A Ramstein one-off, plus Oktoberfest

Another foray into one-off beers by weizen beer specialist High Point Brewing, which also for the first time bottled a non-wheat beer under its Ramstein brand.

Additionally of note for High Point: The brewery has gotten the earliest jump ever on producing its signature Oktoberfest seasonal.

Released last Friday, High Point offered up a new one-off brew, a bourbon-barrel aged version of its 6.5% ABV maibock, taking the beer beyond its German traditions and big malty profile by giving it a pleasing tang with the addition of some lactobacillus and oak characteristics from the whiskey barrel.

The brew made for a well-received follow-up to a Belgian-style chocolate cherry sour ale that High Point brewed at the end of last year.

For quite a while now, craft brewers up and down the state have been whiskey-barreling some of their beers for maturation and flavor effect. But the Buffalo Trace distillery oak High Point got its hands on was an inaugural effort at bourbon-barrel aging a Ramstein beer. 

The maibock, like the chocolate cherry sour, were tasting room treats, extras for tour patrons who show up at the Butler brewery for the Ramstein lager and wheat beers.

The jazzed-up maibock went fast, gone by early Saturday afternoon, reflecting the potential of craft brewers' tasting rooms to engage the public with small-batch beers that also give breweries and their tour patrons an additional beer theme to take up. It's all part of what lawmakers in Trenton enabled last year when they updated the rules for Garden State craft breweries.

"We had four kegs that we allocated for the brewery. We were open for four hours, and we sold out of them," says High Point owner Greg Zaccardi. "(It's) the excitement we have now with this new law. Let's be honest, we can make a few more dollars, but we also have to make it interesting. People are going to come here and buy the beer only if it's really worth coming."

The flavor profile of the barrel-aged maibock featured caramel-like signatures against a bright citrus quality, plus bourbon and vanilla from the wood.

"It had that tartness, that yogurty tang," he says. "But the nice thing about it is, you get that thirst-quenching sensation, then it stops to a clean finish of bourbon and vanilla."

Giving the maibock the barrel tweaking, taking it outside its traditional construct, put an emphasis on the sensory elements of beer.

"This was a way for us to get to people, get them to come in and think about what's going on – and they're educated," Greg says. "It draws attention to all the elements of beer. People start talking about aroma, they start talking about texture, they start talking about balance, complexity, depth of flavor."

The beer was a one-off, and though it's gone, there's more where that came from, so to speak.

"I'm not saying we're going to make a beer like it every week. But I would like to believe that every other month or so we're coming out with some sort of unique way of making beer taste different that what you're expecting," Greg says.

Meanwhile, High Point already has its top-rated Ramstein Oktoberfest in kegs. July has historically been the month High Point began brewing the märzen for its annual release on the second Saturday in September. (For years, the brewery has made a tour-day event of the märzen, ceremoniously tapping an Austrian oak keg to salute Oktoberfest.)

Over the past year few years, High Point has begun brewing the 6% ABV märzen earlier and earlier, reflecting increased demand for the seasonal, which, as a lager, requires the requisite longer conditioning time. This year, brewing began right after Memorial Day so High Point could both boost production by about 20 percent from last year and better work to distributors' needs.

"In May, we got a list of pre-orders for Oktoberfest from our distributors. They said, 'We'll pick it up in July if you have it,' " Greg says. "So why would we not brew it, if we had bona fide purchase orders for it? That's really what drove us to adjust our production schedule."

Meanwhile, the märzen's junior sibling, Ramstein Amber Lager (5.5% ABV, also called Northern Hills Amber Lager), was recently bottled for the first time ever, a moment that also marked the first instance of High Point bottling a beer other than its signature Blonde, Classic dunkel and doppelbock wheats. (Ramstein Oktoberfest, maibock, imperial pilsner, and golden lager are draft-only brews; the same goes for a 6% ABV pale ale that works its way in and out of High Point's lineup.)

"The beer is a hoppy, slightly lower-gravity sessionable version of our Oktoberfest. We have a lot of interest and (accolades) for our Oktoberfest, and we thought about making it year-round. People always ask us to make it year-round. It's just not designed for that," Greg says. "We wanted to make something that was in a similar vein but could be consumed year-round, and that's what this beer is."

Some of the amber lager, which is a favorite among Ramstein's Facebook followers, is destined for the festival Mondial de la Bière Europe in France Sept. 12-15. It's at least the second time Ramstein beers will be at the event.

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.'"

Oktoberfest is alive and well

This time a year ago, you could find some Internet chatter using Oktoberfest as a punching bag. (Find it here and here.)

The gist of those two observations is: The US craft beer market is awash in crappy takes  – poorly executed or just plain wrong – on a hallowed German style that the Germans themselves have essentially forsaken by putting profit over quality and tradition. In that regard, American brewers should heed the call to rescue it, like they've done with some Belgian styles.

Meanwhile, Oktoberfest as an event has become this tourist-trap-hijacked drunkfest of a calendar date, that most of Germany, save Bavaria, ignores. To be a good student of beer you should be savvier and explore what else Deutschland has to offer.

There's some truth to these observations. Oktoberfest beers dispatched from the homeland to this market are disappointing, and a Web search for Oktoberfest will overrun your browser with hits for booking a trip to Munich. (That's been the case for a while, a well-worn lament by now.)

But, in terms of signal to noise, there's plenty of noise in these observations. For one thing, märzen beer is still alive and well – in the US. There may be plenty of dreck out there, but there's also plenty of cream (that's been the case with craft beer for a while now), as American brewers spot an opening and re-create, even re-imagine, a beer.

As for Oktoberfest the event, it is what it is: a seasonal money-maker for it host city. That's the tilt of the Earth these days. No sense in crying over tipped beer.

And, as far as the subset point goes, that Germans make other brews besides fest beers, well duh. In the craft beer world, hardly anyone thinks (or thought) fest beer is all Germany ever brings to the table.

Even in New Jersey and its environs, where down-the-nose looks our way think us a bit behind the curve, brews like rauchbier, gose and snappy Berliners have been in the mugs for some time, either by our brewers or found on packaged goods stores' import shelves. Germany is not in its rookie season in here in the states, and thanks to the Web, beer drinkers here get around without having stray too far from home (read that as exposure, access to styles, style information).

