Philly Beer Week: Let the taps flow

Friday has three words for you: Philly Beer Week.

Let's toss in a fourth: collaboration, because collaboration beers will abound in Philadelphia over the coming days. 

The curtain on the 2013 Philly Beer Week observance lifts at 7 p.m. this Friday with opening-tap festivities inside and outside the Independence Visitors Center. 

A spotlight will be on a Belgo-American Dubbel (7.5% ABV) named Manneken-Penn, brewed at Brasserie de la Senne by Yvan De Baets, with an assist from Weyerbacher's head brewer Chris Wilson, Monks Cafe owner Tom Peters and Matt Hohorst, winner of this year's annual PBW raffle of a trip to Belgium. (The beer's name and label are a mash-up of the William Penn statue atop City Hall and Brussels' famed fountain whizzer statue, Manneken Pis.)

The devil's in the details, so here you go: The beer features American Calypso hops, European Slovenia, Aurora and Styrian Goldings woven through a grain bill accented with oats and molasses. 

Last year's brew born of the Philly Beer Week Belgium trip was Spéciale Belge, a smoky amber ale brewed by Brasserie DuPont's Olivier Dedeycker in conjunction with Iron Hill Maple Shade.

As a beer city, Philadelphia has major mojo; it's gravitational pull from finding, creating and serving world-class craft beers tugs inescapably on the Garden State. Even beer enthusiasts across farther-away North Jersey get caught under the spell. 

"Until recently, if you lived in New Jersey and wanted a great beer, chances are you had to shell out a few bucks to the DRPA and visit Philly. But South Jersey bars are finally catching on … and it's gotten a helluva lot easier to find not just local crafts, but exotic imports and West Coast micros throughout the Garden State," says Don Russell, PBW's executive director. "That's why you'll increasingly find solid Beer Week events across the Delaware in New Jersey."

You'll also find some New Jersey hands involved in Brotherly Suds 4, the beer whose tapping outside the visitors center gets things rolling for the 10-day soiree that launched the national trend of city beer weeks six years ago.

The English summer ale is a collaborative effort by Gene Muller of Flying Fish in Somerdale and Mark Edelson of Iron Hill brewpub in Maple Shade; Philly's Tom Kehoe of Yards Brewing; Bill Covaleski from Victory Brewing; and Gordon Grubb of Nodding Head brewpub.

Don credits Flying Fish and Iron Hill for breaking down some barriers that had slowed the Garden State's progress in the craft beer industry.

"I heartily encourage the good folks of New Jersey to charge up their E-ZPass and visit the city during beer week. They can do a bit of bragging while they're at it, because our Brotherly Suds 4 collaboration brew, available on draft throughout the week, was partly the work of Muller and Edelson," Don says. 

There's some more Jersey in PBW: River Horse Brewing, which is on the cusp of exiting Lambertville and taking up their new digs in Ewing, will also be pouring at Opening Tap. (By the way, the brewery's production bids its founding location in southern Hunterdon County adieu with a final brew of its Tripel Horse Belgian ale on Friday. But RH will have some lingering business – think tasting room – in Lambertville until late June.) 

Here's some more on the PBW lineup (get PBW's mobile app):

• Dock Street Trappiste Pale, a Trappist-style IPA inspired by Orval, brewed by Dock Street, Scott Morrison, Tom Peters and George Hummel (Home Sweet Homebrew), fermented with saccharomyces in the primary fermentation and brettanomyces in the secondary fermentation for a moderate sour character, plus Sonnet and East Kent Golding hops for grassy, citrusy flavor. (Available in 750 milliliter bottles from Dock Street exclusively during PBW.)
• Johnny Berliner, brewed by Dock Street and Johnny Brenda’s, a Berlinerweiss.
• Standard Pale, the sixth collaboration between Sly Fox’s Brian O’Reilly and Standard Tap’s William Reed, an American pale ale brewed with new hop varietal Calypso, which will be tapped by the Hammer of Glory when it makes its way past Standard Tap on the HOG Relay, en route to Opening Tap, and poured for free until the firkin is empty.
• DNA UK, from Dogfish Head and Charles Wells, a transatlantic collaboration that brings together the “DNA” of Dogfish Head’s famed 60 Minute IPA and a strain of yeast from Brit brewer Wells. DNA is making its debut at PBW.
• Brewvolution II, a collaboration between Prism, Evil Genius and Boxcar that is a hard root beer drawn from Lancaster County’s Amish community and infused with root herbs and spices for all the character of a root beer with none of the saccharine sweetness.

Kane Brewing offering hops lesson

Think you know hops? Have a passion for hops?

Then this event is sure to please.

For its June 1 brewery tour day, Kane Brewing will train a spotlight on hops, taking its Head High IPA as a base beer and turning it into a flight of nine single-hopped brews for a lesson on the flavors and aromas that hops provide and some insight into the green-yellow flower cones' power to turn a single beer into many different beers. 

"So many IPAs out there use tons of different hops to blend the flavors together," says Matt Czigler, head brewer at Kane. "A lot people who are into IPAs, or are getting into IPAs, aren't sure which flavors come from certain hops. So, we want to give (them) that experience while celebrating everyone's love of hops."

So think of A Wolf Among the Seas, as the event has been dubbed, as creating a knowledge bank, a foundation for your taste buds and nose to begin teasing out flavors and aromas in your favorite IPAs or pale ales, beers no doubt shaped by the typical brewing conventions of multiple hop additions. 

(About the event title: The Latin genus and species names humulus lupulus roughly translate to wolf among the weeds; Kane Brewing is located in Ocean Township in Monmouth County, a little over three miles from the beach, so A Wolf Among the Seas. The event runs from noon to 5 p.m. at the brewery.) 

