped with townhouses.

Mark and partners Kevin Finn and Kevin Davies, all three New Jersey guys, founded Iron Hill in Delaware the mid-1990s. The three have turned the brand into a vibrant tri-state enterprise, a standout name in the beer worlds of Delaware, southeastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey.

Announced in late May, the Voorhees location will be the third to open since Maple Shade started pouring beer in 2009. Iron Hill's ninth location opened in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia back in January. (Some folks will remember the continued efforts by Iron Hill open in New Jersey and that the Maple Shade location came about when prospects dimmed for a site in Barrington in Camden County.)

Followers of Iron Hill, Mark says, will find the Voorhees brewpub familiar: the signature murals by artist Jeff Schaller; the menu of appetizers, bar pies, sandwiches and dinners; the flight of house beers – pale ale, porter, and Vienna lager – backed up with Belgian ales and other creative and seasonal brews that have earned the company national recognition.

On those topics and more, Mark fielded a half-hour's worth of questions, offering some insight to what drives Iron Hill and how the über-hot craft beer market these days poses some special challenges for brewpubs.

Beer-Stained Letter: Talk a little bit about how you arrived at Voorhees for your 10th location.
Mark Edelson: Most of the stuff we've looked at in New Jersey has been South Jersey, obviously in that Philadelphia sphere. We dabbled in Monmouth County and northern counties ... I think we want to get a foothold in one area of New Jersey first, so South Jersey is (pauses) ... We have such name recognition within the Philadelphia area. Before we opened here in Maple Shade, we had a ton of name recognition, which I think we wouldn't have had in northern New Jersey. We want to continue to bolster that ...

We actually had the Barrington deal going before we even set foot in Maple Shade. That just slogged on forever, and this deal came up. We're always looking for stuff and just waiting for deals to break loose that make sense. We were looking at the Voorhees deal for a while – same thing it started to break loose and made sense.

BSL: What were some of the considerations for it and the proximity to Maple Shade?
ME: We look at it in terms of Is it too close to existing locations? We do a lot of ZIP code survey, so we pretty much know statistically where our customers are coming from. Although New Jersey has been fantastic for us, the radius of this location, Maple Shade, is very tight. Voorhees being not that far away, we don't think we're going to rob any of the business from Maple Shade.

When we first were considering South Jersey, all the naysayers were talking about how, both South Jersey and this particular site (Maple Shade), being off the (main track) ... It wasn't on (Route) 73; it was in flex space ... It was Who would ever find this? and How could we do well here? because there was a restaurant that did so-so here for a couple of years.

And you know what, we stuck with the numbers and the demographics, and they came right through for us. People didn't blink at finding us here. I think we'll find a similar experience in Voorhees as well.

BSL: The building you're going into in Voorhees, a little background about that.
ME: It used to be called the Echelon Mall ... It's now called the Voorhees Town Center. It was completely renovated. They renovated the old Echelon Mall. They razed about half of it, and built was its now called kind of a town center concept, where you have kind of a main street of retail. This one is mixed use, so there's condos ...  It's nice; it's new space. The demographics there are terrific. We've got Haddonfield, Voorhees itself ... We are right off the PATCO line. It makes it a lot easier for people to come in and out of Philadelphia to visit us, at least Center City people, which could be great.

BSL: With craft beer, the market continues to be really hot. Which model, brewpub or production brewery, appears to be more to the forefront of the growth trend?
ME: We're in the restaurant business, and we really wax and wane with how restaurants are doing. Of course, having craft beer as something other restaurants can't deliver right on site, that's our niche; that's the differentiator for us, having an onsite brewery and all the great beers we have.

Other great restaurants near us won't necessarily have a great restaurant and great brewery in it as well. Craft (beer) doing well helps us. But I can't say we track exactly with craft beer, we track more with the restaurant industry. But having craft doing so well right now is really helping us on the brewery side. 

BSL: In terms of bringing a brewery online, to give people a general idea of what it costs, what are we talking about in terms of expense?
ME: These days it takes us – with all the costs involved – $350,000-$400,000 to install, to get it all in there, and then the cost of operating. Some of the fights that we have politically here in New Jersey, that brewpubs have an edge over everybody because they make their beer so cheaply. That's such a myth. Anybody that's in the business will tell you, you plunk down 400 grand, that depreciation is rather expensive, and then when you really look at the costs, if you're really paying a (brewer) well and using the right ingredients and stuff like that, and then at the end of the day, it's costing you as much as it would to bring it in in keg, the craft beer.