No matter what the Germans brew these days – and to be sure, they have been dumbing down the fest beer for years now – Americans aren't, nor can they be expected, to be keepers of beer flames. American brewers hate rules as much as they respect them.

For US brewers, styles are as much a blueprint or suggestion as they are, well, the actual style. American craft brewers are too inclined to rewrite the rules, deconstruct them and rebuild them in a hybrid, a mash-up, or cover the style by doing a stellar job at it. That's what American craft brewers do well. It's not so much being the keeper of a flame, but rather, picking up where someone else left off and putting your own stamp on it.

"Is it true that the spectrum of Oktoberfests that were available last year really wasn't that exciting? Absolutely. But that's how craft beers have flourished: They've been better than the competition," says Greg Zaccardi, whose High Point Brewing last week released its 2012 incarnation of Ramstein Oktoberfest Lager Beer, the first of 180 barrels of the seasonal planned for this year. "When the competition becomes lame, you have a great opportunity. If what was arriving here was knocking it out of the park, it would be harder for everybody."

High Point Brewing (located in Butler) was founded as a wheat beer brewery in the German tradition and has produced the decoction-mashed fall märzen for 14 of its 16 years in business, the very first batches being made at the request of a now-closed German restaurant in Atlantic Highlands. Ramstein Oktoberfest enjoys high marks from the critics and continues to draw big crowds to the brewery on the second Saturday of September, its annual release date.

"For our concept, for who we are, we've always taken a lead from the traditional style guidelines and put our own thumbprint (and) signature on that by tweaking it in the direction we find to be exciting," Greg says. "That means we have to start with being as good as the benchmark for that style and doing something that makes it a little better."

At Climax Brewing, doppelbocks, märzens, helles and Oktoberfests are genuinely a matter of heritage. Dave Hoffmann, owner of the Roselle Park brewery, is a New Jerseyan, but a German, too, via both parents. Screwing up the style is a sacrilege, and something that flies in face of his beer-drinking experience. Märzens and bocks are among his favorites.

Elsewhere around the state and country, there are able interpretations of the fall style (Left Hand in Colorado and Great Lakes Brewing in Cleveland come to mind), but things get more elaborate than just capitalizing on a seasonal.

For a while now, Tom Stevenson at Triumph Brewing in Princeton has made those goses, rauchbiers, among other Old World styles (including gruit, a style Tim Kelly at Atlantic City's Tun Tavern has made as well). Carton Brewing (Atlantic Highlands) makes a quite-worthy Berliner. At some point, these brews become more than an introduction to beer: They develop a wide following and generate expectations.

But back to an earlier point ... There are some things that Internet chatter got right. Namely, there is bad märzen out there (try a Leinenkugel's if you don't think so; at venerated Boston Beer Company, the Octoberfest – that's their spelling – grades a B+ at most. But that speaks to their craft-beer bandwidth – above-average, serviceable beers that are accessible to a very wide audience.)

Honestly, though, the observation about bad beers in the marketplace is one that really knows no exclusive style, nor season, meaning it's hardly exclusive to Oktoberfest beers. You can say it about virtually every beer style out there, every seasonal. Alongside the good and the great, there are bad IPAs, bad APAs, bad wits, bad summer seasonals, dubious pumpkin ales, out-of-balance winter warmers, crappy stouts and lame porters. The craft beer market is crowded and getting more crowded. Not everyone hits the mark, and sadly, sometimes it shows.

On the other point, Slob-toberfest ... well, Oktoberfest in the US is very much Cinco de Mayo in lederhosen. But then, Cinco de Mayo is St. Patrick's Day dancing to a mariachi band. And Halloween is a tavern party in a witch's hat, meaning all of those calendar events have devolved into bar promotions of some sort. It's been that way for too long to think about. And the atmosphere surrounding that says, So what? It's business. If you're a brewer, and a bar wants to feature your beer, seasonal or not, you want the tap handle.

Meanwhile, Oktoberfest in Munich is indeed one of the city's paydays, something it can rely on to generate revenues, fill hotels, plow money into the local economy, never mind how it started or what it used to be in the eyes of anyone. It is what it is, and for Munich, it's not unlike New York counting on a lot of people showing up in Times Square on New Year's Eve, or Louisville depending on a Kentucky Derby bounce the first Saturday of every May.

Again, so what? It's commerce.

Just like brewers producing a seasonal, i.e. Oktoberfest ... it's commerce, a business decision. If it plays, it pays. Ask any brewer if having a reliable revenue stream is worth the trouble, the answer is likely to be "yes."

"For us, it's really important to look at celebrating what we strive to do well," Greg says.

A winter without icebock

In Kulmbach, Germany, the Bavarian locale said to be the birthplace of eisbock, it's a bitter -2 degrees Fahrenheit today, with a forecast high of 10 degrees. Over the next couple of days it's not going to get much warmer, not breaking out of the teens.

That's perfect weather for turning doppelbock into its richer, bigger alter ego, eisbock: exposing the kegged beer to the elements, letting it partially freeze and drawing off a core of concentrated beer from an outer layer of ice.

Four thousand miles across the Atlantic, here in New Jersey, that's what High Point Brewing, makers of the Ramstein brand, has been doing since the year 2000, turning its 9.5% ABV Winter Wheat Doppelbock into a velvety eisbock, strong but balanced and smooth, a few ticks higher in alcohol.

But not this year.

The uncharacteristically mild winter of 2012 has thawed any hopes this season of having Ramstein Ice Storm, the name of High Point's draft-only eisbock. It's simply been to warm, says High Point owner Greg Zaccardi.

Icestorm is the casualty of a dearth of consecutive days dropping down to the 20-degree temperature range (or colder) needed to produce the beer that the Butler brewery has made annually as gesture of appreciation to its loyal followers.

"It's not a profit-making beer. It's really a beer we do to say thank you to the year-round fans," Greg says.

The weather truly has the final say.

"It's not some phony marketing ploy," he says. "We really have to rely on Mother Nature to get involved in the brewing process and bring us enough cold weather to make the beer possible. We don't use some alternative form of refrigeration. It's done in the real traditional German way."

Ordinarily by now, Ice Storm would be in the sixtels. Last year, a snowy winter with plenty of cold days, High Point took the unprecedented step of brewing 15 barrels of wheat doppelbock specifically for making eisbock.