As a brewing ingredient, hops are hardly two-dimensional. They're more than mere bittering and aromatic agents. And in a single varietal, you can get quite a range of qualities.

"There are times even in a hop itself you get different qualities off the flavor and off the aroma," Matt says. "Certain hops may be very heavy in grapefruit in the aroma but the flavor might give a sort of different citrus (taste). We want to let people know that when we say we're using certain hops in there, these are the qualities we're looking for, and we're blending them together for this reason."

Head High, Kane's 6.5% ABV flagship IPA, is normally brewed with a blend of Columbus and Chinook in the boil for bitterness, with later additions of Cascade, Centennial and Citra to lend a grapefruit signature beneath a nose of citrus, pine and tropical fruit. It's dry-hopped with Cascade, Citra and Columbus.  

For A Wolf Among the Seas, Matt pulled off a few barrels of wort from a Head High brew day, and finished out single-hopped batches with Citra (citrus and tropical fruits); Columbus (citrus, slight woody flavor); Amarillo (spicy, orange-like bouquet); Simcoe (varied aromas of pine, passion fruit, citrus, or earthiness); Legacy (a spicy hop with black currant notes; Kane used Legacy in some recent specialty batches); Nelson Sauvin and Pacifica (New Zealand-grown varietals, with fruit flavors or orange marmalade signatures); Bravo (floral aromas and fruitiness); and Mosaic (floral qualities and tropical fruit). 

Besides having the same grain bill, the beers all have the same IBU level and were fermented with the same yeasts to ensure even comparisons across the lineup.

"They're all sort of apples to apples, just different hops in them," says brewery founder Michael Kane. "It might not be the best beer in the world, but it's a good way to understand what a hop tastes like. We've also been working on a pale ale, a lower-gravity American style beer. We're hoping to release that that weekend as well, if it's ready."

Kane's event is reminiscent of one Iron Hill Brewery held at its Maple Shade brewpub a couple of years ago. Brewer Chris LaPierre turned out an Irish red ale without using finishing hops, then dry-hopped individual quarter kegs with several kinds of American hops, plus Czech, Slovenian, German, English, and Japanese hops.

But specifically, Kane Brewing's tour-day event is really an echo of its highly successful afternoon of stouts held in March. Back then, Kane took its Port Omna Stout and spun it several ways with adjuncts like coffee, vanilla bean and orange, or whiskey barrel-aged it, effectively demonstrating for tour guests how brewers can rewrite a beer with some later conditioning and tweaking. 

Offering a lesson on hops made for a natural a follow-up. New Jersey beer enthusiasts can expect more such events on a semi-regular basis from the brewery. 

Beyond that, though, the event provides something else to consider: Given the new liberties to retail to the public and serve beer, freedoms that Garden State craft brewers were handed last fall by the Legislature, Wolf Among the Seas and events like it become effective uses of production breweries' tasting rooms. They're ways to interact with the craft beer-drinking public that take brewery tours beyond the big, shiny stainless steel tanks people often get to see. 

Likewise, such events distinguish production breweries' serving pints of beer from the idea of the breweries acting like bars. In the case of the hops and stout events, for example, tour guests comparatively taste and smell how a particular beer ingredient is used. That's something a bar or restaurant can't really do, and it speaks directly to the spirit of regulatory changes craft brewers won last year.

"Brewery tours are designed to be an educational experience, so this is a logical use of the tasting room," says Flying Fish Brewing's Gene Muller, who helped lead the push last year to change the state's craft brewing regulations.

The tasting rooms then truly supports brewers' products and help build followers, who in turn buy the beers in bars and packaged goods stores. 

"It's a good tool, especially to educate about some of the styles that we do that are a little different," Michael says. "Some of the beers we make are a little more unique. So we can talk about that, the process by which we do it, other things we're working on, new hops, new malts, different yeasts, different barrel-aging techniques and products we're using.

"Our primary business is brewing and (wholesale) distributing. That's what we do. But it's nice to be able to interact with people who are interested in what we're doing, explain a little bit more and focus on what's going on around here and keep people informed. We're always adding new equipment. It gives people a chance to come in and see what's new, see what's going on around here."

Brewhouse arrives for Iron Hill Voorhees

IH West Chester brewer Larry Horwitz operates the lift.

This is a story about anticipation.

For Garden State beer lovers, especially those in South Jersey, word that the brewing equipment arrived for a widely followed brewery chain, whose newest location was announced a year ago, must feel a little like a fast-approaching favored holiday, or a big concert everyone's talking about.

So it goes for the next Iron Hill brewpub location. 

Voorhees brewer Kevin Walter moves tank. 

Trucks laden with the tri-state restaurant-brewery company's equipment rolled into the Voorhees Town Center shopping complex Monday and offloaded a collection of serving tanks and fermenters, the brewhouse, and combination mash tun and hot liquor tank. 

Over the course of several hours, from early afternoon to early evening, the equipment was raised on a forklift and eased into a corner unit of the retail complex, Iron Hill's 10th location – and only second in New Jersey. (The others are spread among Pennsylvania and Delaware.)

There's still quite a lot left to do in the buildout, but plans call for an August opening (pushed back a bit from an earlier announced opening of July). 

For the beer geeks, the equipment included 10 serving tanks, six 10-barrel fermenters, the mash tun, kettle, a 22-barrel fermenter, and related brewhouse gear that chills wort to fermenting temperature or regulates tank temperatures. 

The brew kettle

Mash tun/hot liquor tank

An array of serving tanks

All of this is the long way of saying that Iron Hill Voorhees is a little closer to being one of the next craft breweries to come online in New Jersey. 