Our belief is, it's not a cost issue, again it's a component that we can deliver. It's great beer that we control. It's a part of what we do, the onsite, the fresh, all of that, because we sell way more beer than a standard restaurant will sell; 22 to 25 percent of our sales are beer. We do 75 percent food, so there's no doubt we sell a lot of food. We're like most restaurants, but the beer component of other restaurants is much smaller, at least half, and then you've got liquor and wine in there as well. And we sell a fair amount of liquor and wine.

BSL: So then what's Iron Hill known more for, the beer or the food?
ME: Depends on who you ask. There are customers who join our mug club who never drink beer. Our mug club is our loyalty club; the moniker mug club is because we give out a mug. It's really a loyalty club ... I would say we've been wildly successful with our beer, especially in national awards, and whatnot. I think you can make the case that in a lot of circles, certainly, we're very famous for our beer. But certainly with our customers who live close by, it's the food. They love the beer, but they're not going to go out and drink beer every night. But they are going to go out and eat every night. Our business is driven by the kitchen. There's no doubt about it, and the beer thrives because of a thriving kitchen. I don't know that if we didn't have a great kitchen that the beer would drag the kitchen along.

I think that's where you run into issues in the industry that people aren't focused enough on the food. People in the beer business shouldn't get into the restaurant business. You need to be focused on both aspects. And people in the restaurant business shouldn't get into the beer business ... They think it's this moneymaker, and they lose heart and they pay a guy bare minimum and don't give him the money to order the ingredients he wants. And then you're not making great beer, you know. You're making adequate beer ... At the end of the day, people are going to come to us because we're a really good restaurant, and then they're going to realize how good the beer is, and they're going to drink a lot of the beer.

BSL: In the three years the Maple Shade location has been open, there have been some really unique beers to come out of here, and they've been driven by the customer base. It's safe to say you'll be looking for the same out of Voorhees?
ME: It's interesting, because when the brewer goes in, he's got to weigh what he likes personally vs. what the customers like, or what he thinks the customers want. That's always a debate we have. There's always a personal bias – even I have a personal bias. The advantage of being in a brewpub situation is that your customers, you can look 'em right in the eye. They'll tell you want they want.

Chris LaPierre with Vince Masciandaro

Right now, everyone wants hoppy beers. Everybody does, no matter where you go; that's all they want to hear is about hoppy beers. I swear, if you put IPA behind half our brands, they'd double the sales, without blinking. That's just how crazy it is. And the new varieties of hops coming out, it's an interesting dynamic. And admittedly, we've been slow to that punch. We want to brew a great variety of beers, and we want to be balanced with that. We have a hard time keeping up with keeping so many hoppy beers on tap. You just don't want to come in and have six hoppy beers on ... we want to introduce people to our whole palette of flavors. So that's what the brewer has to balance.

BSL: Being an Iron Hill location, people can expect the flagship beers like Ironbound Ale, Pig Iron Porter ...
ME: Sure ...
BSL: ... and that component of Belgian styles.
ME: And there's five of those, and tonight we've got 17 beers on tap. Generally, Chris carries 14 to 15 beers on tap. For a brewpub, that's difficult ... We used to be the eight-beer brewpub. We realized that that is not the future, that with all the beer bars popping up that can put 30 beers on that are outstanding and world-class by picking up the phone and ordering it, then we better do something new. We made some changes in our philosophies and our approach to it and some equipment changes that allow the brewer to sustain a bigger variety ... We've gotten some comments from some customers here in New Jersey that they love, as a brewpub, how many beers we have on tap, because of the variety they walked in to ...

BSL: So reading that scenario correctly ...
ME: It's hard for us to compete. They (beer bars) could kick our ass.
BSL:  So breweries at the pub level should all be taking notice, should be thinking along that line?
ME: Absolutely. You walk into a brewpub and there's six beers on, people are going to walk out these days. Gordon Biersch, their big thing is five great German beers. And they're digging their heels in on that. I gotta tell you, I disagree with that. That is not what people want. They respect the quality of those beers, but people (say) I've had this one. It's great beer and all, but give me something more. They've got one new seasonal; the brewer's allowed one seasonal. We're the opposite – we've got five and the brewer is allowed seven or nine more. But you know, it drives (our brewers') energy and creative juices, too.

Guild bill clears NJ Assembly panel

Iron Hill's Mark (on crutches) after hearing

Garden State craft brewers won another round in Trenton when a bill to modernize the rules under which they operate cleared a second key legislative panel on Thursday.

The Assembly Law and Public Safety Committee advanced the bill, A-1277, by an 8-2 vote, handing the state's craft brewing industry the prospect of the measure landing on Gov. Chris Christie's desk before the end of year, or possibly even before the Legislature takes a summer break at the start of next month.

