The Way We Were

Reminiscing … there’s a danger to it, a danger in clinging to the past.

Then somehow gets a rose-colored upper hand on Now, no matter that a cell phone these days effortlessly fits on your ear, while that size-10 Topsider with an antenna and Motorola logo on it you once carried barely fit your mitts.

But glory days are something that go well with a beer. So what the hell, let’s pour one and talk about Then and less about Now, as last Saturday’s Philly Craft Beer Festival slips lower on the horizon and this weekend’s Atlantic City gathering (Celebration of the Suds) gets ready to take the stage …

Go big or not at all

Philly beer columnist Don Russell, dispensing advice for making the most of the 2007 Philly festival, pointed out the 10-plus years since Philadelphia beerfest planners went growler instead of pint to summon the thirsty for a giant mixer.

We checked with Don to see if he was referring to that April 1995 festival at the Philadelphia Civic Center. Indeed, he was.

There were other notable Philly festivals that followed -- the Electric Factory and Poor Henry’s. But the Civic Center bash still stands as a benchmark, as if some gates had just opened to a wider world. The official taster glasses even stirred up the crowd for more, with a teaser to a planned summer Atlantic City festival emblazoned on one side. (New Jersey’s beer police saw to it that a 1995 AC festival wouldn’t get off the ground. But the ball was already rolling in the bigger picture, and Garden State beer fans would eventually gather for festivals at Waterloo Village in Sussex County and elsewhere.)

Sometimes memory lane has potholes in it (there’s a joke in there; think about it). But if you recall, a dozen years ago, the microbrew craze (with the West already in its pocket) was homesteading in the Mid-Atlantic region. The import craze continued to whet appetites, too, and pretty soon you weren’t thinking about the ones you already knew: Beck’s, Heinken or Lowenbräu. St. Pauli Girl, well, you did end up forgetting your first girl.

Your palate was challenged to mature. And British ales were a major reference point, with ESB the call letters. (Seems like ESBs are to Then what IPAs are to Now.) At that Civic Center bash, beers you clamored for included some of the UK’s choice names, Fuller’s … Young’s … Batemans Good Honest Ales (their XXXB was pretty good; honest).

Remember Double Diamond? Forget Foster's, how about Cooper’s Australian stout? U.S craft brewers weighed in, too. Hooked on Red Hook? Get Wicked? Hike the Sierras? And did an in-law sign you up for a beer of the month club? The beer geek in you was being groomed and served.

In New Jersey, The Ship Inn and Triumph would open their doors; Flying Fish would find a lane on the Information Super Highway and go from modem to a glass.

Planet Beer had Boston Beer’s Jim Koch inspiring the do-it-yourself set as a keynote speaker at the American Homebrewers Association conference in Baltimore (where an on-the-road version of the Great American Beer Festival would be held three years later, the same weekend the media would start spreading the news that Sinatra had died).

Speaking of homebrewing, seems like every time you mentioned to someone back then you had joined the brew-your-own crowd, they felt compelled to offer some tale of an uncle and exploding bottles in a basement.

And speaking of uncle, ready to cry it? Too much reminiscing? Well there’s more. But maybe another time, another beer.

(By the way, the Civic Center in University City is gone now, demolished, turned into a memory. Atlantic City Race Course has practically gone condo and shopping mall. Trivia tidbit: Joni Mitchell stormed off the stage during a 1969 pop festival at AC Race Course, pissed off at the audience. Legend has it, the experience soured her enough that she skipped Woodstock. Reality or Wikiality?)

FOOTNOTE:
A photo gallery from the Philly Craft Beer Festival can be seen here. And then there’s this photo animation ...

Eight bells and all is well

Here’s an update from Saturday’s inaugural Philly Craft Beer Festival. (We’re sure the cruise terminal at the Naval Yard has been swept and the deck swabbed by now, no small task when it comes to a building that nearly rivals a football field in length.)

