And Philly Makes Three, Reprised

No more talk, speculation.

Triumph Brewing’s doors are open and taps flowing in Old City Philadelphia.

The stylish brewpub that built a reputation for some great beers in Princeton has been serving to growing crowds in Philly since Wednesday.

On the slate you’ll find eight styles listed, including Triumph’s signatures like Bengal Gold IPA and honey wheat, as well as its gold medal-winning kellerbier (a German style unfiltered lager).

Rounding out the lineup are an amber ale, porter, oatmeal stout, chico ale and a dunkel lager well known at Triumph’s New Hope, Pa., location.

Triumph folks say they’re bullish on the Philly site (on Chestnut Street), and expect to do well in a city where beers of all walks draw legions of fans.

Makes you want to pull up stakes for Old City.

Shore bet

Good news for beer drinkers along the Jersey shore who have discriminating palates.

Fairfield brewer Cricket Hill, purveyors of a quite quenching American lager, have added bottle and draft distribution to Monmouth and Ocean County. As Jersey beer fans, we hope this helps further turn the tide toward the side of taste and choice.

It’s been a month-plus since Cricket Hill widened its reach with its East Coast Lager, amber American Ale and Hopnotic India Pale Ale, the latter being a very enjoyable session IPA (so don’t go looking for the hop hammer to come slamming down. Instead, it's a cumulative hop taste balanced with a not-too-filling full body. No problem standing up two or three of ’em.)

Because of some distribution overlap, Cricket Hill may have already been available in bottles to some shore drinkers. So that means the best news here is the availability of Cricket Hill on draft, which we advocate as the preferred way to have any beer.

You won’t get an argument from Rick Reed, Cricket Hill’s founder, either. Bottling, he says, tends to beat up a beer. The extra handling that bottling necessitates can rough up a beer and change some of its character.

So on that advice, sign up for the draft. And hopefully some savvy and supportive bar owners will help you out.

About Cricket Hill
Founded about five years go, the brewery operates from a former welding shop in an industrial park in Fairfield (Essex County).

Capacity: 3,000 barrels, producing about one-third of that now, with healthy year-to-year growth.

Beer lineup: Besides its lager, American Ale and IPA, Cricket Hill produces the seasonal Paymaster’s Porter (draft only), Colonel Blides Altbier (with plans to bottle that German style offering) and a Belgian summer ale (draft) that’s looking to find it’s way out of the bright-beer tank soon and into a glass.

Name game: Cricket Hill actually has less to do with the insect that stars in the brewery’s logo and more to do with the game cricket. The name is a reference to a vantage point for watching cricket matches in Australia. The cricket hill is the equivalent of the bleacher seats, but the spot where the social atmosphere and camaraderie is more inviting.

Wikognition, Part II

Recapping: The prefix “Wiki” made it into the Oxford English Dictionary (despite already earning a place in other reference works).

Why we cared: Because we needed a blog entry. No wait, um, because Flying Fish and Triumph have been immortalized in Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia. (Yes, it’s just Jersey beer trivia we’re fatuously falling all over here.)

How we tried to gin up the first take on this entry: Ask Wikipedia founder and Internet entrepreneur Jimmy Wales if he’s ever had a Jersey-made beer.

Two weeks later, we have an answer. (And we forgive Jimmy for the delay; he’s a busy guy. After all, he does occupy a spot on Time magazine’s list of 100 people who shape our world. He’s quite a sporting guy, too, for entertaining our query. Thanks, Jimmy.)

First off, Jimmy emails us that he does like beer, German beer, in fact, although he didn’t indicate a brand or style. Incidentally, he’s also learning German (of which we know a little: Bier schmeckt immer ausgezeichnet … we won’t swear to the correctness of our usage.)

Jimmy’s a traveling guy, too (he was in Japan when we emailed him last month), so of course he’s been to New Jersey.

But he notes that he’s never had a Jersey-made beer.