A Senate version of the measure cleared a corresponding committee in that chamber in March by a unanimous vote.

Despite that, it's not a straight shot toward getting the bill posted for votes by the full Senate and Assembly. The legislation must now go through an appropriations committee (a circumstance tied to the fact the bill would increase production ceilings for craft brewers). However, based on the current momentum – and despite dissent by two lawmakers – the bill is unlikely to get held up, supporters say.

The two Assembly committee members who voted against the bill on Thursday, Republicans Sean Kean and David Rible of Monmouth County predicated their reservations on fears that new freedoms the bill would grant brewers would come at the expense of taverns and restaurants with bars. (Incidentally, Monmouth County is home to three craft breweries, though not in the Kean and Rible's 30th district. But East Coast Beer is, and the folks behind the Beach Haus brand are planning a brewery in New Jersey. Still, there is this: Distributor Ritchie & Page, which acquired Bud purveyor Crown Beer a while back, operates out of the 30th district.)

The lawmakers' dissent drew from arguments laid out to the committee by lobbyists for the tavern and restaurant groups, who complained the bill would undercut the value of bar owners' licenses at a time when some owners are struggling in the economic downturn. Additionally, the lobbyists said, the bill attempts to side-step long-established rules and practices for the state's alcoholic beverage industry.

That aside, Thursday's committee action indeed represents sea change for craft brewing in New Jersey.

Since the mid-1990s, when craft brewing was first sanctioned by the Legislature, the state's small-batch brewers have been hemmed in by regulations that left them at a disadvantage compared with brewers in neighboring states.

That's a reason Iron Hill brewpub, founded by a trio of New Jerseyans, got its start in Delaware and likely why Triumph Brewing in Princeton, an early pioneer of craft brewing in the Garden State, opted to expand in Pennsylvania rather than in New Jersey.

Other long-time craft brewers in the state could be counted on to utter the refrain that if they had known New Jersey would prove to be so difficult for doing business, they would have looked across the Delaware River to start their breweries.

Over the years, attempts to make the rules more business-friendly often had trouble finding a sympathetic ear in Trenton.

But this time, efforts to level the playing field – spearheaded and shaped by the Garden State Craft Brewers Guild, the trade group that represents most but not all of the state's microbrewers and brewpubs – have gained traction as craft brewing's profile and fortunes have risen across the country. (Nationally, craft brewing is a $7 billion a year industry.)

Essentially the legislation would put New Jersey on par with Delaware and Pennsylvania.

Production brewers would be allowed to retail kegs (half barrels, quarters and sixtels) directly to the public and serve more than just small samples during tours, for which the breweries could charge. Currently, production brewers are limited to selling only two six-packs or two growlers to tour guests and often provide the beer samples for free. However, under the bill – and unlike in Pennsylvania – production breweries would not be allowed to serve food, a concession made for the sake of bars and restaurants.

For brewpubs, the bill would boost the number of locations that can be held by a single owner from two to 10, and allow brewpubs to distribute their beer through wholesalers. That means beer drinkers would be able to get their favorite Gaslight or Trap Rock beers at a packaged goods stores, instead of exclusively at those brewpubs, as is the case now.

Until last month, New Jersey only had one brewpub owner that ever maxed out the licensing, Basil T's in Red Bank, which owned a second location in Toms River before spinning it off several years ago. (The Toms River location kept the Basil's name until changing it to Artisan's a couple years ago.)

In May, Iron Hill brewpub, which owns a location in Maple Shade in Burlington County, announced it had signed a lease for a second store in Voorhees in Camden County, with a projected opening around the end of the year.

Before the Assembly committee, Mark Edelson, one of Iron Hill's founders, pointed out that unless the law is changed, the Voorhees location means Iron Hill, which owns eight other locations spread among Delaware and Pennsylvania, would be legally finished investing in New Jersey.

Chocolate & Beer, Beer & Chocolate

Chocolate stout, chocolate porter ...

When it comes to putting chocolate in beer, those two styles are ready candidates.

Which is why Iron Hill brewer Chris LaPierre, looking for something a little different, opted out of those styles and turned a brown ale into a chocolate brown ale loaded with 22 pounds of dark Belgian chocolate for an October beer release at the Maple Shade brewpub.

The beer and a truffle, made with wort from Iron Hill's mash tun by chocolatier Mike Collins of Reily's Candy in Medford, were the centerpiece of an event this past Wednesday night that also saw a selection of Reily chocolates* paired with IH beers.

The video gives you the backstory to how this fusion came about. But the quick version goes something like this: Chris grew up in Medford and knew of Reily's, a 40-year fixture in the Burlington County town. Mike, who's been with Reily's for almost half of the shop's existence, is a Iron Hill mug club member and discovered IH beers at the company's West Chester, Pa., location.