That was the initial plan for this year, but heavy demand for the doppelbock meant a portion of the final batch of the seasonal run, brewed around Christmas, would be needed to meet draft orders for wheat bock.

By last week, with a continued upswing in temperatures to 50 and even 60 degrees, all bets were off on the eisbock. The remaining Winter Wheat would remain just that – Winter Wheat.

"This year a lot of people are happy they don't have to shovel their driveway out 15 times. The price for that is, we're not able to make eisbock."

Sounds, tastes & the power to unite

Behind every beer you'll find people – those who made it, those who drink it.

Quite often, you'll find a song, too. That's because music and beer are sensory pleasures – sound and taste – and share a potent power to unite people.

But that's just for starters (and when's the last time you went to a beer festival that didn't have a soundtrack?).

The parallels between music and beer roll on, like a jam band in a great groove, connecting with an audience that's dancing in the aisles.

Think styles – jazz, rock, R&B, blues, hip-hop, country, alt country, folk, bluegrass, classical, opera, big band ... bock, pils, dunkel, stout, pale ales, black ales, singles, doubles, triples, quads, reds, session ales, strong ales, old ales, wheat beers.

Think business approaches – big breweries and big record labels vs. small craft brewers and indie labels. Think shared experiences – Woodstock and the Great American Beer Festival. Think indigenous brews (kvass) and indigenous tunes (parang).

You get the picture.

With all that going on, it's no surprise to find pro brewers who are musicians away from the mash tun, and pro musicians who are brewers off stage.

Kyle Hollingsworth, keyboard player with The String Cheese Incident and his own Kyle Hollingsworth Band, is the music world's biggest ambassador to craft beer, brewing and homebrewing. String Cheese has nearly a dozen albums to its credit, while Kyle has a couple of solo albums under his belt, and now a nationally distributed craft pale ale, Hoopla, to his name. Not to mention a freshly made homebrew bubbling away in the basement of his Colorado home.

Both brews figure into Kyle's summer tour plans.

New Jersey's craft beer industry has two brewer-musicians: Bryan Baxter, a solo artist whose day job is turning out hefe and dunkel weizens and imperial pilsner for High Point Brewing in Butler and its Ramstein brand; and Chris Rakow, who's the guitarist for jam band Ludlow Station when he's not brewing tanks of Tripel Horse, Hop Hazard or Hop-A-Lot-Amus Double IPA for River Horse Brewing in Lambertville.

Bryan, 27, who just took Best in Show judging (for the Double Platinum Blonde hefe) at the Tap New York festival last weekend, sees loads of similarities between brewing and making music. (That's Bryan on the left in the photo.)

"Look at it side by side, the major beer (companies) are like the record companies. If you really want to get your record out there you have to go through the big guys," says Bryan, who homebrewed before landing a job with High Point and finished the first half of the Seibel brewing course. "Small craft beers are like the indie labels. The cool bands are the ones under ground; it's the same thing with craft beer."

Bryan's first disc, Simple Is Beautiful (available on iTunes), came out last summer; it's 10 compositions in the singer-songwriter/folk genre. On the album, Bryan sang and played acoustic guitar, banjo, lap steel guitar, mandolin and harmonica, and was backed by friends on keyboards and drums. (As a musician, he cites as influences Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Avett Brothers and Ryan Adams.)

"I've been in bands all my life. I never put out a full-length album because the bands would break up before we could do it," Bryan says.

His best chance at making an album was by going solo. "I got sick and tired of losing songs because the band broke up. I'm never gonna break up with myself," he says.

When he was gigging around (he's taking a break for a while), you could find him at the Court Tavern in New Brunswick, or at some basement shows in Brooklyn. Bryan has also played at Maxwell's in Hoboken, trodding a stage that has seen its share of big names (David Byrne, John Cale, The Pogues, Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins and Sonic Youth, to name a few).

Chris Rakow has been playing guitar for 16 of his 28 years; he homebrewed during his college days at Rutgers University, and has been running the brewing operations at River Horse for a year and a half. (An American Brewers Guild alum, he also put in some time working for Harpoon at its Vermont brewery).

With Ludlow Station, Chris continues to play with two friends from his middle school years, a time when he "learned every single Led Zepplin tune." The band released an album of eight original tunes last year, titling it simply Ludlow Station.

Brewing and music keep Chris busy.

"On our schedule coming up, we've got a gig every other week up until like July ... Old Bay in New Brunswick, it's a good beer bar, good music; Triumph in New Hope; there's this place, BBQ's, in Annandale; and Pearly Baker's, a nice beer bar in Easton, Pennsylvania," Chris says.

As for Ludlow Station's style, Chris notes, "We cover some Dead tunes, but I wouldn't say we're too much like the Dead. It's much more like jazz, funk, blues rock. Our instrumentals are more intricate because there's no singing. When we have a singer, we have a couple of originals, and when he's there we play some covers, like some Dead covers, Stevie Wonder covers."

Chris' influences are more expansive, however.

"I like John Scolfield a lot, his later stuff, his jazz stuff he played way back is good," Chris says. "I like mostly key players; I like Medeski, Martin and Wood a whole lot. They're kinda like my biggest influence. They're a jazz trio; they're just keyboard, bass and drum."

Speaking of keyboards, you'd probably have to scour the planet to find a musician other than Kyle Hollingsworth who has pondered brewing beer while performing.

"The music I play is very improvisational," Kyle begins, "start the set, get the boil started, then do first hop drop, run and do a jam for 45 minutes, do the second addition and then quickly play a five-minute song and do the third addition," he says.

Kyle laughs when he mentions the idea, but there's no question beer is a huge part of his life, brewing it and hosting festivals (Kyle's Brew Fest, done last year with breweries Great Divide and Deschutes, to name a couple).

"I've definitely spent a lot more energy on crafting my musicianship, and less spent on my beer. But it's always been there, and it's something I enjoy when I come home after a tour," he says.

"Part of my crusade over the last couple of years is I've been touring the country with my band and String Cheese, and I've been doing meet-and-greets and lots of other stuff at select breweries on the way ... from like down in San Diego, it was Stone. Then I went up to San Francisco, then I went up to Deschutes in Oregon, then down to Dogfish," Kyle says. "The vision was, for me, to connect the dots between music and beer."