“Hmmmm. I think I am entirely unaware of the existence of New Jersey beers!” Jimmy wrote us.

Ouch.

OK, we’re being a little melodramatic. And truthfully, we can scare up a dozen born-and-raised New Jerseyans who, with a Coors Light in their grip, can say the same thing. That’s a bigger ouch, since New Jersey has a rather large résumé as a brewing state (just a lot of it is relegated to beer history now), inlcuding some award-winning craft and pub-brewed beers.

But Jimmy’s answer does play into a bigger picture. And that is the Garden State has a fairly low profile, comparatively, in the era of craft brewing. We're the Garden State, but not quite the beer garden state. That’s a conclusion we’re fairly certain will be underlined, figuratively speaking, when the Colorado-based Brewer’s Association unspools some extensive 2006 industry data this month.

But you don’t have to be big to be well known. And maybe we can make a convert out of Jimmy. Of course, we’re not implying that you FedEx Jimmy and the Wikimedia Foundation a mixed case of Jersey’s best. Let’s reiterate, we’re not suggesting that.

But if you infer it, who’s to throw cold water on a good idea?

Uh, maybe you should throw in some pork roll, too.

Two for the Show

Some quick notes from Sunday’s annual Brewer’s Plate festival in Philadelphia.

This is an affair that really underscores the inseparable tie between beer and food.

So if you weren’t one of the 1,000 people at the Reading Terminal Market savoring fine cheeses, seafoods, smoked meats and a some really kickin’ “beeramisu” at the third outing of this event, you’ll definitely want to put it on your calendar for next year.

Here’s why ...

The Brewer’s Plate (a fundraiser by nonprofit White Dog Community Enterprises) unites artisinal foods and dishes from some great Philly area restaurants with beers from craft brewers within a 150-mile radius of the city. Great food, great beer. Great expectations.

(This year, the festival featured 18 restaurants and 18 breweries, with each brewery and its two beers styles paired off with two different restaurants.)

But the event also makes a deeper statement about locally grown and produced food. And locally made beer. And that is, when you make those establishments your go-to purveyors, you create and nurture a community, not to mention giving an important boost to local economic development.

What’s that mantra about craft beers? Support your local brewery? Well, that’s part of what the Brewer’s Plate is saying.

And it’s one of the reasons we stepped across the Delaware to check out the pours from Jersey gems like Climax Brewing and Flying Fish and Triumph. (River Horse Brewing was also extended an invitation to the event but apparently could not make it.)

Some highlights of the Garden State at the event, a bit of what went on our plate and in our glass: Climax (Roselle Park) saw its very able ESB paired with a fantastic crab bisque from Ortlieb’s Jazzhaus, whose wonderfully spicy jambalaya was also matched up with the Farmhouse Summer Ale from Flying Fish (Cherry Hill). We’re big on spicy food, so this was a line we hit a few times more than we should admit.

(Climax’s Nut Brown Ale was paired with some excellent cured meats from London Grill. HopFish, the creamy IPA by Flying Fish, was served with pan-seared scallops from Patou.)

Triumph, which spans both sides of the Delaware, featured a dunkel larger (on tap at its New Hope, Pa., location) with pork loin and lentil pilaf from White Dog Cafe. (Triumph also poured its signature Bengal Gold IPA with a really tasty pulled pork sandwich.)

Great food and great beer always keep good company. Two for the show.

Calendar Note

Attention! Numbers to remember: 700, 23 and 5.

The 11th annual Garden State Craft Brewers festival will again dock at the pier in Camden, on June 23rd, marking the third consecutive year Jersey-made brews will be served on the flagship of Bull Halsey.

More on Bull Halsey in a second.

Right now, know this: Admission to the event aboard the USS New Jersey -- the floating museum at Camden's Delaware River waterfront -- this year will cost you 5 bucks more (this is not a bad thing, stay with us here) and attendance will be limited to 700 of you beer fans. (We’re not sure what the gate did last year, but capping the attendance is good, since it translates into shorter lines for necessities aboard ship, be they edibles or that ever-important line to the loo.)