Combining their crafts seemed like a natural idea, and the result is Reily's Chocolate Ale and the Iron Hill truffle.

*The pairings at the October 5th event:

• 70% Cacao with Gogi berries & Abbey Dubbel
• Tierra Missou Truffle & Bourbon Wee Heavy
• Jalapeno Chocolate & Ironbound Ale
• Vanilla Caramel & Oktoberfest
• Bourbon-Soaked Cherry Cordial & Cherry Vanilla Porter
• Iron Hill Chocolate with Caramelized Wort & Reilly’s Chocolate Ale

Homebrew Day, the video

This year's video from National Homebrew Day/AHA Big Brew, shot May 7th in the back lot at Iron Hill brewpub in Maple Shade, where the year-old Barley Legal Homebrewers club pretty much calls headquarters.

Special thanks to Chris LaPierre at Iron Hill and Tim Kelly from the Tun Tavern.

Remember to support your local homebrew shop.

And brewery.

Cheers.

Saison's greetings

Saisons figure big in the South and Central Jersey beer picture this weekend, with River Horse Brewing pouring one at ShadFest 2011, and Iron Hill Maple Shade releasing its saison to mark a brewing collaboration and fete women beer enthusiasts.

River Horse will pour its Brewer's Reserve No. 7 saison (7% ABV) at the annual, two-day townwide event in Lambertville along with seven of its other brews, the most RH has ever put on tap for the festival. (Here's the lineup: Lager, Hop Hazard, Tripel Horse, Special, Double IPA, Double Wit, Summer Blonde and the saison. As in the past, the back lot of the brewery is blocked off for festival crowds and bands. Beers are sold and poured via a ticket system, and commemorative glasses are available for sale.)

RH's head brewer, Chris Rakow, says the Belgian farmhouse ale is a choice style of the brewery, yet one that had not made it into the production pipeline.

"It's one we always wanted to do, kind of a favorite style of the brewery, and we finally got a chance to do it," Chris says. "It has nice citrus notes, earthy notes, a little bit of tartness to it. But we wanted to accentuate the citrus notes in it, so we used lemongrass. To accentuate some of the earthy notes to it, we did white peppercorns. The white peppercorns give a little bit of funk to it, not much."

The saison gave RH a chance to bring its Brewer's Reserve series back around and settle an issue with the brewery's 12-bottle variety pack. Past Brewer's Reserve beers have ended up becoming either year-round brews (like Hop-A-Lot-Amus Double IPA) or seasonals (Oatmeal Milk Stout, Belgian Double Wit).

"In our variety pack, we always kinda struggle on a fourth beer to put in there. Usually it was Tripel. But Tripel's so popular, it's hard to steal that away from (distribution) orders," Chris says. "Then we were putting Double IPA in there, and then same thing, that was taking off. So we were like, 'Hey we could do a Brewer's reserve, get it out there again, and then we'll have a fourth beer to put in the variety pack along with Special, Hazard and Lager, and then have it draft, too.' "

Four bands are on the ShadFest music bill for the brewery back lot. Look for Chris' band, Ludlow Station, to hit the stage on Saturday. (Chris plays guitar in the group; more on that in a future post.)

Meanwhile, down in Maple Shade, Iron Hill brewer Chris LaPierre's fifth turn at a saison is probably his most endearing. Maybe that's because he made the peppercorn-spiced brew, dubbed Saizanne, with his girlfriend, Suzanne Woods (pictured at left), a Sly Fox Brewing representative.

The beer is an informal collaboration aimed squarely at the pleasure of beer, not trying to break new ground. Besides, saisons are a fav of Suzanne's. (Note: The ale isn't an actual Sly Fox-Iron Hill brewery collaboration. However, a round of Sly Fox's saison yeast was used to make it. "Which is pretty much what we always use for this beer," Chris says.) The brewpub will tap the beer (7% ABV, with a golden hue) at noon on Saturday.

Collaboration beers have been a craft beer industry trend lately. Despite that, Chris thinks they're less about fusion than beer enthusiasts may be led to believe.

"They're more about having fun than exploring," he says. "A lot of the collaboration beers I've seen out there, I kinda have to wonder did they really do anything that they wouldn't have on their own?

"With Suzanne and me, it's a little bit different because she's not a professional brewer. So it's more about her influence in brewing something that she likes, that she really enjoys. She loves saisons, and peppercorns are her favorite spice, so it was kinda more about that."