Kyle's been a homebrewer for 24 of his 42 years, drawn to the craft by the chance to experiment and create something sensory, much like music. While on the road this summer, he'll be doing homebrewing seminars at festivals (like Summer Camp), bringing in tow an India pale ale he brewed just 10 or so days ago.

"I'm going to be like a 'brewru' ... we'll kinda explain the process and do some tastings, and hopefully get some people into brewing," Kyle, a professed hophead, says by phone from his home in Boulder.

That IPA he just made is the opposite of Hoopla, the brew he did with Boulder Beer that gets distributed nationally this month. "It's totally dry-hopped to the max. It's looking and tasting real good," he says, referring to the IPA.

"Over the last two years I've done a lot of different beers – mainly pilot type systems – in a lot of bigger breweries in the country. There's a great place called Avery here in Boulder; a local place called Mountain Sun (which did his Hoppingsworth IPA in 2009), there's a place called Upslope; Odell, I've done a pilot batch ...

"But this is the first time I've done a national, canned or bottled beer. So I'm very excited about that," he says.

With Hoopla, Kyle was thinking of Tennessee's Bonnaroo music festival.

"I went to Boulder Beer and sat down with their brewers and said, 'I want to make a beer that's a festival drinking beer.' Specifically, String Cheese is playing Bonnaroo this year, so I was thinking, 'What would you want to drink at Bonnaroo when it's 85 degrees, or 110 degrees, and 100 percent humidity?' I'm a huge hophead, so I wanted it to have some hops in it, but I wasn't quite ready to do the hop bomb at Bonnaroo," he says.

"So my vibe was to make it a pale that was a little hoppier than people expect – we were calling it a pale ale, but in my mind it's more of an IPA that's of a lower bitterness; it's not quite over the top. So it's an easy-drinking 5.7 (ABV), lightly hopped pale. The whole idea was to have something you can grab in your hand and go see 12 hours of music with, and keep drinking them, instead of one really strong beer for an hour."

And thus was born, Kyle jokes, a new style: FPA, Festival Pale Ale.

But in a pure sense, for Kyle, brewing and performing on stage are moments of creation, born in the alignment of intuition, impulse and passion that demand you make a decision.

Do you play a solo the way fans are used to hearing it, or follow the energy of the moment, the ongoing jam and the crowd's vibe, and take a chance by spicing that solo with something new? With brewing, do you follow your tried-and-true recipe and make the great brew you know, or take that recipe and play it a another way, adding some new ingredients that the moment at hand suggests?

"For me, it's all about taking a chance, all about taking that risk. That's the connection I'm seeing personally," Kyle says.

Ram(m)steins & Aquarians

Ramstein one M; Rammstein, two M's

Go with one M this time. It's featured in the current issue of The Aquarian Weekly music newspaper.

High Point Brewing, which markets its German-style wheat beers and lagers under its Ramstein brand, made the publication's Beer Trails column, a feature that Aquarian started last year.

Ramstein (one M) just brewed an imperial pilsner that should be ready by mid-May. Guitarist Richard Kruspe of Rammstein (two M's), by the way, was featured in Aquarian back in December.

Aquarian has been a backbeat for the New Jersey-New York region for just over four decades (the publication's based in Little Falls now but once operated out of Fairfield, home of Cricket Hill Brewing).

Over the years, a wide sampling of rock 'n' roll royalty from near and far (The Who and Springsteen, for instance) has graced its cover. The publication has also been a voice on up-and-coming local acts (think Skid Row breaking out back in the '80s).

Around the world in 100 beers & Jersey, too

Jersey-made brews pouring in Secaucus on Saturday.

Festival promoter Starfish Junction is bringing the international beer show it staged last fall at Nassau Coliseum on Long Island and last June in Philadelphia to the Meadowlands Exposition Center, marking Starfish's first foray into Garden State beer festivals.

The International Great Beer Expo boasts 100 beers from 50 breweries hailing from 25 countries.

"This is a festival for those who enjoy imports and not so much the craft brands," says Joe Chierchie, sales and marketing manager for Starfish Junction.

Still, if you're going, you can get an array of 2-ounce pours of American craft beers in your logoed sampler glass, including Jersey-made beers from Cricket Hill, Flying Fish, High Point, and River Horse, and contract brews from Jersey-based Boaks Beverage, East Coast Beer Company and Hometown Beverages.

You'll find the Garden State brands interspersed throughout the international labels. "We like to mix in the local guys with the big guys, so you can get a real taste between certain styles," Joe says.

Starfish Junction is widely known for its beer shows in Philly and New York. The timing was right, Joe says, for Starfish to set its sights on New Jersey.

"We're based in Long Island and the business partnerships made with those festivals there led to the (2007) Philly festival," he says. "There was an outcry for a Jersey festival. Through distributors and the connections made in New Jersey we found venue that would work."

Tickets, priced at 40 bucks ($10 for designated drivers), are still available for both the afternoon (12:30-4 p.m.) and evening (5:30-10 p.m.) sessions.

Signs of spring, talk of winter

Forget groundhogs as harbingers of spring.

Here's a sure sign that winter will make its scheduled hand-off: a collection of green Post-It notes stuck on the production calendar at High Point Brewing.

The notes read maibock.

Yes, spring is coming. So is that maibock, officially on March 12th at an open house at the brewery in Butler. There are 30 barrels of it fermenting right now, brewed at the end of last week, the headwaters of a planned run of eight 15-barrel batches, already pre-sold to Ramstein draft accounts.

But as much as there is a longing for spring, there's still a reason to talk about winter: High Point saw some firsts with its current versions of Winter Wheat Doppelbock and Ice Storm eisbock, some minor but noteworthy circumstances that illustrate how hot craft beer continues to be nationally and in New Jersey.

For starters, High Point dedicated two 12-barrel batches of its multi-tank run of the winter wheat exclusively for freezing and concentrating into Ice Storm, the Ramstein brew (12% ABV) in the Aventinus vein that has grown from a one-keg experiment eight years ago to a wildly popular beer that's expensive to make, sells out fast and has helped underscore the Ramstein brand. (This should give you an idea of the cost involved with producing Ice Storm: those 24 barrels of winter wheat doppelbock yielded 8 barrels of eisbock after freezing part of the water content and drawing off the remaining concentrated liquid.)