If you’re one of the beer enthusiasts who may have ended up three sheets to the wind by drinking 2 ounces at a time, we hope the hangover was mild, although we didn’t notice anyone totally hammered during the noon-to-4 p.m. session we attended. Buzzed? Absolutely, but hammered, not really. We can’t speak to the evening session (6 to 10).

Incidentally, the festival's website reports both sessions sold out. (Admission was $35 in advance, $40 at the door.) Success!

And with that said, here are some details by the numbers …

Beer: Fifty brewers and 120 beers, more brew than you could possibly drink in two four-hour sessions, but so many different kinds that the beer geek in you might have been tempted to try. And we confess, those figures are what the promo literature declared. In our quest to taste some beer (we sampled from 17 breweries) and support these words with photos, we didn’t have time to check in with the management to see if any breweries were no-shows.

New Jersey beers: The Garden State five were Climax Brewing Co. of Roselle Park (pouring an ESB and an Oktoberfest); Cricket Hill Brewing Co. of Fairfield (a session IPA, East Coast Lager and Colonel Blides Alt Bier); Flying Fish Brewing Co. of Cherry Hill (XPA and Abby Dubbel; special thanks to Gene Muller for some key assistance to Beer-Stained Letter); High Point Brewing (Ramstein) of Butler (amber lager and blonde wheat); and Triumph Brewing Co. of Princeton (and New Hope, Pa., with a Philly location soon; Bengal Gold IPA, and our sincerest apologies for not taking down the other styles poured).

Details et cetera ...

The compass: Brewers came from near (Philly, Philly burbs, greater Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and of course New Jersey) and from afar (Colorado, Maine, Vermont and Upstate New York, to name a few).

Interesting beer: Origin, a pomegranate-infused beer from New York and San Francisco-based Shmaltz Brewing Co. He’brew brews, the chosen beers; funny schtick, pretty good beer.

Reconnecting with a brew: Pig Iron Porter from Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant (Delaware and Philly burbs). A former co-worker once slipped us a half-gallon of this porter back in the mid-’90s. It was good then and tasty still.

Attendance: Seemed like a battleship-load of people. Again, according to the literature, attendance would be cut off at 1,500 per session, and not oversold so folks could get served easily. Some of the participating brewers, however, marveled at the crowd size, speculating it was an aircraft carrier-load instead.

First session peak attendance seemed to be about 2:30 p.m. That’s when the dissonant drone of a thousand-plus voices chattering at once was the loudest. Also, navigating from port to starboard in the terminal was toughest about this time. Oh the sea of humanity. The lines to the heads were also quite long, but observant folks discovered a unisex head in the side room where the brewers’ panel discussion was held. Virtually no line! Way cool. Overall, a patient crowd, well behaved.

Food: Concession fare, but we must offer some props. It wasn’t bad for an event that had to deal in volume and do it fast to keep long lines moving (24-minute wait when we ate). Sample purchase: Turkey wrap, soft pretzel (this is Philadelphia) and a crab cake sandwich. Pinch to the wallet: 16 bucks, (but we’ve seen worse -- six bucks for a half liter of Deer Park at a Meadowlands parking lot party for the New Jersey Devils’ 2003 Stanley Cup win.)

Music: The Bullets. And sadly, we couldn’t hear them aft. Not their fault, though. We did make a point to move to the bow and actually listen to them. (Caught their cover of the Wallflowers’ “6th Avenue Heartache.” Coincidentally, we listened to “Bringing Down the Horse” during the ride into the city.) Fender guitars (one with the fat headstock, a reissue of an early 1970s model), stand-up bass, fiddle, a modest 20-inch bass drum on the drum kit ("It gets the job done" we were told) ... we'd liked to have spent more time listening, but duty called.

Minor letdown: Keepsake sampling glass was plastic. We prefer actual glass. Some day we’ll get over this hang-up.