As part of the beer's release, members of In Pursuit of Ales (yes, its acronym is IPA), the Philadelphia-area women's beer club that Suzanne founded about four or five years ago, will gather at the brewpub. As will Beer for Babes, a South Jersey women's beer club founded by beer and food writer Tara Nurin, with the help of Kate Burns of Haddon Township.

Women's beer groups, Tara says, are a way to nudge perceptions of beer away from old conventions. That is, beer is not exclusively your dad's or granddad's drink. It's for everyone, and the visibility of women who enjoy craft beers for the flavor of the beverage, for their power to pair with food and for the camaraderie is growing.

No. 9, No. 9, No. 9

Beatles references aside, the big announcement from the owners of the Iron Hill brewpub chain today is word of a ninth location, this one planned for Chestnut Hill, Pa., toward the end of this year.

But the more interesting news nugget for New Jersey beer drinkers was found toward the bottom of the news release: Iron Hill intends to open a North Jersey location by 2015 as one of five new brewpubs in locations from the Washington, D.C., area to the Garden State's northern half.

Iron Hill's Maple Shade location, which opened in July 2009, was the brewpub chain's eighth and a homecoming for the trio of Jersey guys (Mark Edelson, Kevin Finn and Kevin Davies) who founded the company in Delaware and built it up there and in Pennsylvania before making a go of things on this side of the river.

The Maple Shade site has become wildly popular among South Jersey beer enthusiasts. The tidbit about North Jersey was something of back-channel discussion among Iron Hill faithful and insiders.

Now it's in the news release. So stay tuned for a specific location.

Everything orange

Aggregator moment, redux ...

Jersey John Holl writes at CraftBeer.com of Oktoberfest's seasonal competition, pumpkin beer.

And a swing by Iron Hill-Maple Shade this weekend revealed that brewer Chris LaPierre will be tapping a gourd full of pumpkin ale on Oct. 23rd. Three versions of the ale will be pouring that day.

Among the two imperial versions that day: A bourbon barrel-finished one that was brewed in September 2009 with molasses and Belgian candy sugar. It sat in the barrel a couple of months, Chris says.

And he notes: There's only one sixtel of it.

Speaking of growlers ...

Some raw video footage of growler filler at Iron Hill, shot to test a new Flip Ultra video camera. So basically this one's for the idly curious.

Nothing truly spectacular here, except the beer, which by the way, was an Oktoberfest.

Woodbridge, Belmar & Iron Hill's F.red

Turnpike Exits 4 and 11 figure big into the beer picture on Saturday, but the day has nothing to do with the Flying Fish Exit Series beers theme-brewed to those numbers.

Exit 11 on the turnpike is Woodbridge, where the 4th edition of the Central Jersey Beer Fest runs from 1-5 p.m. About an hour's drive south, in Maple Shade off Exit 4, Iron Hill brewpub will be hand-bottling and making available for sale some well-aged Flemish red ale.

On top of that, there's a worthy beer gig at the Shore where more Jersey beers will be poured.

Woodbridge
Parker Press Park, along Rahway Avenue, just past the bend in Main Street, is once again the location for the JJ Bitting brewpub-sponsored Central Jersey Beer Fest. From its debut in 2007, this has been a charity event, and this year's proceeds will benefit a cancer-stricken mother of two from Woodbridge and American Legion Post 87.

Jersey brews at the event, according to organizer and Bittings owner Mike Cerami, will include brewpubs Harvest Moon (New Brunswick), Tun Tavern (Atlantic City) and host JJ Bittings; production brewer Cricket Hill (Fairfield); and Boaks Beer (contract brewed at High Point in Butler) and East Coast Beer Company (contract-brewed in New York). Rounding out the list will be beers from Brooklyn, Blue Point, Ommegang, Erie Brewing, Boston Beer, and Doc's Cider.

There will also be food vendors and live music.

Admission is $25, and $15 for designated drivers. Unlike last year, no tickets will be available at the gate (you can buy them at Bittings on Main Street).

If you were at last year's event, you may recall things got a little testy when the admissions outpaced the beer. In order to keep things running smoothly this go-round, ticket sales will cut off at 800.

The park is spacious, with plenty of shade trees. Plus you'll find picnic tables to relax and take a load off. Travel tip: There's construction planned to commence very soon on Route 9 in the area, so coming in on Routes 1 and 35 may be the best path. NJ Transit is a good bet, too, since the train station is a bottle cap's toss from the park.

Maple Shade
The folks at Iron Hill always have something up their sleeve. This time, it's a bottling party for a 9-month-old, barrel-aged Flemish Red tricked out with wild yeast and bacteria to give it a tang that's worth writing home about. (It's a pay as you go event.)