So it’s going to be $35 to cruise with some of the Garden State’s best in brews in 2007. But don’t flinch. If you sailed with the Philly craft beer festival on March 3rd, you remember that passage was 40 bucks. And let’s face it, that was a pretty good time, followed by the Atlantic City festival a week later for a few bucks less.

So now it’s time for New Jersey beer’s annual showcase event. And for it, event organizers are putting the extra admission money where your mouth is. And by that we mean better food to go with the malt art you have come to expect from Jersey brewers.

So put on your sailing shoes (yes we’re Little Feat fans), the ship’s waiting for you.

(Last year the number for tickets was 866-877-6262 ext. 108. That’s the USS New Jersey’s line. We can’t say for certain it’s where to call now, but if we were starting somewhere, those are the digits we’d dial.)

About Bull Halsey: (we’re talking the Admiral Halsey here, so forget Uncle Albert and butter pies) … William Frederick “Bull” Halsey Jr. was born in Elizabeth, NJ, 125 years ago, and cut a distinguished jib as a US Navy admiral in World War II (a mere 60-plus years ago). The New Jersey was Halsey’s 3rd Fleet flagship during the battle of Leyte Gulf, the mother of all naval battles (so history tomes tell us).

All this has little to do with beer, but a lot to do with where you stand when you sip one aboard the ship. So when the time comes, tip your glass to the Bull and the Garden State.

Dismissed.

Onward April

Say sayonara to March.

Yeah, we know we’re a week early, but trust us, April’s full of promise, and we’re not just talking about Opening Day or the Masters Tournament.

For the record, April brings observances as diverse as National Humor Month, National Guitar Week (rave on!), Stress Awareness Month (Rx for calm: have a beer), National Lingerie Week (ooh-la-la!) and even TV Turn-Off Week (is this where everyone on American Idol and Survivor gets voted off by the remote control?).

But this, of course, is about beer, and April delivers.

There’s the pairing of great beer and food at the Brewer’s Plate event in Philly (Climax and Flying Fish will be pouring at the Reading Terminal Market) on April 1st. (Update: $50 general admission tickets have sold out; there are still some premium tickets available, the $100 Brew Master's Lounge passes.)

April also brings another ray of sunshine, this time from the banks of the Delaware, when River Horse Brewing begins serving up its Summer Blonde Ale for a fifth year. This light-bodied, medium-hopped beauty (Hallertauer and Fuggle hops and a spot of wheat; 4% ABV) has become a big seller for River Horse, rivaling the Lambertville brewer’s flagship Hop Hazard Pale Ale.

At the end of the month, look for River Horse’s barbecue and beer garden at the annual Shad Fest in Lambertville (April 28th-29th). Practically anyone who lives around that western notch in New Jersey can tell you the annual Shad Fest is a big happenin’. And if you’ve never been to cozy, scenic Lambertville, it’s worth the daytrip to Hunterdon County.

Meanwhile, get out the Sharpie and circle April 7th on the calendar. Then pour a beer and be thankful. That date 74 years ago marked the return of legal beer (in the strength of 4% ABV, 3.2% by weight) in the U.S., the initial steps toward repealing Prohibition.

Fittingly, the first public delivery of newly legal beer went to the White House to salute Prohibition foe FDR. In New Jersey at the hour of libation liberation, Newark's Krueger Brewery, one of they city's many brewhouses, was the only one ready to strike a mash. (See Old Newark for more details on New Jersey under temperance's thumb.) Prohibition became a complete footnote to U.S. history by December 1933. So essentially, April 7th and beer were to Prohibition what the collapse of the Berlin Wall in '89 was to communism across eastern Europe.