Missed opportunity: Dock Street. We liked Dock Street back in the 1990s and used to take a six or two to friends for the Kentucky Derby. Then the brewery closed. We read about a return of the beer, but alas we didn't get a taste before hitting our limit for safe driving.

Cool Display: Pint and shot glass setup at Raven Beer. With the sunlight filtering through from behind, it sometimes made for a ghostly effect in Poe's visage on the glassware. Quoth the Raven: You break, you buy.

Quotable quote: “Dude, are you Troegenating her?”A metaphoric, wink-wink, nudge-nudge appropriation of Tröegs’ double bock name. We’ll let it go at that.

FOOTNOTE:
Look for a photo gallery to go up soon. We’re still editing the nearly 300 frames we shot, weeding out the chaff. Also, if we took your business card and promised to email you some photos, we hope to get that done within a week.

‘Espress’ Yourself: Write Your NJ Brewery

Back by popular demand. Well, not yet. Way too soon for that line. But in time, who knows?

The real phrase Jersey beer fans should be using is, “Brew that to me one more time.”

We’re referring to Flying Fish Brewing Co.’s Imperial Espresso Porter, another of the Cherry Hill brewery’s offerings to salute its 10th anniversary (the other is BigFish Ale, a 10.5% ABV barleywine presented in corked bomber bottles).

The Fish’s Imperial Espresso Porter is a beer you can practically take a bite out of, velvety rich and deep. We’re not going to brain-hump it with beer geek analysis. Just know this much: It has enough malt in it to make the USS New Jersey list to one side, plus a wrap-around shot of Colombian dark roast coffee that makes you want to sing Java Jive. Mount Rainier hops sign its autograph, and its 8% ABV can give you a glow. (That should hold you style mavens.)

But the real deal is in the taste. And the phrase for that -- pretty f***king good.

But alas, the 100 barrels that Flying Fish brewed for its anniversary observances are practically gone (we nabbed a four-pack last week, just in the nick of time). Which is why we suggest that a little fan email never hurt a brewery. A standing ovation usually brings an encore.

So go ahead, “espress” yourself.

FOOTNOTE:
Flying Fish, long a community good neighbor, last week hosted a listening party for the release of “World Café Live, Vol. 23” from WXPN (University of Pennsylvania public radio). You can catch a photo gallery of the event here.

You Better, You Bet

Here's a quick update:

State Homebrew champ Bud Usinowicz's 2006 best-in-show brew, Some's Better Double IPA, goes on tap at Krogh's Restaurant & Brew Pub in Sparta this Friday. That's Feb. 23rd.

And since this blog is dedicated to better knowing Jersey-made beers, Some's Better is a good one to get acquainted with. But you'd better hurry. Quantity is limited.

ADDENDUM, 2.25.07: The word from Krogh's is that 50-plus Bud fans turned out for the inaugural tapping of Some's Better Double IPA (7.5% ABV). And when we say Bud fans, we're not referring to anything close to beech wood aging and King of Beers.

A Tale of Two Cities

There’s beer. And then there’s great beer.

There’s run of the mill. And then there’s compelling.

There’s the Atlantic City Beer Festival, and then there’s the Philly Craft Beer Festival (just a week apart from each other).

Sorry to be a buzz kill, but judging from its Website, the AC beerfest -- the 2007 Celebration of the Suds (March 10th and 11th at the Convention Center) -- looks like it will be the yawner the inaugural version was last year: a frat party with a pumped up beer menu.

The inaugural Philly fest (March 3rd at the old Naval Yard), well it looks like the best bet for your hard-earned beer dollar.

Let's cut through the foam and take a look.

Suds 2.0 boasts some changes for '07. Notably, it’s now three sessions instead of the long, twin sessions that marked the two-day ’06 fest. It also claims a bigger hall at the Convention Center, so the parallel bottlenecks that choked the main aisles last year may be resolved.

But that’s just logistics. There’s a deeper ache that nags this young festival.