The brewpub will be tapping some F.red (5.3% ABV, 20 IBU), as it's called, while it packages the beer (made in December 2009 and stored in Beaujolais barrels since the headwaters of this year) in corked and caged 750 ml bottles, labeled, signed and numbered by head brewer Chris LaPierre (who's a big fan of sour beer styles) and assistant brewer Jeff Ramirez.

Bottles will then be available for sale at the bar.

FYI: This deep red ale is a bottle-conditioned beer, so the bottle you buy must be stored until it carbonates naturally (Chris recommends a couple of months, or even letting it mature for years).

From Chris' note to mug club members: "This will be a couple of firsts for us: our first beer available in bottles and the first time we’ve done an entire batch of sour, wood-aged beer in Maple Shade."

Belmar:
With this festival, Beer on the Pier, look for Jersey brews from Climax (Roselle Park, go for Dave Hoffmann's well-regarded Oktoberfest and his IPA) and Artisan's brewpub (in Toms River where Dave is the hired consultant/brewer), Cricket Hill, River Horse, New Jersey Beer Company (North Bergen, makers of 1787 Abbey Single and Garden State Stout), and East Coast Beer Company and Hometown Beverage. Hometown, like East Coast Beer Company, is a shore-based contract brewer. East Coast is based in Point Pleasant Beach, while Hometown, the purveyors of New Jersey Lager (as well as New York Lager and Pennsylvania Lager), is based in Manasquan and closing in on a second anniversary in the beer business.

Both Cricket Hill and East Coast Beer are doing double duty on Saturday. Newly minted in the beer scene, East Coast is a co-sponsor of the event with BeerHeads and the borough of Belmar, and just brought its Beach Haus pilsner to market (it's brewed by Genesee in upstate New York) late last month.

"We actually sold through 650 cases in three weeks. We’re thrilled; we're just starting off and we're at the higher end of expectations," says East Coast founder John Merklin. Saturday's event is part of a marketing blitz that has seen the company hit nine craft beer events or tastings in those three weeks.

John says the company has message beyond the flavor and style of its beer, a pre-Prohibition pilsner. "This is not a summer seasonal. It's regional; it's a reflection of the region ... a direct reflection of being at the Shore. The analogy I'm using is the Beach Boys, (hearing them) you know what it's like to be in California," he says.

Beer on the Pier, Belmar Marina, Route 35.
VIP Tent: 1-3 p.m
. General Session: 2-6 p.m

$40 online; $50 Gate; $60 VIP (soldout); 
$10 designated drivers. (A portion of the proceeds go to benefit the Monmouth County Foodbank.)
Food from 10th Ave Burrito, Mr. Shrimp, Crab Shack, Jacks Tavern, Federico's Pizza.
More info (732) 681-2266

That new Iron Hill tank

Call it a birthday present to the brewery and another canvas for the artistes who work there.

Even before Iron Hill was throwing that one-year anniversary party last month in Maple Shade, the folks there were doing something for the next year and beyond, as well as giving the two guys who create the beer – head brewer Chris LaPierre and assistant brewer Jeff Ramirez – more leeway to practice their craft.

A 30-barrel fermenter was installed on the penultimate day of June, muscling up the brewpub's capacity by about 25 percent. (Iron Hill opened with six single fermenters and a double; the new addition gives them two doubles.)

More tank space, yes, but Chris sizes things up a little differently.

"I don't really look at it as a boost in capacity though. It would certainly boost our capacity if our goal were to crank out as much beer as possible," Chris said via email today. "It's more about making it a little easier on Jeff and I to keep up, and more so about making it possible to brew more specialty lagers and slow-fermenting beers."

Like a brace of brews fresh to Iron Hill's Maple Shade digs: The Cannibal (Belgian golden ale) and Saison (Blegian farmhouse), both national gold medal winners for Iron Hill that need two months' fermenter time. "That's why we haven't brewed The Cannibal or Saison in this location until now," Chris says. "The new tank is what made those beers possible."

In the run-up to the 2010 Great American Beer Festival (Sept. 16-18 in Denver), The Cannibal and Saisaon will get tapped next Wednesday along with two other brews, Caprice (American Belgian ale) and Hopfenweizen (Bavarian wheat), all of which figure into Iron Hill's GABF entries for this year.

Contests aside, you might think it's the sign of a red-hot business to be expanding before the first anniversary. But, again, there's a business logic at play here.

"We usually undersize our breweries by a bit when we first open, figuring it's easier and more financially sound to buy and install a new tank if things are busy, than to sell and remove one if its not," Chris points out. "Also its much better for morale to install a new one than take one out!"

Iron Hill first anniversary fete

Some scenes from Iron Hill-Maple Shade's first anniversary party/mug club event.