(Some places we found put the date as April 6th, with beer becoming legal again at the stroke of midnight. But since this isn't Final Jeopardy! we're not going to quibble. And by the by, our depiction of FDR ale is totally fictional. Maybe a homebrewer or pro brewer somewhere could pay such homage, if it hasn't been done already.)

Thus in the beer world in America, this really is a holiday. Craft brewers as a group have been celebrating the day since 2003. And the Colorado-based Brewers Association, the national trade organization of the craft beer industry, is again marking the date with Brew Year’s Eve celebrations. A quick scan of the Garden State Craft Brewers Guild calendar (or news page) didn't find the date highlighted. (Fear not, check out PJ Whelihan's pubs for a Brew Year's Eve observance. Looks like they're doing it on the 6th, though; best call beforehand).

Nevertheless, this is an observance in which you can take matters into your own pint-glass gripping hands.

Go to your favorite bar or brewpub and order a round. Go to your local package goods store, grab a six (or, what the hell, a keg; have a party), and toast three generations of legal beer. Take a tour of a brewery (and bring up the significance of the day to the kind tour guides, if they don't).

And keep an eye on A&E Television Network, which will air a new documentary (by Ken Burns and Roger Sherman) on April 7th, “The American Brew: The Rich and Surprising History of Beer in America.” The film is an overview of why beer and liquor went outlaw, what happened in the U.S. as a result, and why the Prohibition genie was put back in the bottle.

Light the way

Climax Brewing doubled down for Lent, and now brewer Dave Hoffmann is following that up by seeing the light.

The Roselle Park brewery plans to release Hoffmann Helles (4.6% ABV) about April 2nd in its customary kegs and half-gallon growlers (which are filled on a bottling line. The beer keeps longer than growlers filled from the tap, like it’s done at brewpubs, Hoffmann says.)

Signature flavors in Hoffmann's helles (which, as you know, is auf deutsch for "light," as in a reference to color): Spalt hops and a breadiness that tastes like it came from a decoction mash.

Hoffmann Helles comes on the coattails of Climax’s Lenten season release of a doublebock (named, as you can guess, Hoffmann Doppelbock; 7% ABV, Spalt and Hallertauer hops). It's the fourth year for both styles under Climax's brand. Incidentally, Climax is going on its 12th year as a brewery.

Climax’s beers can be found in draft and growlers across North Jersey, and on draft in Philadelphia bars. South Jersey folks may have to trek to Mount Holly or Florence (at Red White & Brew) to find Roselle Park’s finest in malt art.

And Philly makes three

The newest flower in the beer garden is set to bloom in early spring with some honey wheat, amber ale and Bengal Gold IPA.

We are, of course, referring to Triumph Brewing’s much anticipated new location in Philadelphia (two bars and a restaurant and a 15-barrel brewery inside 12,000 square feet), its third after Princeton and New Hope, Pa.

When the doors to the Old City site swing open, you can also expect a stout on tap, as well as beer on a hand pump.

Rounding out the location’s amenities: Internet WiFi, a 100-inch projection TV with surround sound, a private dining room and a business center.

The chat board buzz about Triumph pouring beer at Second and Chestnut has mentioned “early spring” since mid-winter. Regarding the grand opening, company reps were staying with that phrase on Monday.

If you’re the antsy type and not satisfied with that explanation, think about it this way: Spring starts Tuesday and Triumph probably wants to be open in Philadelphia as much as anyone who wants them to start filling pint glasses.

(Side note: Brewing operations chief Jay Misson will oversee the Philly location and Patrick Jones, the current New Hope brewer, will handle daily brewing duties.)

Trivial pursuits

Speaking of Triumph (which recently celebrated the 12th anniversary of its Princeton brewpub) …

The Oxford English Dictionary has just given the word wiki its lexicographic due.

Wiki's joining 287 other words in the latest online version of the venerated reference tome. (Wiki had already made the cut in the dictionary in Mac OS X that runs our PowerBook and G5, by the way.)