For instance, take the list of beers (not participating brewers, as the Website claims). It’s like browsing the import and domestic cold boxes at the big discount liquor stores. A been-there-tasted-that feel comes on. Sam Adams and a four-pack of Guinness anyone? Some Young’s? And we like those beers (ditto for a lot of the list). We even once toured Young’s brewery outside London. But notice the near absence of Jersey beers.

Now browse the lineup at the Philly Craft Beer Festival (it’s also a charity event, while AC is not). There's some overlap, sure, but Philly can claim loads of small microbreweries and brewpubs, as opposed to mostly beers from a distributor’s portfolio. And it says something that Philly landed Jersey brewers (five), while Suds 2.0, like last year, is Jersey largely by geography (an exception: The Tun Tavern, whose brewpub and restaurant stands in the Convention Center's shadow; recommendation for any AC fest-goers: do a whirlwind tasting, but settle in at the Tun Tavern for the real drinking).

We do give the AC fest appropriate points for promoting the culture of beer (and we hope they try again next year). And AC gets points for the 2006 keepsake sampling glass -- it was glass while everything these days is plastic. It’s just that this fest has the trappings of a monster truck rally or indoor motocross.

(Last year’s sideshow featured twin-sister Playboy Playmates from the 1990s. But the two sisters pouring at the Guinness booth were younger and hotter, especially the one in the halter top, pleated leather skirt and spiky boots. The Playmates were like Teri Hatcher trying to out-dazzle Sienna Miller.)

It pains us to grouse and be so brutal. We champion all things Brew Jersey. But giving folks more elbowroom to taste beers that can be had by the six at the liquor store is not value-added.

The tale of the two cities?

In Philly, the breweries and their beer are the entertainment. In AC, the beer’s just there.

Window On The Past

Even the simplest homebrewing setup features a few innocuous -- but still sophisticated -- tools that keep you from brewing by the seat of your pants.

Take the hydrometer, for instance.

This baby tells you when the yeast that feast on your wort have a bellyful and are ready to call it a night, settling on the bottom of your fermenter.

The device looks simple enough -- a weighted glass bulb with a graduated stem. But its sophistication lies in the physics of its job: floating in a cylinder filled with wort, indicating the liquid's density. That, science fans, is called specific gravity. And, specifically, it’s not much of hot conversation topic, but trust us, there’s a point to be made here.

Malt sugar solution is denser than alcohol, so your hydrometer will float higher in wort. (Photo taken at Flying Fish Brewing Co. in Cherry Hill) A week later -- after that big yeast feast -- the hydrometer sinks deeper into the beer, so you’ll see less of the stem (the graduated part you check and record numbers from like 1.052 etc., depending on the units you use). With some simple math, the before and after numbers you read from your hydrometer let you calculate the beer’s alcohol content. Commercial breweries do this (if you’re in Britain, that’s rather important, since alcohol content determines the excise taxes paid on the beer brewed in the UK). Lots of homebrewers take a gravity reading, too, especially ones who journal just about every batch.

And here’s the point (finally!):

Imagine just winging it, not only with specific gravity, but with just about everything in the brewing process: no measuring guides, timers or gauges to say when the water’s hot enough, how long the mash has gone or how long the wort has boiled.

Brewer Rich Wagner does this, walks the high wire without a safety net. Not because he wants to be daring or throw science to the wind. Rich is a beer historian; his niche is Colonial brewing -- you know waistcoats, breeches, tricorn hats, coopered casks and barrels, oak fires and taverns where you caught up on the news of the day (and blew off steam about how you were getting reamed by taxes; some things never change).

So if you see Rich decked out in period garb and joined by his wife, Anna, he’s making beer, demonstrating how Samuel Adams (the Samuel Adams, not Jim Koch’s incarnation) would have made a righteous and rebellious batch of ale to fill the tankard. Ditto for Washington, Franklin, William Paterson, Gouverneur Morris, or anyone else who would call the 1700s “back in the day.”