Mug club gigs at Iron Hill are great to begin with, but throw in an anniversary and you bump things up considerably.

Some special shout-outs to:

• Suzanne Woods from Sly Fox Brewing across the Delaware, and many thanks to her for the brand-spanking new advance can of SF Oktoberfest. Yes, we're getting closer to that time of year.

• Evan Fritz and family (that's future mug clubber James, 9 months old, in the pic at left). Evan coordinated the Big Brew Homebrew Day back in May that was held behind Iron Hill's building.

• Mark Haynie, New Jersey columnist for Mid-Atlantic Brewing News. Always good to run into another champion of New Jersey beer.

• Brian Pylant, who walked point on judging for the Iron Brewer contest sponsored by Iron Hill. Brian loves to talk beer and if you check our archives, say back to March 2008, you'll see Brian doing just that in the video from Triumph's real ale festival that closed out the inaugural Philly Beer Week.

• John Ahrens, of the Brewery Collectibles Club of America. John notes there's a BCCA canvention (yes, canvention) set for Sept. 8-12 in Valley Forge, Pa.

• Bob Ritchie, whose Indian name is Runs with Beer, or so his T-shirt says. Bob's a supporter of the blog, and it's always a great pleasure to meet those who take the time to check out the posts here and offer tips/ideas for posts.

• Tiffany Warrick, a server at Iron Hill who supplied the photo of the freshly done ice sculpture, beautifully cut by IH kitchen staffer Richard Glodowski. Richard carves ice as a side gig, and his work was certainly a showpiece for the day; Tiffany's a can-do table host and made a clutch save with the photo she offered.

• Iron Hill co-founders Kevin Finn and Mark Edelson, and brewers Chris LaPierre and Jeff Ramirez (all picture in photo at top), four people who make IH beer possible.

Cheers.

New Jersey dominates in AHA video contest

This just in: Jersey beer folks dominate in the American Homebrewers Association YouTube video contest.

Woodbridge Homebrewers Ale & Lager Enthusiasts Society won for most-watched video from the May 1st Big Brew Homebrew Day observance.

Beer-Stained Letter (that would be us) got second place in the Spirit of Big Brew category, and the Society of Oshkosh Brewers got the coveted first place in Spirit of Big Brew. Congrats to them.

Special thanks go to the Barley Legal Homebrewers, who share credit in the second place finish.

Here are the links:
• Oshkosh Brewers
• WHALES
• Beer-Stained Letter

Big Brew 2010 in NJ – the video

The Big Brew was a week ago, and here's what went on behind Iron Hill brewpub in Maple Shade, where the Barley Legal Homebrewers club played host to a National Homebrew Day observance. Special thanks to Evan Fritz of the Barley Legal club for inviting the blog to their gathering and serving some great beer. They brewed a total of 140 gallons of beer for Big Brew, Evan says.

And a nod goes to Iron Hill Maple Shade head brewer Chris LaPierre for similar hospitality and availing himself for an interview on a day he also had to go to a wedding.

A couple other things: The videos is entered in the American Homebrewers Association YouTube contest, something we won two years ago (the AHA's inaugural contest). There's some leftover footage that will wind up getting used for follow-up videos. (Contest rules limited entries to three minutes maximum.)

Also, a shout-out to Keg & Barrel Homebrew Supply in Berlin, in Camden County. When Beer Crafters closed last fall, South Jersey lost one of the underpinnings to its homebrewing community. Nice to see another shop filling the void.

BA updates beer style guidelines

Imperial porter and American-style India black ale are two of the four new listings you'll find in the Brewers Association's annual update of beer style guidelines.

The guidelines now describe 140 different styles of beer, and the folks at the Colorado-based craft beer industry trade group say the 2010 update, which also added Belgian-style Quadruple and Fruit Wheat Ale or Lager, reflects the emerging popularity of these beers in the U.S. and other beer-drinking countries.

Amongst New Jersey brewers, Flying Fish and Iron Hill have turned out notable interpretations of imperial porter and India black ale, respectively.

Flying Fish opened its doors in 1996 with a bottle-conditioned session porter that it ultimately dropped from the lineup. When the Cherry Hill brewery returned porter to its offerings (as a winter-early spring seasonal) three years ago, it was with an amped-up, esspresso-infused version that clocks in at 8 percent ABV.

Iron Hill christened its new Maple Shade location in July 2009 with Black India Pale Ale on it taps. The brewpub's take on the style is a malty, roasty beer at 7 percent ABV that will put hops on your palate and in your nose.

Iron Hill was perhaps the first brewer to bring the style to New Jersey, but the folks at Basil T's in Red Bank recently mentioned they planning to take a turn at an India black ale.