The word refers to websites that allow collaborative editing of content and structure by users and perhaps is most famously associated in mainstream usage with Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia. (Wiki comes from wiki-wiki, a Hawaiian phrase meaning “quick-quick;” it owes its cyber life to programmer Ward Cunningham. We know all this because we looked it up.)

Winning a spot in the OED is probably a big deal somewhere to someone, but it has virtually nothing to do with Jersey beer, were it not for two entries in Wikipedia: Triumph and Flying Fish Brewing (Cherry Hill).

Somewhere along the line, the two Jersey brewers picked up some wiki-nality and were immortalized in Wikipedia. (See entries here and here.) Tun Tavern also has an entry, but it details the history as the Philadelphia birthplace of the U.S. Marine Corps and only offers a link to the Tun's Atlantic City brewpub.

Such wikognition doesn’t strike us as having the same bragging rights as grabbing a gold medal in Colorado in the fall.

But if you follow the logic that any publicity is good publicity, then appearing in a compendium that lives its life as a work in progress where anyone can chime in with his knowledge on the subject probably can’t hurt. (By the by, for the ambitious out there, you can bump up Wikipedia’s article count by authoring entries on the rest of New Jersey’s brewers.) We’re wondering: Is there a Pete’s Wiki Ale out there?

(Side note: We reached out to the Wikimedia Foundation and its founder Jimbo Wales last week to ask three important questions: Do you like beer? Ever been to Jersey? Ever had a Jersey-made beer? The foundation said he was in Japan, and we suspect our email to him posing those questions got snagged by his spam filter. Or he just plain thought we were drunk.)

Summer in April, no foolin’

And speaking of Flying Fish, April 1 will see the 11th release of the Farmhouse Summer Ale, the Ra of the Fish’s seasonal beers.

Once upon a time, Flying Fish made this beer with a dash of sour mash, an intrepid endeavor for any brewery. These days acidulated malt gives the beer the tang that Farmhouse fans expect.

If you’re sprucing up the back yard and wheeling the grill (or smoker) out of winter storage, keep this beer in mind. We like it as the denominator in a half and half with Guinness. Or try it straight up with a bacon cheese burger turbocharged with some jalapeños.

Foam by the Sea, Part II

Some follow-up thoughts and details (behind the scenes stuff, some forward thinking and yes, even some more numbers) from last weekend’s Atlantic City Beer Festival (March 10-11).

Quick post-show tallies put attendance at the Convention Center show at about 8,300. That breaks down as 2,400 for the Saturday afternoon session; 4,400 for Saturday night’s leg; and finally 1,500 for the Sunday afternoon session.

Those are unofficial counts, but a rep from festival promoters Unsuited Entertainment says the final figures probably will be somewhere in that ballpark.

Growth spurt

But more than anything, U-E notes the attendance was up from the 2006 show, which saw the gate do about 6,000 people for an inaugural festival that had 100 beers -- a number that doubled this go-round.

And as one could expect, U-E is already thinking 2008 while it puts 2007 under the microscope to zero in on what went right and what went wrong.

Glass, house

Contracting with the Convention Center for a festival means the promoters are kinda like guests in someone's house. And there are some unbendable rules that just come with the deal. One of those was that the souvenir taster, the small logo-inscribed mug that you chug, had to be plastic, not glass. Guess that shatters hopes for our preference.

Garden State variety

U-E had hoped to lure more New Jersey breweries and brewpubs to the festival, and notable ones from Philadelphia and Delaware. “Try, try again” is pretty much their thinking, so it’s possible some fence-sitters in 2007 may make an appearance in 2008. Stay tuned.

The ol’ in-out, Alec

Uh, not that kind, dirty mind. The restriction against re-entering after exiting the festival hall, well thankfully, that’s not a hard limit set by the house. This is pretty key, since there are additional restrooms just outside the meeting halls, and that could help keep the lines to the loo short. We hope there’s a return to the 2006 policy that allowed folks to exit and come back. Smokers will probably be happy, too.