Like Iron Hill Maple Shade, which opened in 2009 as the company's entry into the Garden State, the Voorhees brewery will feature from the outset a flight of house beers – Ironbound Ale, Pig Iron Porter, a Vienna-style lager, a light beer that doesn't taste like a light beer, and a Belgian-style ale. 

After that, it's a matter of the imagination of head brewer Kevin Walter, most recently of Iron Hill's Lancaster, Pa., location. That, and what followers of the brewpub may suggest: Iron Hill's brewers are quite responsive to their customer base. 

August … For folks who know Iron Hill, it probably can't come soon enough. 

Sorting out the tun lid and fittings

Fermenters

Hoisting a fermenter

Positioning a fermenter

Iron Hill collaboration beer featuring kumquat

Suzanne, Chris and the kumquats

A new Iron Hill collaboration beer finds brewer Chris LaPierre working again with his girlfriend and Allagash sales rep, Suzanne Woods.

A couple of years ago, Chris and Suzanne teamed up to produce a saison made with peppercorns. 

Last week, they brewed a Belgian table beer with kumquats for release at the brewpub in Maple Shade later this month, in the run-up to Philly Beer Week (May 31-June 9). 

"This one has a little bit different twist on it," Chris says. "The saison we brewed together was a beer she designed. She doesn't really know how to write the recipes, but she does know what she likes and doesn't like. She told me what kind of saison she wanted, that she wanted pink and green peppercorns in it, so I designed a recipe around that, and she came in and brewed it with me."

For Petite Fortunella, the kumquat beer, Chris and Suzanne involved one of her Allagash co-workers, Patrick Chavanelle, a brewer whose duties at the Portland, Maine, brewery also include pilot brewing and recipe development.

"So it's sort of a collaboration from afar," Chris says.

For Iron Hill's taps, Chris and Suzanne made a 4.5% ABV beer, nominally higher than what you would expect for a table beer.

"(Patrick) originally wanted it to be 3.5. I told him I really appreciate table beers, but not all of our guests necessarily do, so it needs to come up to 4 1/2," Chris says. "It will still be very sessionable, very drinkable."

The beer's name is a nod to the fruit being used and the yeast to ferment it. Fortunella is part of the Latin name for kumquat. 

What becomes of leftover kumquats

"We're using the Orval yeast, and there's a Petite Orval that is the monks' table beer. So he kind of named it petite in tribute to Petite Orval," Chris says.

"It kind of reminds me of some of the Italian beers that we have coming out – low in alcohol, very sessionable, not overdone, very delicate … and also from the fact that the Italians use all kinds of interesting spices, fruits and flowers. So I suspect it may taste more like one of the new Italian microbrews than anything Belgian."

Suzanne is widely known in the craft beer community of southern New Jersey for her days as a sales rep with Pennsylvania's Sly Fox, before jumping to Allagash about two years ago. She's also the founder of In Pursuit of Ales, a women's beer group in Philadelphia, and lends the region her written thoughts on the Philly beer compass at Beer Lass.

As a lot of people know, and certainly the Iron Hill faithful do, Chris has been the brewer at the Maple Shade IH location since it opened almost four years ago, having come over from IH's West Chester, Pa., brewpub. (He also worked at Dock Street in Philadelphia way back when, plus Harpoon Brewery.) 

Chris has collaborated with homebrewers as part of IH's yearly Iron Brewer contest and has done at least three collaborations with the brewpub's South Jersey neighbor, Flying Fish. 

One of Chris' more marquee turns at collaboration was on a Christmas beer with Unibroue brewmaster Jerry Vietz last year. 

Catching up on Iron Hill-Voorhees

Architect rendering of IH Voorhees facade

If you've been keeping score on Iron Hill brewpub, then you've noticed their second location in New Jersey – their 10th overall – hasn't open in Voorhees yet.

Last summer's announced date of winter 2013 was, of course, a projection, subject to how quickly the business could speed through any needed approvals, get the necessary renovations done and the doors open. 

It's a process. And, alas, things don't always follow the forecast.

But despite the delay, there is a bright spot: The folks at Iron Hill have started renovation work – the underground plumbing – at the site in the Voorhees Town Center (what used to be Echelon Mall) and now forecast to open Monday, July 15.

"We started last week. We're under way. We'd like to have been open by now …" says Mark Edelson, who founded the brewery-restaurant with Kevin Finn and Kevin Davies. 

Once the plumbing work is done and concrete gets poured, construction will shift to putting up walls. The brewhouse installation is expected to happen in May. The system is already built. The company moved forward with their equipment order from Canadian manufacturer Specific Mechanical Systems (Victoria, British Columbia) to avert any delays on that part of the project.

"That's the one thing we didn't hold off on because it's usually late. It's done. It's sitting in storage. It's brand new: It was constructed, made, and it's sitting in a warehouse right now," Mark says.

Iron Hill is a longtime customer of Specific Mechanical. Even the occasions in which Iron Hill has acquired used brewhouses (Maple Shade's equipment came from the shuttered Independence Brew Pub in Philadelphia), they've been ones made by Specific Mechanical.

"We want our brewers all working on the same equipment," Mark says. "We were on a tear for a while, when used equipment was available we were buying it. With the proliferation of breweries right now, the used market has dried up essentially. The price went up, so used equipment costs the same as new."

This month, Iron Hill marked the first anniversary of its ninth location, Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia. That project, from drawing table to opening went comparatively smooth, Mark says, given the location and the fact that the space pretty much needed a complete makeover to convert it from a former clothing store to a restaurant-brewery.

"It was built for light retail, and we're not light retail, and with all the infrastructure for power and gas and sewer that a restaurant takes, it wasn't there." he says.