"This year we made more eisbock than we've made in the cumulative amount of time that we've ever made it. For the first time, we actually brewed batches of winter wheat that were dedicated solely to becoming eisbock," High Point founder/owner Greg Zaccardi said last Saturday, a snowy day that saw a steady stream of beer enthusiasts swing by the brewery for sample tastes and to get growler fills.

"This batch that's on now never was served as winter wheat. It was converted to eisbock, and that's a new thing for us. And the reason for that is we had so much demand for it that it made a lot of sense to just focus on it."

Then there's this: High Point bottled only a tiny fraction of the winter wheat doppelbock this year – 10 or 15 cases to have sixpacks on hand during its release open house last year – leaving the lion's share as draft. To be sure, the backbone of High Point's business has been draft beer; the winter seasonal is among only three of High Point's dozen beers that get bottled. But the brewery's tilt toward draft business is growing, and it signed on with Micro-Star keg service last year to ensure an ample supply of half barrels.

"This year the decision to not bottle was essentially (draft) pre-orders," Greg says. "This was the first year we really never did a substantive quantity bottling. Normally we do hundreds of cases.

"We always wanted to be at least 65 percent draft. Since we started with Microstar, we're up to about an 80-20 ratio," Greg says. "The more draft beer we can do, in my opinion, the better it is. It's a 100 percent reusable container; there's a lot less waste in terms of beer spillage going through the bottling line ... the system is set up to have better turnover, better management of draft beer than bottled beer. The consumer has a better chance of getting a very good draft beer than a very good bottled beer."

The draw of seasonal brews can't be ignored, either. Ice Storm is "wow factor" kind of beer, Greg says. "At this point if you really want to make something special and make an impression in the community you have to do something that is wow," he says. It's a situation that seems to steal the thunder from brewers' year-round labels, but you probably won't hear many complaints.

"As a brewer you really want to put all of your energy behind a couple of flagship beers, seasonals being something to mix it up, to accent your core brands," Greg says. "But it's not only me; it seems that Sam Adams and a lot of my contemporaries have a lot of more excitement when it comes to their seasonal releases than their core brands."

But just as seasonals have been helping brewers' bottom line, so have the rising number beer bars in New Jersey and in neighboring states. That's enabled High Point to grow (up 15 percent for the business year that ended last month) in a smaller sales market than it served a dozen years ago. It's also translating into some planned expansion this year, a couple of 30-barrel tanks due to come on line at the end of the spring.

"There's a lot more taps available, a lot more tap space available. There are places that normally wouldn't carry a sixtel of craft beer but have given it a try, and now they have two sixtels that they rotate through, in a place that's a beer and a shot joint," Greg says. "That didn't exist 10 years ago. Even the specialty beer bars these days didn't exist. If they did, what was exotic was Molsen and Bass; it wasn't a local craft."

Artisan's Oktoberfest and Ramstein kegs

On a hot summer afternoon on the last day of July, brewer Dave Hoffmann was turning out a fall seasonal beer at Artisan's Brewery and related this item:

The Toms River brewpub's 2010 Oktoberfest is set for Friday, Oct. 8. (That date is a correction from what we previously posted. Beer writer Kurt Epps, who also serves as emcee for the event, wasn't available for the original Oct. 1 date, so Artisans moved things to the 8th.)

Artisan's (now into its eight month removed from its former name Basil T's) draws a big crowd with this multi-course beer dinner, of which, as you can guess, the house-brewed fall Märzen (which Dave was working on) is the centerpiece.

Dave says he's putting Artisan's Oktoberfest beer on tap on Sept. 18, the same day that the 2010 Oktoberfest kicks off in Munich. (In the past, he has waited a week or so.) This year, by the way, marks the bicentennial of Germany's Oktoberfest, which as we all know originated as the commemoration of the nuptials of Crown Prince Ludwig and Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen.

Meanwhile, up in Butler, the folks at High Point Brewing are gearing up for the debut of the 2010 edition of their Ramstein Oktoberfest. The 2009 version of the brew scored the top rating from BeerAdvocate, and it's annually been a hot-ticket seasonal for the brewery.

As is its tradition with the Oktoberfest brew, High Point will tap a ceremonial oak keg during its September open house and brewery tour. That's set for 2-4 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 11. By the way, next Saturday's August open house (2-4 p.m. Aug. 14) will feature an imperial pilsner that's worth the trip to Butler. Bring your growlers.

Also, last month High Point signed on with keg-supplier MicroStar to gain greater control of its draft beer operations. It's a key business step and probably best explained this way: Say you own a brewery and you own all your of kegs, and you have to wait for returns to fill new ones. There isn't always a happy balance to what goes out and what comes back for cleaning and filling, so signing on with a supplier ensures kegs are available to get beer to the marketplace and keep business on track.

High Point relies heavily on its draft beer side, since the brewery puts only three of its many beers in 12-ounce bottles (Blonde, Classic Wheat and Winter Wheat), even though it has plans to begin bottling some seasonal brews. Consider, too, that the brewery's business was up 30 percent last year. Given those factors you can see why striking a deal MicroStar matters.

Cheers.

Imperial pils

Quick note:

The Garden State Craft Brewers Guild's January update is out, and if you're in North Jersey, or you are an adventurous roving South Jerseyan, you might take note of the imperial pilsner from Ramstein.

High Point featured this at the guild's festival last summer in Camden. It's a great beer, and worth checking out. But you'll have to travel to Manhattan or Brooklyn.

For now. Hopefully it can wind up on this side of the Hudson.

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.

OK, maibock for real this time

Saturday’s open house at High Point definitely will be the 2009 debut of Ramstein Maibock.

We jumped the gun last month, saying it would be on the bill of High Point’s March open house, alongside the Ice Storm eisbock and Double Platinum Blonde. An oops on our part.

But this time, it’s definitely a go, from 2 to 4 p.m. at the brewery in Butler, with Councilman Robert Fox doing the honors of tapping the ceremonial wooden barrel.

Speaking of the Ramstein Maibock, it walked away with top ranking in Ale Street News’ tasting of springtime bocks. And take a look at that list, it bested some German-made bocks that were part of the tasting.