Iron to gold: It ain't alchemy, it's beer

Results of the World Beer Cup competition are in, and Iron Hill came home with a clutch of accolades, including the brewpub and its brewers team garnering a Champion Brewery and Brewers Award in the category of large brewpub.

Iron Hill also won gold and silver in the Imperial Stout category and another gold for an American sour ale. Its Belgian beer stylings took bronze for an abbey dubbel and a lambic.

The eighth bi-annual Brewers Association competition saw 3,330 entries over 90 style categories submitted by 642 breweries from 44 countries.

And yeah, if you look at the winners list, you'll see Wilmington, Delaware, beside Iron Hill's name. That's where the company is based. As most folks know, IH opened an eighth location in Maple Shade in July 2009.

Brewers Association board of directors

Jersey beer has a seat on the board of directors for the trade group that champions craft brewing in the U.S.

Mark Edelson, of Iron Hill brewpub, is serving as secretary/treasurer of the Colorado-based Brewers Association. Mark also chairs the organization's finance committee.

The Brewers Association announced its new board of directors last Friday.

Of course, Iron Hill is based in Delaware and expanded into Pennsylvania before opening a location (its eighth) in New Jersey last summer. But the company was founded by Edelson and two other Jerseyans, Kevin Finn and Kevin Davies.

So, yeah, Jersey beer can make a claim on this topic. Here's an interview with Mark from last year's Garden State Craft Brewers Festival. (Mark appears about halfway into the video.)

Gushing gourd

If a barrel is 31 gallons, and a firkin 11, then how much is a pumpkin?

From the looks of the one Iron Hill brewer Chris LaPierre tapped, about 2 gallons (or so) of nicely spiced, harvest season ale.

Chris ushered in the pumpkin ale era with the Wednesday evening tapping. That's the visage of Groucho Marx on the pumpkin below, by the way.

"We started with the grain bill for an amber ale and took 250 pounds of long neck pie pumpkins, roasted them in the convection oven until they were golden brown – I had to show up at 5 o'clock in the morning because I had to be out of the kitchen before the kitchen staff came in and got ready to cook ..." Chris says.

The roasted pumpkin went into the mash. Spices – cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, clove and vanilla bean – were added at the end of the boil instead of finishing hops. The result is a great pumpkin ale at 5.7% ABV.

But wait, there's more.

"The imperial pumpkin ale is coming out in a couple of weeks. It's much bigger – more pumpkins, more malt ... we also added four gallons of molasses," Chris says.

That brew will be a little over 9% ABV, "a little bit darker, bigger and a lot stronger," Chris notes.

Ramstein in France

If you know anything about High Point Brewing, it's that a thread of Old World Europe runs through the Butler brewery's signature beers.

Owner Greg Zaccardi trained to be a pro brewer in southern Germany, and his Ramstein brand is all about wheat beers and lagers made in that Old World tradition, a taste of Europe made in America.

This weekend, High Point will come practically full circle with its Classic and Blonde wheat beers being served to Europeans in Strasbourg, France, at the three-day Mondial de la Biere, the widely known world beer festival that's held annually in Montreal, and now has a continental reach.

At the Oct 16-18 event, Greg will give a presentation, The History and Evolution of American Microbreweries, and participate in a panel discussion on the what the future holds for brewers. (The junket is an invitation-only affair, and Greg's trip was coordinated through the Ale Street News.)

American brewers, Greg says, dedicate themselves to making beers that weren't available to US consumers a quarter century ago. And though if you play your cards right, you can make a living as a brewer, but it's passion for the product and putting it in the hands of a receptive public that drives the US craft brewer.

"People can taste the difference and are willing to spend for the difference," he says.

With regard to the to roundtable topic, Greg says the brewing industry has become quite automated, with computer-controlled processes from mash tun to fermenter to packaging. "In a large-scale production brewery, the role of brewer will be played by the IT guy."

And while we're on the topic of High Point, it's worth noting that the brewery's 2009 Oktoberfest beer was rated tops on Beeradvocate. That's the good news; the bad news is the beer is nearly all gone. You might find it at some of High Point's draft accounts, but folks armed with growlers hoping to get them filled with the märzen at the brewery will be disappointed.

And speaking of Oktoberfest, PubScout Kurt Epps has a wrap-up and photos from Pizzeria Uno's celebration held on Monday. And on Sunday, Long Valley weighs in with its annual Oktoberfest.

But hang on, there's one more event: Iron Hill's got the gourd. At 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday (Oct. 15), they'll be tapping a pumpkin filled with this year's rendition of pumpkin ale to hail the release of that beer.