If you're a craft beer fan, take that as a good sign for Voorhees.

Jersey's Finest, and a new age of NJ craft beer

Sen. Norcross draws first pint

Call it a great beer collaboration, if you want.

But Wednesday evening's release event for Flying Fish and Iron Hill's third swing at a Jersey's Finest brew had the hallmarks of a new day dawning, an ushering in of New Jersey Craft Brewing Industry, Version 2.0.

An American IPA dosed with experimental hops was the feature, the vehicle to celebrate the camaraderie of Jersey craft brewing; the industry neighbors that production brewer Flying Fish and brewpub Iron Hill are; and the growth spurt that New Jersey's industry has been experiencing on either side of an overhaul of the state's regulations. 

New Jersey has moved into a new era, thanks to the state Legislature and a bill signed by Gov. Chris Christie last September. Flying Fish president Gene Muller and Iron Hill co-owner Mark Edelson walked point on the legislation, logging a lot of hours talking to lawmakers and attending committee hearings.

Jersey's Finest ice sculpture

Coming at the end of a Garden State Craft Brewers Guild meeting, Wednesday's event was attended by a bevy of Iron Hill-Maple Shade faithfuls, plus new and longtime Jersey craft beer industry faces, and featured a trio of other brews put on tap for the occasion. 

On had for the ceremonial first pour were Michael Kane, founder of Kane Brewing (Ocean Township);  Ryan and Bob Krill, owners of Cape May Brewing (Rio Grande); Becky Pedersen and Ben Battiata, owners of Turtle Stone Brewing (Vineland); and Tim Kelly, brewer at the Tun Tavern brewpub (Atlantic City). 

Michael Kane and Casey Hughes

Kane and Cape May Brewing both celebrated first anniversaries last summer; Turtle Stone's one-year mark is coming up in March.

Flying Fish, as many people know, is up and running in a newer, larger home in Somerdale, while Iron Hill just started work on its second New Jersey location (its 10th overall), targeted to open in Voorhees in mid-summer.

If you looked a little closer in the crowd you would have spied John Companick, whose Spellbound Brewing is on the drawing board.  (Savvy beer folks know of John's association with Heavyweight Brewing, the former Monmouth County brewery that closed up shop in New Jersey in 2006, but morphed into the Earth, Bread + Brewery brewpub in Philadelphia.)

A closer listen to crowd chatter would have cued you to the news that Bolero Snort Brewery just launched and has two beers that will soon be hitting taps in North Jersey.

Such growth, lawmakers say, was the goal when they and the governor updated New Jersey's craft brewing rules. State Sen. Donald Norcross, who took the honor of drawing the first pint of the Jersey's Finest IPA, calls the current quick pace a bonus.

The senator, a Camden County Democrat, was a key sponsor of the legislation that freed New Jersey craft breweries from a regulatory chokehold that made it not just tough to launch a brewery in the Garden State, but to keep one in business. One of the event's brews, a dry-hopped, cask-conditioned blend of Flying Fish Hopfish and Abbey Dubbel, paid tribute to the legislation, taking its name for the Senate bill number, S-641.

"There was an article today (Wednesday) about Pennsylvania," says Sen. Norcross. "They have gone from 10 to over a hundred breweries in the last decade, and that's the type of expansion we're looking for in the state of New Jersey. The design was to try to increase the productivity of our craft brewers in the state. We have the added benefit that this is actually turning out the way we had it planned."

From left: Ryan Krill, Tim Kelly, Casey Hughes

Indeed. 

New Jersey's first craft brewery, Ship Inn, opened in 1995.

Until Iron Hill opened its Maple Shade brewery-restaurant in 2009, New Jersey slogged through a 10-year drought of new, home-state beer-makers. Though still not the friendliest of business climates in which to site a brewery, the state licensed five new breweries in 2011, and two last year.  

Right now there are at least four brewery license applications, such as one from Pinelands Brewing in Ocean County and Tuscany Brewhouse in Passaic County, pending with state regulators. Other projects across the state are in various stages of development, like Spellbound Brewing.

"If not for that bill passing, we were seriously thinking about putting our production site in Pennsylvania or New york," says Bob Olson of Bolero Snort Brewery. "The fact that it has will definitely keep us here." 

Gene Muller (right) talks to Ben Battiata

Bolero Snort launched this month with a pair of contract-brewed lagers, Ragin' Bull and Blackhorn. Bob, who spoke by phone Thursday, says the business plan for self-distributing Bolero is to have its own brewing facility, ideally sometime next year. In the interim, High Point Brewing (Butler), makers of the Ramstein wheat and lager beers, will do their brewing, stocking Bolero's warehouse in Bergen County.

Working together

Brewery collaborations continue to be popular. In Garden State, the Jersey's Finest banner owes to a Garden State Craft Brewers Guild initiative from a few of years back. 

Flying Fish and Iron Hill were the first breweries to put their minds together for a Jersey's Finest beer, offering a mashup of stouts (chocolate and coffee versions brewed independently and later blended) in January 2011. The Tun Tavern and Basil T's in Red Bank followed suit with a brace of chocolate-chili pepper beers. 

By that summer Flying Fish and Iron Hill's brewers, Casey Hughes and Chris LaPierre, were working together to produce August 2011's Iron Fish, a black Belgian IPA that, with a tongue-in-cheek nod, employed about every beer trend you could think of back then.

Flying Fish and Iron Hill's latest round of collaboration is much more straight-forward, using some hops from a Washington State farm that also grows apples and berries. 

"It's a nice hoppy IPA, using all experimental hops," Casey says. "I'm really happy with it. I think it turned out really nice: golden, light, dry, crisp, drinkable with a nice hop character, nice bitterness to it. 