Ale Street gives it 4 1/2 stars; we give it our highest rating: 5 growlers.

And speaking of open houses, the photos here are from the March event, the first High Point open house for 2009.

Reminder: All about bock

Here’s one you don’t want to miss: High Point kicks off its 2009 season of open houses at the Butler brewery on Saturday (from 2-4 p.m.).

And it’s a bock moment for sure: mai, eis, doppel wheat and Double Platinum Blonde.

The wheat doppelbock came out last fall, so Saturday is a day for that brew to stand in good company with the debut of Ramstein Maibock and Ice Storm eisbock.

They’re both popular beers, big favorites among Ramstein fans. Bring your growlers but expect a line of like-minded people snaking out of the brewery entrance.

Ice Storm was a hot ticket at the Philly Craft Beer Festival a week ago (more on the festival at the Naval Yard in a catch-up post next week).

One festivalgoer practically parked himself by the Ramstein stand and came back for seconds, thirds and fourths of Ice Storm. Probably wished he could have sat down with a pint.

If you like Ramstein Blonde, one of the brewery's flagship beers, then you’ll probably like its bocked-up sister, Double Platinum Blonde, twice as much. Like the eisbock, it did brisk business in Philly.

Praise be cold

Here’s a reason to champion a tumble in temperature: eisbock.

And there’s only one reason to bring that up: High Point Brewing’s highly anticipated (draft only) eisbock is in the pipeline.

We spoke to Greg Zaccardi just before Christmas about morphing some Ramstein Winter Wheat Doppelbock into eis. Greg said that a batch of the doppelbock (9% ABV) was finishing out so it could be kegged off, then sent to the big chill to turn the available H2O into an ice core, off which the brewers will draw the malty, now alcohol-richer eisbock. (The most recent incarnation clocked in at 12% ABV; that beer was a surprise treat back in August and quickly pounced on at a brewery open house).

How soon a 2009 Ramstein eisbock happens depends on Mother Nature providing a reliable arctic blast, the kind that turns a lake or pond into a hockey rink. Seems like the weather’s trending toward the sustained below-30 degrees air temperature that’s needed for the conversion. So for now, it’s a waiting game.

But if you want a date to bank on, the folks at High Point expect the eisbock to be available by the second Saturday in March (the 14th). That’s when brewery open houses resume following the winter hiatus. In fact, you can pretty much expect High Point to bock your socks off that day, since their maibock is scheduled to debut then, too.

Here’s another heads-up: Since a portion (about 25 percent) of each keg’s 15 gallons must be sacrificed (as in turned to a discarded slush) to create the eisbock, the supply is obviously tighter than other High Point brews. And the beer has developed a quite an interest among High Point’s draft accounts. What all this means, as fans of this beer well know, is that if you’re not fortunate enough to have Ramstein eisbock on tap at your local bar, then you and your growler should make plans to line up at that first open house of 2009.

Meanwhile, High Point’s Blazing Amber, a draft only Vienna lager, could be under glass this year. Greg’s giving serious consideration to broadening High Point’s bottled lineup with the amber. Stay tuned.

The beer’s name is a nod to the spectacular 1957 inferno at Pequanoc Rubber Mill, a blaze that was visible 100 miles away and drew an offer of help from the NYFD.

Joy to the wort

Yes, Virginia, there is a Samichlaus.

It exists not just as a single, cheerful, grand beer, annually brewery-gifted to the masses at Yuletide, but in the hearts of everyone who welcomes the moment to throw arms around old friends and clasp hands, meeting in the pub at Yuletide.

Alas! How dreary it would be if there were no Samichlaus. It would be as dreary as if there were no alehouses at all. There would be no friendship bonds made ’round pints and banter, no laughter, no cheer to make tolerable this existence. We should have no pleasures, except in Sports Center and widescreen TV. The forever light by which camaraderie fills our world would be extinguished.

OK, enough of that, before the literary license gets revoked. And apologies to Francis Pharcellus Church, the longtime-gone New York Sun, and Don “Joe Sixpack” Russell, whose account a couple years back about touring Austria’s Castle Eggenberg Brewery, home to the actual Samichlaus (Swiss-German for Santa Claus) beer, opened with a turn of phrase upon Church’s classic editorial.

The point is, Yuletide fast approaches, and regardless whether your elves are Mad, breaking Bad, Seriously Bad (even Criminally Bad), or Santa’s showing his Butt, you’ll find no truer cheer than to celebrate the holidays and friendship over a pint of beer.

Mulled, honeyed, fruited or just brewed extra rich and alcohol-robust to bring a warming smile, ’tis the season for these beers, and Don, already a renowned beacon for all things malt and hops, is lighting the way again, as our beer fridges become nothing short of advent calendars.

Don availed himself last week for a chat about his latest book, Christmas Beer: The Cheeriest, Tastiest and Most Unusual Holiday Brews, and talked about the inaugural Yuletide beer festival at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology, set for the Saturday sandwiched between Christmas and New Year’s. (FYI: Don's a co-organizer of the festival.)

Yuletide beer guide
Three years in the making, Don’s latest beer treatise is the product of world travel, sampling the products of brewing traditions that date back nearly two millennia. If Joe Sixpack’s Philly Beer Guide was Don’s spring equinox (released last March), this book is the winter solstice, and bound to be enjoyed for its capturing exotic, unusual, or one-of-a-kind beers in a single, handy volume. (The book’s available through Don’s Web site, or Amazon, but we say support the beer scribe – buy directly from him.)

Christmas and beer, perfect together?
Absolutely, Don says. Christmas beer isn’t a definable style, yet it embraces an impressively wide variety of flavors. And when it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, there’s a celebratory mood in which people try new things and want to enjoy fine foods. Beer owns a place amid that terrain.

Plus, Christmas beers are special in that many have interesting backstories, lore or cultural ties. Take for instance, Anchor Brewing’s Yuletide offering, Our Special Ale, its commemorative, dated labels and secret recipes that ensure each year’s edition is unique unto itself. For sheer pop culture, think Ridgeway Brewing (South Stoke, England) and Seriously Bad Elf, banned in two states (one being Connecticut, thankfully not New Jersey), for the red speck on the label that, upon close inspection, is Santa Claus in a reindeer-hauled sleigh.