Rinse and repeat

This is something we didn’t point out previously, but there was a shortage of rinse water for the taster glasses. It’s fairly routine at festivals for the beer/brewery stations to have some rinse water on hand for patrons’ glasses, so the next beer doesn’t taste like the one before it. U-E is on top of it.

Comestibles

The food … another topic that’s on U-E’s collective minds. They know there’s room to improve, meaning they’re working on it. We have faith.

Be good

Yeah, it’s what your mom said as you headed out the door for school or to play all those many years ago. Little did you know, she also meant it to include when you go to beer festivals. Why do we bring this up? Well, seven of you didn’t listen Saturday night, and the Community Chest card you drew said, “Go directly to jail.” So for 2008, we’ll remind everyone of mom’s proviso: “If you’re gonna drink, don’t be a jerk.” Enough said.

Shopkeeping

The photo gallery is up, and so is the video. (Thanks, Gary; thanks, Ted.) Tech note: The audio is slightly out of sync with the video. It's a YouTube thing, since users upload already compressed video to the site and Y-T turns around and formats (read: recompresses) it as Flash video. We're working in Final Cut to QuickTime (a Y-T compatible format) and have tried several different QT compression settings to resolve the problem. We'll keep trying as time allows and will repost the video when we find the magic number.

Cheers.

Foam by the Sea

When Atlantic City parties, you can bet there’s going to be some spectacle. It is, after all, the playground by the sea that once brought you midget wrestling, boxing kangaroos and, of course, diving horses.

Then perhaps that’s why the Atlantic City Beer Festival is really as much about the sideshow as it is the beer. It’s a raucous two-day party where you can lose yourself in the moment with silly hats, shirts, beer goggles, cheesecake (the leggy kind) and scooters made from coolers.

And it doesn’t hurt that the second annual Celebration of the Suds (held Saturday and Sunday at the Convention Center) had a wide selection of brews to sate every taste.

Details make the story, so here they are …

By the numbers

Beers: 200-plus that generously spanned the globe. The mix included a lot of familiar faces (almost too many; great festivals offer a chance to discover), such as domestic mainstays Sierra Nevada and Samuel Adams; regional craft brewers Brooklyn Brewery and Dogfish Head (Delaware); and imports Guinness, Harp, Duvel, and Young’s. (Alas, we didn’t see Fuller’s in the mix, a UK favorite that’s always in our fridge.) Toss in Singha from Thailand and Asahi from Japan, and you get the picture.

Full house: 2,000 or so beerheads (our estimate) at the first Saturday session (noon to 4:30 p.m.) that we attended (admission was $25 in advance, $30 day of). We suspect the remaining two sessions (6 to 10:30 p.m. Saturday and 1 to 5:30 p.m. on Sunday) had similar turnouts.

Jersey Guild brewers: One, the Tun Tavern. The Tun is the home team, located across the street from the Convention Center. We had several samples of the Tun’s quite able ESB. And for the second year in a row, the Tun served as our post-fest place to unwind and grab a bite to eat (try their One Tun Burger with a pint of the Irish Red). Some day we’d like to see the Suds fest attract more Jersey craft brewers and neighboring state brewpubs (like Iron Hill or Nodding Head), for that matter.

Serving size: 2 ounces. It’s what the New Jersey beer police say is the hard limit for serving patrons. For the hale and hearty, it’s a swallow; for the more relaxed, it’s a couple of sips.

Floor plan: 80,000 square feet of elbow-bending room. That’s a step up. (See below).

Details et cetera

Beers of note: Brooklyn Brewery’s Local One, a tasty bottle-conditioned golden ale that was really smooth for clocking in at 9% ABV; a creamy organic oatmeal stout from Wolaver/Otter Creek (Vermont), no harshness from the roasted barley, despite being poured under CO2 (and not nitrogen); Double White Ale from Southampton Ales & Lagers (Long Island, NY), a nice blend of oranges and coriander; and a dark lager from Podkovan (Czech Republic), rich but not cloying.