"We kind of went by the seat of our pants and just brewed, and played around with the hops as we had them. It's funny. If you look at our recipe, it says 'high alpha hop, low alpha hop, and Roy Farms hops.'"

Putting his stamp on things

Catching up with Chris Sheehan, brewer at J.J. Bitting brewpub ...

In a few days' time Chris will be heading west to the Great American Beer Festival, catching up to the five beers the Woodbridge restaurant-brewery sent to this year's gathering in Denver.

Bitting is one at least four Garden State breweries sending beer to the Oct. 11-13 festival (according to the GABF website, the other three are Flying Fish in Somerdale; Harvest Moon in New Brunswick; and Iron Hill Maple Shade, a bronze medalist last year for Vienna lager).

Bitting selections that Chris sent are Victoria's Golden Ale; Knockout Bock; a dunkelweizen; the hoppy foreign export Onyx Stout; and Bad Boy Oktoberfest, a GABF bronze medalist a dozen years ago. (They're all entered into competition.)

With just over a year under his belt at Bitting, having arrived shortly after Newark's Port 44 Brew Pub closed over the summer of 2011, Chris has spent his time in Woodbridge bringing to tap beers from his own recipe catalogue.

For instance, this year is the second go-round at Bitting for his wet hop Harvest Ale made with home-grown hops. Onyx Stout is a Jersey remake of the well-received Black Hole XXX Stout he turned out at Chelsea Brewing in New York.

The Harvest Ale went on tap a couple of weeks ago, the same day as the Central Jersey Beer Fest, the event Bitting has sponsored at a park near the pub for the past six years.

The 10 pounds of wet hops (of differing – some unknown – varieties) were used mostly for finishing, though some did get a 30-minute kettle addition. They came from upstate New York and Chris' home in Bergenfield, where one of his bines was a big-time producer, providing a fifth of the fresh hops he used.

Chris has also been tweaking some of the Bitting flagships, but he has been rather conservative in that regard with the Oktoberfest.

"I reworked all the recipes, except the Oktoberfest because it's an award winner from years ago. I did have to take sack of grain out of it. I was getting better (mash) extraction from a change in the crush of the grain and just better brewhouse techniques."

Good luck in Denver to Bitting, Iron Hill, Harvest Moon and Flying Fish.  

Gourd in beers: who's drinkin' 'em?

Iron Hill's Chris LaPierre with bourbon pumpkin ale

Talk pumpkin ales and you can quickly divide craft beer enthusiasts into two camps: those who annually look forward to the brews that have become the dominant fall seasonal these days, and the one-and-done folks who are happy to move on after drinking a single pint.

But there's a third group that falls into the mix: the cocktail and chardonnay crowd who look forward to pumpkin ales as their moment for crossing over in to the beer world.

"I definitely think there are people out there that the only beer they'll drink this year is pumpkin beer," says Iron Hill's brewer Chris LaPierre. "This is a kind of beer that wine drinkers, martini drinkers, people that say they don't drink beer ... you know, don't like beer ... (they) will drink pumpkin beer."

Iron Hill taps its flight of pumpkin ales this Saturday, and that third group drinkers are very much represented in the crowd that has made IH's Welcome, Great Pumpkin event the chart-topper as far as the brewpub's lineup of events through the year goes. In fact, in terms of sales, the Great Pumpkin event has eclipsed IH's  Belgium Comes to West Chester Belgian beer fest held at the nine-pub chain's West Chester, Pa., location each January. (Featured beers include The Great Imperial Pumpkin Ale, Pumpkin Ale and Bourbon Imperial Pumpkin Ale. For the record, IH's West Chester location does a Gathering of the Gourds pumpkin beer salute.)

It helps that South Jersey's reception of IH in 2009 turned the company's Maple Shade location its busiest. But for all of the factions that surround pumpkin beer, there is definitely something about the style that people find alluring.

"Just look at how crazy people are about it," Chris says. "Look at the coffee shops, everyone's got a pumpkin latte. I'm sure all the fast-food places probably have a pumpkin milkshake, or whatever. People just go nuts for it.

"Outside of brewpubs, look at how much earlier pumpkin beers are coming out. Every year they're out two or three weeks earlier. Everybody's trying to get theirs out early, trying to get it out before the competition. There's just something about that style."

Pumpkin beer is a balancing act for IH Maple Shade. It's appearance on the taps collides with Oktoberfest. The märzen is still a hot ticket, because Oktoberfest hews to tradition, as far as style goes. It's almost always a copper-colored strong lager, with its sweetness held in check by a dose of noble hops.

Pumpkin beers, on the other hand, get to spread out.

"I used to say that Oktoberfest is our fastest-selling seasonal. In a way, it still is because it's not cannibalized the way pumpkin is – imperial pumpkin, Belgian pumpkin," Chris says. "They're all going to steal from each other a little bit, whereas Oktoberfest is just one style. It makes my life pretty difficult for the fact that those are by far our two fastest-selling seasonals, and they both happen to be out at the same time."

That said, Chris does try to ensure Maple Shade's pumpkin ale makes a reprise deep into the fall, after Halloween. Call it pumpkin management.

"We used to have our pumpkin beer on just before Halloween, to just after Thanksgiving. It's popularity has made that difficult to do. I have trouble keeping up with it," he says. "So what I do now is put one on just before Halloween. Then there's usually a little bit of a gap, then we try to get another batch in and bring it back for Thanksgiving time."