Beer folks are good folks
Some of the most cherished friendships are struck over beer. But sometimes, because of the everyday and pressing commitments of family and work, those friendships get revisited only at Christmas. Don mentioned forging such friendships at a brewpub in tiny hamlet in Norway.

The festival
Yes, Virginia, Philadelphia is earning yet more stripes as the best beer city going. While the lineup of 50 US and international Yule brews and winter warmers is still being worked out, the Dec. 27th festival promises to say Fröliche Weinacht and Joyeux Noël, as easily as it does the Dickens-like wish of Merry Christmas.

You’ll encounter some familiar brews, notably Tröeg’s Mad Elf, an 11% ABV cherry and honey Belgian-style strong ale to which Don gives supreme props (we say, for a beer with such warmth, this is surprisingly easy-drinking brew; but it’s a sipper, of course, not a chugger). But you’ll want to keep your taste card open because the event does promise variety.

Among Jersey beers, look for the yeast-spicy Flying Fish Grand Cru Winter Reserve and possibly High Point’s Ramstein Winter Wheat Doppelbock, a rich and chocolaty beer that finishes with hint of raisin. Or River Horse’s Belgian Freeze (if Don’s online column about his favs for the Yule season can be taken as a measure of how the fest list might shape up).

Don will give a talk at a VIP session of the festival (tickets are premium priced but include complimentary copy of his book, an hour of sampling, a three-course lunch and Christmas beer rarities).

In a recessionary time, the ticket prices may seem expensive, but we’re willing to say it: Christmas comes only once a year. And, hey, c’mon, it’s beer.

The W’s

• What: Christmas beer fest.
• When: 1-4 p.m., Dec. 27th (VIP admission, 12:30 p.m.).
• Where: UPenn's Museum of Archeology and Anthropology, 3260 Spruce St., Philadelphia.
• Wallet: $75 in advance, $90 day of; VIP session, $125 in advance, $150 at door.
• Web site: www.phillybeerfests.com.
  
  

Ein Prosit, Ramstein

Gemütlichkeit (geh MOOT' lik KITE'): noun. Geniality; friendliness. ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: German.

We’ll get back to the deutsch in a minute. First things first.

You know you’ve hit on a good idea when you see someone else doing it.

This weekend was a busy one for New Jersey beer lovers: Pizzeria Uno’s cask ale event and High Point Brewing’s debut of its Ramstein Oktoberfest 2008 falling on the same day.

We tried to figure out how to do both equally, but alas, there was no easy solution, since we had planned to do some coverage of Ramstein, and it was 45 minutes away, along the Morris-Passaic County line.

We ended up spending a very short time at Uno, in Metuchen, or Woodbridge, depending on how you want to map it – and believe us, we really, really, really wish it weren’t this way, because cask-conditioned beer simply cannot be beat; it is to die for – then hit the Parkway-78-287 combination to arrive in Butler in time for the High Point/Ramstein open house. (That's a shot of the casks at Uno.)

But we weren’t the only ones.

Halfway into the Ramstein event, we looked up and saw a couple who had been sitting to our right at the bar at Uno, just an hour earlier.

Meet Fred and Doris Kirch of Freehold, regulars at Uno and followers of the High Point/Ramstein brand as well.

Fred said they had been anticipating the release of Uno’s Oktoberfest; hence their stop there about noon. But they also wanted to make a return visit to High Point. So they doubled up on the day. Like we did.

We feel validated. Great minds … yada, yada, yada.

But at the same time, we seriously wished we could have made a day of Uno’s event. We sampled some kick-ass smoked porter from Captain Lawrence Brewing, and did an obligatory turn on a cask version of Climax ESB. (Dave Hoffmann makes great beer, and when we say obligatory, we mean how could we pass it up? Also, Dave, we stopped at Liquor Mart for your Oktoberfest, but they hadn’t received it yet. We’ll be calling.) Sigh, too much to pack into a day.

Take-home beer
We will say this, Uno’s Oktoberfest and Ike’s IPA were our take-home beers. Uno brewer Mike Sella turned in an excellent Märzen, and if you’re anywhere near the Woodbridge-Metuchen-Edison area, you’d be crazy to not stop at Uno for a pint or some take-home while it lasts. (Seriously, Mike nailed it; this is good beer.)

As for Ike’s IPA … If you’re into assertive IPAs that still answer with malt, then this beer will make you quite happy. It’s hoppy, but drinkable, flavorful without being coarse, like some takes on IPA can be nowadays. Plus, it leaves a nice hop smack on your lips. And the best thing, it’s one of Uno’s flagship beers, so odds are you will find it on tap anytime you stop by. Which you should.

Meanwhile, in Butler
Märzens are among our favorite beers, and the Ramstein event has become one we’ve calendared. High Point’s Oktoberfest (6% ABV, and yeah, we know their tap handles spell it Octoberfest) is among the best we’ve tried. (Last year, at Deutsche Club of Clark, we got to sample some unfiltered, golden Paulaner Oktoberfest from two oak barrel’s worth flown in from Munich.) Of course, German beers are their focus, but High Point never disappoints. But alas, the Oktoberfest is only available on draft (check with the brewery for locations).

Greg Zaccardi, High Point’s founder, says the event drew 185 people, the largest crowd for this open house. HP went through six kegs of its Märzen, as the legions queued up with their growlers.

Gemütlichkeit
Back to the deustch. Like the beer, there was plenty of conviviality, the social part that is beer, the Gemütlichkeit.

Food is part of that, and the volunteer-prepared food spread at High Point’s open house was enough to spoil you.


Acknowledgements
So, some shout-outs. First to Karen Ontell (at left, with her mom) for that food and the hard work that went into creating it. Great job, Karen. (Remember, she does theme catering; reach her at kontell@optonline.net)

And to the Nutley crew of Thomas Pluck and John Milkewicz, loyal Ramsteiners, who’ve made the trek to Butler for open houses several times before (like last month for the eisbock. That's Thomas in the olive green shirt below, John in red.)

Thomas is the keeper of the Pluckyoutoo blog. Movies, beer, hotdogs and boobies. Sounds like the bases are covered, in this Internet-express-yourself age. John stood out to us by virtue of our editing video of last year’s Ramstein Oktoberfest event. Watching footage over and over makes for faces you don't forget.