Obligatory beer: Guinness. This is after all March, and the color of the day was shamrock green. We love a Guinness any time of year, but seeing it poured in 2-ounce shots just kills the whole ritual surrounding it. Maybe we’ll pass on this next year.

Sweet memory: Tröeg’s Troegenator Double Bock tasted a little sweeter than we remembered from the Philly Craft Beer Festival (March 3). No matter, it’s a great beer.

Missed opportunity: Baltika … Russian beers. For a while, their station always had a crowd queuing up for a pour, which kept us moving. We never made it back before last call (4 p.m.). Hopefully, another time.

Music: Neo-Celtic band Birnam Wood -- kilts, bagpipes, fiddles, acoustic guitars, and a redheaded lass. They headlined the entertainment at last year’s Celebration of the Suds, and again this year, sharing the stage with Beatlemania Now, which we saw standing there. Speaking words of wisdom, let ’em be. We love the Beatles, and we were curious about Beatlemania Now’s run at Harrah’s casino this month. But there’s a difference between tribute bands and impersonations, and oh darling, please believe us, this was just kind of silly.

Food: Gotta work on this one. There was a concession station shoehorned into a corner. It just looked so unappetizing. There’s quite a lot of talk and copy written about pairing food with beers, and cooking with beer, for that matter. Hence, the need to step up on this one. We understand trying to balance what’s realistic for a festival, but at the same time, food is really worth the extra effort. One bright spot here: Samples of a killer crab bisque from High Point Pub. High Point’s a bar (not brewpub) in Absecon (outside Atlantic City); they hit the festival to drum up some business with this awesome soup that’s worth a trip through their doors.

Disappointment: This year’s taster glass went plastic. Last year it was the real deal -- glass. We’ve cried in our beer over plastic vs. glass before, but when the topic came up while in line for the men’s room, well, we felt validated. True, plastic is safer and cheaper, and honestly the change wasn’t unexpected. But the taster is a keepsake, and it would have been great if they kept it glass.

Overheard: “Is this the line?” Speaking of the bathroom, there was just one location each for men and women (but additional facilities just outside the festival hall). So relieving yourself meant sacrificing drinking time in painfully long lines.

Smokin’ in the boys’ room: Yeah, you know it’s against the rules. But unlike last year, there was no re-entry to the festival hall upon leaving. Which made for that bitch of a line to the john, and turned the can into Marlboro Country when the nicotine crowd wasn't willing to wait.

Logistics, Take One: A bigger hall and rectangular layout of sample stations made for easy movement. Last year’s festival had a linear set-up, a stretched oval, with two main aisles that made for horrid bottlenecks in almost parallel locations. The improvement was welcomed. But …

Logistics, Take Two: Speaking of long lines … they snaked around the Convention Center from the ticket windows and from the turnstiles. There was also too much showing of IDs. Next time, please separate the will call window from the day-of ticket sales. Also, we understand the need to prove drinking age when buying or picking up tickets and for entering the hall. But patrons were carded yet again after receiving a wristband they could only get after showing their IDs. Overkill.

The wind-up: Yes, this is the same festival for which we held low expectations just a few weeks ago, based on our experience from the inaugural gathering last year, and perhaps a snobby comparison to the Philly fest and Suds 2.0’s shortage of Garden State brewers. We, uh, forecast AC to be a yawner and a frat party. Yawner? No, there was plenty to enjoy. Frat party, well it came close. We did see more folks who got drunk on the 2-ounce installment plan than compared to Philadelphia.

But this is Atlantic City, and the sideshow must go on.

FOOTNOTE: Look for a photo gallery, plus interviews with Beer Radio's Gary Monterosso and Tun Tavern Brewmaster Ted Briggs later this week.

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.