Spice vs. pumpkin flavor
A debate that involves pumpkin beer is whether the beer flavors are enhanced by the pumpkin, the spices (i.e. clove, nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon) or both. Chris' take is: If a brewer indeed uses pumpkin in the mash (not all do, some go the spices alone), that flavor will come through. (However, he concedes he's never put it to a blind taste test. And for the record, Chris uses about 300 pounds of pie pumpkins, that after processing for brewing purposes end up as about 80 pounds in the mash for a 12-barrel batch.)

"Certainly if you get a pumpkin latte or burn a pumpkin candle, there's not going to be any pumpkin in it. It is all about the spices" he says. "A lot of people don't bother putting pumpkin in their pumpkin beers, because they say all people are looking for is the spice anyway.

"My argument is, if you smell what this restaurant smelled like at 8 o'clock in the morning when they're roasting the pumpkins up in the convection ovens, there's no way that flavor's not carrying over into the beer. I do think there's more substance to it."

Pa. beer rules force Iron Hill to retool Mug Club

A popular brewpub customer rewards program is being forced to end, thanks to beer industry regulators in the Keystone State.

The 11,000 members of Iron Hill's Mug Club got an email on Monday informing them that decisions by alcoholic beverage regulators meant the brewery-restaurant chain would have to end the 10-year-old customer loyalty program at its nine locations.

At issue, among other things, is the awarding of points to club members upon purchases of beer.

That practice is being stopped immediately for beer, but will continue for food. Under the program, those points would accrue, and credits (i.e. 25 bucks off your next Iron Hill tab) were awarded at certain thresholds.

Monday's email, signed by co-owner Kevin Finn, says the mug club is being revised to meet regulators' concerns. Iron Hill is exploring its options and expects to offer a replacement program this fall.

"Whether we agree with these decisions or not, or why after 10 years the Mug Club has become an issue, is not up to us to decide," Kevin says in the email. "What is important is finding a solution quickly and doing what’s best for our most loyal customers. We want to comply with all the laws and regulations in the states we operate, but our primary focus is providing guests handcrafted beer, creative food and attentive service."

Kevin also outlined other key changes being put in place while Iron Hill recasts the program:

    •    We will no longer accept new members during this transition.
    •    Current members due for renewal will have their memberships extended until the new club is active.
    •    Current members will receive 500 points immediately. This is our gift for past loyalty and patience during this transition.
    •    Members can continue to drink from the Mug Club mug, but must pay the same price as non-club members, an additional 50 cents over the current price of a pint. The free 8 ounces of beer that Mug Club members received was another major issue for the regulators.
Customers who signed up for the club paid a fee and were given a dated souvenir 24-ounce ceramic mug to take home and were served their beer orders in the same types of mugs during visits to Iron Hill.

Thankfully, it wasn't a heavy hand from New Jersey regulators that forced the changes. But since Pennsylvania's Liquor Control Board threw the cold water on the party, Iron Hill is checking rules for the Garden State and Delaware, the state where it was founded and has its home office.

"Officially, it is currently the PA LCB, where we received a letter," co-owner Mark Edelson says by email, responding to some questions about the club changes. "Since all states have liquor laws that prohibit some types of 'enticements,' we are verifying what the other states say. But regardless, 70 percent of our Mug Club is in Pennsylvania, and the logistics of running different deals in different states would lead to a nightmare trying to keep things straight, especially as it pertains to awarding points and checking points online."

Mark continues: "Specifically in Pennsylvania, the regs clearly state that you cannot serve a larger portion of beer without a proportional increase in price. Thus, filling the mug at the pint price is specifically illegal.

"Awarding redeemable points for the purchase of alcohol is considered an 'enticement' to purchase alcohol and is therefore illegal. Although redemption of an earned award on alcohol is NOT illegal.

"Charging a fee for joining the club in which you can get discounts not afforded the general public is also considered and "enticement" and is therefore illegal."

Iron Hill has six locations in Pennsylvania, two in Delaware and one here in New Jersey, in Maple Shade. A 10th location is projected to open in Voorhees in Camden County around the end of this year or the start of 2013.

Next stop, governor's desk

Vote tally, 39-0

Greater freedoms for New Jersey craft brewers, and the subsequent benefits for their followers – beer drinkers, now come down to a tough-talking, über Springsteen fan who has in the past shown support for homebrewing and craft beer.

Just exactly how Governor Chris Christie will act on the legislation handed off to him on Monday remains, of course, to be seen.

But the Garden State Craft Brewers Association, the industry organization that backed the bills, is optimistic that the governor will sign the bill, endorsing changes to the rules that brewers say have hemmed them in since 1995, the headwaters of the beer renaissance that has seen New Jersey brewery ranks since swell to two dozen.

Still, as the legislation enters this final phase, the opposition that has trailed it upon its introduction earlier this year isn't going away. The powerful New Jersey Restaurant Association is likely to seek the governor's ear and appeal to him to veto the bill, renewing its complaints that the proposed regulatory changes fly in the face of the three-tier system governing alcoholic beverages.

The association contends the changes would diminish the value – think six and seven figures – of licenses that bars and restaurants hold to serve beer, wine and liquor.

So, supporters of craft beers brewed in the Garden State will just have to stay tuned. But there are some significant things to consider.

Coming on the heels of Saturday's 16th annual guild beer festival aboard the USS New Jersey, Monday's Senate action sent the craft brewing bill to Governor Christie with a 39-0 vote; last Thursday (June 21), the Assembly gave its stamp of approval, 64-13.

Those wide vote margins should play to the guild's favor with the governor's office. And the economics of giving the state's craft brewers a freer hand command attention as well.

For instance, as with the opening of its Maple Shade location three years ago, Iron Hill brewpub projects it will create 100 jobs when it opens its second New Jersey pub in Voorhees around the end of this year. (Iron Hill has nine locations spread among Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.)