John’s holding a growler in the foreground at 1:33 and 1:57 minutes into the piece, in some b-roll footage. (We knew we saw him from somewhere!) But more importantly, John’s a Marine Corps reservist, and pulled some duty in Iraq (at the sprawling, multitasked airbase in al-Anbar Province), so a toast to you there.

Apparently a diehard Ramsteiner, John, a lance corporal, shipped out for Iraq just days after popping in on the 2006 High Point Oktoberfest open house. He's been back for a while. Glad you’re home, John, back in Jersey.

Also, a nod to Bryan Jenkins, morning anchor with News12 New Jersey. Karen and Howard Ontell ran into Bryan during a Jamaica vacation and stayed in touch with him afterward, forwarding him emails about Ramstein events over the following months.

Great to see you could make the big one, Bryan. This is Jersey craft beer at its best. Spread the word: Think Jersey, drink Jersey.

And finally, to the Star-Ledger photo staff guys who knew where the good beer was that day. Can you capture Gemütlichkeit with a lens?

In der Küche mit Karen

High Point Brewing, as we’ve noted a couple times since July, rolls out the Austrian oak barrel this Saturday (2 p.m. at the brewery in Butler), tapping their 2008 Oktoberfest seasonal beer. (See our video from last year.)

If you’ve been to this open house, you've probably enjoyed some complimentary food while you got a growler filled and sampled the Märzen. The beer is the main attraction, the food is that little extra that makes you feel at home, and the folks who make it happen are those indispensable volunteers that every craft brewery could probably use more of.

Like Karen Ontell, who has stepped up to fill the vacancy of Jack Brunner, the familiar food guy at High Point events, who has another commitment on Saturday. (FYI: Karen’s a Bulter resident and of German lineage; her father is from West Berlin, yes from the dark time when the city was cut off from the free world and divided with the then-Communist East).

Karen used to work for High Point in the brewery's early days, doing promotions like beer dinners and representing Ramstein at charity events, and has known owner Greg Zaccardi since Ramstein’s been a label. Husband Howard volunteers at the taps (as did Karen at the bar during the August open house), filling growlers from a jockey box in the brewhouse.

She now runs Karen’s Pet Concierge and does theme-based event catering (have a Halloween party planned? She’s got your mummy covered – in filo dough).

Here’s a sampling of Karen’s menu for Ramstein Oktoberfest 2008 (we spoke to her on Monday, so the menu could change):

Warm-up:

• Soft pretzels, with of course, mustard
• Potato soup

Fill-up:

• Mini-stuffed cabbages with dipping sauce
• Chicken friccassee
• Turkey and cheese on skewers with horse radish sauce
• Potato pancakes with apple sauce
• Salad

Finish-up:

• Butter cake
• Cherry streusel cake

Worth noting
If you’ve ever cooked for 100 people, then you know there are a lot of kitchen hours that go into it. So, some credit is due for Karen and Jack.

While you’re enjoying the beer, conversation and food – the Gemütlichkeit – don’t forget to toast the chefs.

Prosit!

After hop-picking

It was apples that Robert Frost contemplated in verse, turning the seasonal experience of picking them into a window on life lived and mistakes and regrets.

The guy seriously needed a beer, some hops. That's what he could have done after apple-picking.

But anyway, we know what comes after hop-picking. Or we'll find out this weekend.

On Tuesday, we spoke to Dan Weirback, who noted that he and wife Sue will harvest their Nugget and Cascade hops throughout Saturday.

Make that the rest of their hop crop.

They harvested about 60 pounds earlier this month, most of them Cascades, spending about nine hours plucking the cones from bines they cut down. Those hops are already beer: They went into the hopback to infuse some great aroma into an IPA Weyerbacher brewed last week.

Now the task at hand is to bring in the remainder of the crop, with the help of about eight friends who'll party while they work. (Dan says the plan is to systematically cut bines and hand them off to a table of pickers who'll strip off cones.) In the rolling hills of Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, this will probably be the beer equivalent of a barn-raising.

Pound for pound
It looks like the yield will fall short of Dan’s forecasts. No big deal. It takes a lot of hops to make a pound, and there’s really no sure way of knowing until you put what you got on a scale and see what it totals.

But remember, these are first-season bines, and for much of that time, the plants expend more energy claiming their turf, establishing a root system that will serve them well in the future, than bearing fruit.

So, in the meantime, crack open a Hops Infusion or Double Simcoe IPA and check out Dan and Sue’s saga in moving pictures and sound on tape. (FYI: We may repost this; we're going to see if we can process the audio a little better.)

About the video
We shot the interviews with Dan and Sue in late June, rounding those out with on-cameras from others in the beer or farming business a month later to hopefully bring some background or perspective to things. So some acknowledgments are in order for those who spared time from their busy schedules ...

A big thanks to John Grande and Ed Dager from Rutgers’ 390-acre Snyder Research and Extension Farm in scenic Hunterdon County. (John is the farm director; Ed is farm manager.) Snyder’s mission is sustainable agriculture, exploring potential new crops for Garden State farmers. That’s how hops ended up on the farm's radar in the 1990s, just after craft brewing took off in New Jersey, and it's how Dan and Sue came to reap the benefits of fresh, regional research.

When Lew Bryson isn’t speaking about beer or writing about beer, he’s probably just drinking beer (but we’ve seen him do both – speak and drink – at the same time, ha!). Or maybe he’s got a great bourbon or scotch whisky in the glass, one of his other areas of expertise (he’s managing editor of Malt Advocate magazine). Lew has staked out the mid-Atlantic states as a beer coverage area, with guide books on the breweries of Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and most recently New Jersey. In what's surely a sign of modern times, Lew also has an bio in Wikipedia (albeit a brief one, but one there nonetheless.)

Greg Zaccardi of High Point Brewing helped us out last year with an Oktoberfest-themed video, and since he often travels to Europe, he was a logical choice to size up the business culture of US brewers vs. their counterparts across the pond. And as the owner a craft brewery, Greg, like his industry colleagues, had to face the bitter truth of the hop shortage and subsequent price spike.

And of course, there’s Dan and Sue, the hop farmers. Thanks.