His stomping ground is eastern Pennsylvania, where he takes his act on the road a lot. (Look for him on April 17th at Tria Cafe's Fermentation School in Philadelphia for a talk on the Drinks They Served in Colonial Philadelphia.) We caught up with Rich last fall at the Camden County Historical Society (he returns there in September).



Rich has brewed like a forefather long enough (and perhaps partied like it’s 1799 with the finished product) that much of his technique is on autopilot. Call it more than a decade's worth of experience at the cauldron, and more than two decades of research. But whether he’s checking time by the sun’s position in the sky or eyeballing a measure of homegrown hops and a pour of grain, his methods have been time-tested and have proved worthy. And he swears by the flavor of some of the throwback ales he has made, although he has some advantages -- better yeast, for one -- that Washington (who brewed a porter) would probably have crossed the Delaware all over again for.

The point of Rich's demonstration: Beer's our heritage, a part of what we are.

Good Better Best

Bud Usinowicz is an English teacher. Nouns and verbs. Subjects and predicates, not math predicaments.

Until recently.

You see, Bud’s also a homebrewer (a pastime he took up 10 years ago), and last August he made a bit of a splash with his entry in the homebrew competition at the New Jersey State Fair in Sussex County. To the judges’ taste buds, there was none better than Bud’s Some’s Better Double IPA (7% ABV).

Bud’s reward for his zymurgistic efforts and best-in-show win: a tap handle at Krogh’s Restaurant & Brew Pub (the sponsor of the homebrew contest), a onetime chance to brew his beer for the masses. And sometime soon, you can treat yourself to a pint of Bud’s best amid the log cabin-like atmosphere at Krogh’s (in Sparta, in rural Sussex County, the place in New Jersey where you can probably find a bear as easily as a beer).


So here’s the mathematical problem Bud faced: His Some’s Better recipe, crafted from picking up brewer tips and secrets here and there, is great for 5 gallons, enough to entertain a gang of his buds watching the NCAA finals in his den. But Krogh’s brewing system is 5 barrels, a capacity more suitable for keeping bar patrons happy.

Since 1 barrel equals 31 gallons, Bud’s recipe was about 150 gallons shy of the 1,200 or so pints Krogh’s system can stand up on the bar. So how do you make that backyard 5 gallons become a thirst-quenching 155, without losing what the judges felt made your brew better than all the rest?

Enter David Cooper, the brewer at Krogh’s. With Cooper’s help, Bud solved for X and scaled up his Some’s Better recipe, mashing in with 455 pounds of malted barley for his commercial brew debut. That was late January. After some dry-hopping (what’s an India Pale Ale without some serious hopping?), Bud says, Some’s Better is expected to take its place at Krogh’s bar in late February. If you’re lucky, Bud might give you a caw, er, call.

And if you love big beers that echo hops, Some’s Better will probably be worth the wait.

Better Know A Beer

Viewers of The Colbert Report (some day we may see the Cold Beer Report -- pronouncing the T is up to you) know of Stephen's serial segment "Better Know A District," a compass of sorts to the 435 House of Representative seats and who's in 'em (or wants to be in 'em, as the case may be).

With that approach in mind, Beer-Stained Letter (the title is a takeoff on a Richard Thompson tune, "Tear-Stained Letter") will fill you in on where to fill up on New Jersey's best in malt beverage. The main focus is on brewpubs and Garden State microbreweries, with a dash of color about those watering holes and production houses, and the towns where they're located. The minor focus will be on bars that do it right (good food and grog), maybe some places that help you brew your own beer, and some homebrew artisans who work real magic with malted barley, hops, water and a dose of healthy yeast (after all, most of the people behind microbreweries and brewpubs brewed a batch in the kitchen before they dreamed big and got to your glass.)

Why go to all this trouble? Why not? Maybe a better answer in the era of Web 2.0 is: Because we can. So we are. So there.

So grab a glass, fill it up and enjoy. The beer that is; this is just a blog.