Under the current craft brewing regulations, brewpubs are cut off after two establishments (and thus Voorhees would theoretically cap the number of jobs Iron Hill could create in the state). But the measure (A1277/S641) passed last week and Monday would allow brewpubs to operate up to 10 establishments and sell their beers through distributors.

Outside Senate chamber, after the vote

(The legislation also would allow production breweries to retail beer to tour patrons for consumption on and off-site. Right now, the most you can buy upon touring a New Jersey craft brewery is two six packs or two growlers. If the governor signs the bill, that would retail limit would become a 15-gallon keg.)

Additionally, and this is perhaps a reflection of the continued vibrant national market for craft beer, some of the Garden State's newest breweries, specifically ones launched last (Cape May Brewing, Carton and Kane Brewing), have added assistant brewers, sales staff or tasting room employees on their payrolls, all before crossing the threshold of being in business a full year.

Meanwhile, Flying Fish Brewing is on the verge of launching its new $7 million automated brewery in its new home of Somerdale. (Last October, Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno paid a visit to Flying Fish.)

So with that those circumstances as a backdrop, all eyes turn to the governor, an outgoing guy known for batting down critics, tough talk at town hall forums he's held across the state, and his preference for taking in a Bruce Springsteen concert over prepping for a campaign debate.

To his credit, the governor signed legislation in January to dump a 20-year-old state regulation that obligated homebrewers to obtain a permit to make beer in their backyards and garages. In May 2011, he also signed a proclamation declaring the second week of that month Craft Beer Week in New Jersey, to coincide with a national observance.

Again, stay tuned. A new era of craft brewing in the Garden State is closer to reality than it has ever been.

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).

Iron Hill Maple Shade, a year later

Iron Hill will mark the first-year anniversary of its Maple Shade brewpub on Saturday with a fitting soiree that runs from 1 to 5 p.m.

That's brewer Chris LaPierre in the video above, shot June 26th during the Garden State Craft Brewers Guild festival. Below is what Chris put out in his email notice to Iron Hill devotees and mug club members about Saturday's happenings:

As usual we'll show our appreciation with a complimentary buffet from 2-3 p.m. and raffling off a slew of prizes at 4 p.m. As for the beer, (can't forget the beer!) we've got a lot of special stuff saved up for you. ... we'll be tapping our Anniversary Ale (Sour Cherry Belgian Dubbel), Christmas in July (our Winter Warmer that's been aging in a used Bourbon barrel since the holidays), and vintage kegs of English Strong Ale and Flemish Red. I've even got a special cask for you (I haven't yet decided whether to tap the last firkin of Dark Situation or the last pin of our Bourbon Quad).

Follow this link to see what it was like on that inaugural day of business when Iron Hill opened its first location in New Jersey and became the first new brewing enterprise in the Garden State since Krogh's up in Sparta jumped into the game in 1999 with a 5-barrel system.

Iron Hill's reputation with its eight locations (spread among Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey) is one of great beer. But its backstory is about three Jersey guys who had to leave the Garden State to pursue their vision just to be able to return to their home state with that vision. (Are you listening Gov. Christie? IH's saga concerning high-cost, commerce-unfriendly New Jersey is not unique.)

But the expansion has been rewarding.

The Maple Shade location has become one of Iron Hill's busiest (are you sorry you spurned them like you did, Sagemore plaza in Marlton?), drawing a lot of beer enthusiasts from throughout the South Jersey region. And that's happened despite the rather confounding interchanges with Routes 73 and 41 that lead to the brewpub.

Iron Hill's success says something else about South Jersey: That it truly was looking for another player in its beer scene.

And South Jersey scored big time.

Craft Beer Week at Iron Hill

The penultimate day of American Craft Beer Week (May 17-23) at Iron Hill Maple Shade was all about numbers.

The brewpub's Monky business (as in monks, not apes) mug club day on Saturday featured a flight of Belgian brews – single, dubbel, tripel, American tripel, and a round of quads, including bourbon barrel-aged and brett-styled versions.

On top of that, head brewer Chris LaPierre treated the crowd to some 4-year-old Flemish Brown and an early sample of Iron Hill Maple Shade No. 100.

Chris describes the brewpub's 100th batch – a milestone reached in just 10 months – this way: "It's 100 pounds of eight different malts, eight signifying that we’re the eight Iron Hill location. There's also 100 pounds of corn, being in South Jersey, it's kind of corn country. It has 100 IBUs' worth of hops – we used Centennial hops, also for the number 100. There's 100 ounces of finishing hops at the end of the boil and dry hops, and we boiled it at 100 degrees Celsius."

The last part is a joke, obviously, since 100 degrees C is the metric system boiling point for water.

Batch 100 will clock in about 6.5% ABV. Chris says it sort of defies a style category. "If I had to, I'd probably call it an IPA. It's golden to maybe a little bit of light amber ... really, really hoppy, about the alcohol of an IPA. But it's also got rye in there, wheat, corn, a lot of stuff you wouldn't normally find in an IPA."

Look for it early next month.

Jersey beers at the Brewers Plate

A quick photo pass through the 2010 Brewers Plate in Philadelphia on March 14. From top down: River Horse, Flying Fish, Triumph, Iron Hill, Boaks Beer, Climax Brewing and Cricket Hill. (As many of us know, Triumph and Iron Hill have locations on both sides of the Delaware.)

Gold Fish

From judging at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver ...

Flying Fish's Exit 4 American Trippel, the inaugural beer in the Cherry Hill brewery's bomber bottle-sized specialty brews, picked up a gold medal at the biggest beer party in the US this weekend.

Maybe now the folks at the New Jersey Turnpike Authority will graciously accept the fact that New Jersey gets some accolades, not just sarcasm and standup comic punchlines, thanks to FF's Exit Series beers, which are a nod to the Turnpike's place in state and pop culture.

The brew that is Exit 4, as we all remember, is a fusion of Belgian and American tastes, and it won top honors in the category of that interpretation. (Belgian beer styles have been good to Flying Fish. The brewery's Abbey Dubbel went silver last year.)

Also, Flying Fish's IPA, Hopfish, won a bronze in the classic English Pale Ale category.

Meanwhile, Long Valley Pub & Brewery's Lazy Jake Porter took home a silver for brown porter. Lazy Jake has been in the winner's circle before, bringing home GABF gold nine years ago.

Triumph Brewing (which wraps up its two-day Oktoberfest blast in New Hope on Sunday) won a pair of gold medals with its Pennsylvania locations (hefeweizen from New Hope and kinderpils from Philly). Alas, no medal for Triumph's Princeton brewpub.

Similarly, Iron Hill, which opened an eighth location in Maple Shade last summer, won gold and silver with brews from its Delaware properties (schwarzbier and raspberry torte).

Congrats to all.

A little longer (hope we say this only once)

Some fast notes on Iron Hill coming to Maple Shade …

The projected opening of this May is now looking like July. Iron Hill put out a release today with the change.

No problem. Good things, like their Pig Iron Porter, are worth waiting for.

Iron Hill also announced Chris LaPierre will be the head brewer at their sole New Jersey location.

Chris is a South Jersey native and has been head brewer at the West Chester, Pa., location for the past six years. Welcome home, Chris.

It's going to be a good summer.

Iron Hill: Something to look forward to

We’re told the work on a New Jersey location for Iron Hill brewery/restaurant continues.

In a beer conversation last month, we heard the building on Kings Highway in Maple Shade has been gutted, giving IH’s designers/planners/work crew a clean canvas on which to create a stylish brewpub.

A new face in Jersey, as we’ve said before, is a big deal for a state where regulators hamstring brewers with rules not found in neighboring states, like restricting brewers to be production operations and sell to distributors, or hold a brewpub license and make beer for on-site consumption. But never those twain shall meet in the you-can-only-be-one-or-the-other Garden State.

Boxing in brewers like that is part of the reason Jersey poses such rocky terrain for new enterprises. But we digress.

So yes, Iron Hill opening in May 2009 (the target date they’ve specified) is highly anticipated.

With that in mind, as an indicator of what you can expect from topflight Iron Hill, here’s a glimpse of some special bourbon barrel draft beers they’ll serve at their seven locations spread between Delaware and Pennsylvania throughout February. (All month, each location will spotlight two house-brewed beers that celebrate this style.)

Featured bourbon barrel aged beers will include:

• Bourbon Porter, Iron Hill’s award-winning Pig Iron Porter features roasty malt and pronounced bourbon flavors with a vanilla aroma, served on nitrogen tap.
• Bourbon Russian Imperial Stout, a Great American Beer Festival medalist, distinguished by complex malt character, balance, and distinct bourbon and vanilla flavors.
• Bourbon Barley wine, intense caramel-malt sweetness and aroma balanced with distinct bourbon and vanilla flavors.
• Bourbon Tripel, a traditional Belgian-style strong ale with complex aroma and flavor of plums, spice and bananas, with a balanced bitterness.
• Also: Bourbon Wee Heavy, Bourbon Baltic Porter and Bourbon Dubbel.

Makes you wish they were pouring in Maple Shade right now.

Iron supplement

If you've ever thought New Jersey – with more people per square mile than any other state – should have more brewpubs than it does, then follow this link to the Beer Yard.

We first tasted Iron Hill in the mid-1990s when a co-worker at the Asbury Park Press brought us a growler of their Pig Iron Porter after a trip to Delaware (all these years later, we still say, Thanks Z! Also, IH owner Mark Edelson's brother, Steve, is a sports columnist for Asbury).

That Iron Hill (yeah, we nicked the image from their Web site) plans to strike a mash and serve food in Maple Shade (May '09) in South Jersey is really good news. In fact it's beyond good news, it's inspirational – finally another place to hold a torch and help light the way.

New Jersey has been stuck in the '90s, when most of its craft breweries and brewpubs opened. Sure, there's store shelf space devoted to Jersey-brewed micros and ones across the USA, as well as imports. And a passion among a lot of folks for big IPAs and Belgian brews.

But since the '90s, there's been virtually no movement by way of new brewing enterprises in a state where the population figure suggests there should be.

Meanwhile, at the bar scene, the suburban landscape is choked with mall-stop chain restaurants, like Applebee's, Friday's and Outback, places too skittish and formulaic to serve anything more exciting than Guinness and Sam Adams. Sadly, those places represent the countenance of beer for a lot of Jerseyans.

Most of the savvier beer bars, ones bold and daring enough have discriminating tastes, tend to be in North Jersey and accross state lines (i.e. Philadelphia and New York).

But it's unfair to dump blame on tavern owners and restaurants for being timid. They have to pay their bills in a state where Bud and Coors Light somehow maintain a Jedi mind-hold on customers and drive business for bar owners.

And after all this is New Jersey, land of the town-issued, six-figure consumption license, a price that's damned near the kind of money that buys a bayside house on Long Beach Island. (And that sky-high cost is unlikely to change, since town councils here – as often as a can – will offer new licenses in order to shave some pennies off their painfully high property tax rates, especially in election years.)

But all that's a rant. It's sort of what happens when you talk about beer and breweries in the Garden State – that we'll never be the beer garden state.

So, it's best to think good news. May '09. Maple Shade. Iron Hill.