Atlantic City’s Tun Tavern celebrates a decade this year, chalking up some longevity as a topflight spot for fresh beer (and good food) at the Jersey shore.
The Tun marked the milestone with a brewmaster’s 10th anniversary dinner last week that paired its brews with some great food (the wild boar bacon wrapped langostinos were excellent; ditto for the crab and asparagus crêpes). The brewpub has also released a commemorative, whiskey barrel-aged grand cru. (It’s 20 bucks for VIP club members, 25 for non.)
In a place where casinos boast fine dining to go with the tumbling dice, there’s a bit of a blindspot on the beer side in the day-to-day of Atlantic City.
Sure, the classics are available. But with Guinness so commonplace now, places like the Irish Pub and The Trinity (just off the boardwalk at St. James Place and in the Quarter at Tropicana; and in the Pier off Caesar’s, respectively) seem so 1990s and shopworn.
That’s why if you’re a beer fan, the Tun and Firewaters bar (at the Tropicana) are the islands on the island, so to speak.
Speaking of Firewaters, they’re the only establishment in the shore area that has Victory Brewing’s newly released Baltic Thunder on tap, and will feature the imperial porter at a party from 7-10 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 31st. (Hors d’oeuvres of pepperoni and cheese will also be available.)
But back to the Tun for a moment.
If you’re a regular, you may have noticed some of the tweaks to the beer menu that brewer Tim Kelly has slipped in during the eight or nine months he’s been the Tun’s brewmaster. The brown ale is now a Belgian-style brown that’s worth the trek. Meanwhile, the Leatherneck stout tastes silkier, smoother, and has come down in alcohol content to that of nice session beer. (Tim’s also pouring a coffee and cream stout. It’s not quite Mackeson’s XXX, but it’s worth trying a pint.)
Coming soon is Tim’s doublebock. It’s still lagering right now, and if you made it to the anniversary dinner you got a preview of that malty brew. It’s still a little young, but by March it ought to be on target.
We’ve been spending a lot of time on the other side of the Delaware lately, Philadelphia in particular.
That’s where some commitments have taken us, and in the process, allowed us to enjoy the great beer (and food) that Philly taps to back up its boast of being the cradle of the American beer experience.
(Note to Philly Beer Week organizers – Our suggested catch phrase: “America’s best beer drinking city… And yes, it is the beer talking.”)
Philly and beer are among some of the projects we’re working on, namely some promo clips for White Dog Café and its fund-raiser, The Brewer’s Plate (March 9 at the Independence Visitors Center), an event we heartily endorse.
Suzanne, a spritely soul with a cool whiskey voice (and we think we saw mention of Tom Waits on her blog site, so award points there), unified craft beer enthusiasm under a banner that was probably a bit overlooked, reminding folks – who may have forgotten for a moment about Carol Stoudt of Stoudt’s Brewing; Rosemarie Certo of Dock Street; and Gretchen Schmidhausler of Basil T’s in Red Bank – that women do the beer thing with the same gusto as the guys. Too cool. (Bye the bye, our favorite Sly Fox beers are Phoenix Pale Ale and Pikeland Pils. For now, anyway. And for the uninitiated on this side of the river, Sly Fox is the craft beer in cans. Lots of styles, too. We're hoping their Dunkel lager turns up near us.)
We caught up with up IPA at their Christmas party last month at Johnny Brenda’s in Northern Liberties. A shout-out goes to Kirsten Henri of Philadelphia Weekly for conducting the interviews. Look for the video in mid- or late February.
The Tria session we shot is from November, when some fine cheeses were matched to some great beers. And this being in Philadelphia, you can guess that Belgium was well represented in both categories.
We’ve said this before, and we’ll say it again. Tria is a fun time, a place where beer lovers (wine lovers, too) can talk beer with a sample in hand. The video is targeted for early February.
Back on this side of the river, we’re working on two other video features.
River Horse Brewing in Lambertville has been producing beer under new owners for several months now. River Horse has a decade-plus of brewing under its belt, and we expect the new hands guiding it will make the next 10 worth beer drinkers’ while.
They’re part of the lineup for the Brewer’s Plate, one of five Jersey beers that are expected to be served there. Look for the video to be done some time around that event.
This next one is a longer project we’re working on. It’s quite a bit of fun and spans both sides of the Delaware.
For years, advertising artist Gregg Hinlicky of Toms River has painted portraits of brewers. His mural work also adorns the walls of the original Basil T's in Red Bank and the Basil T's in Toms River (which most Jersey brewpub followers will probably remember are separately owned). Gregg’s now working on a portrait of the Trogner brothers, Chris and John, of Troegs Brewing in Harrisburg, Pa.
Gregg has already been featured in Ale Street News brewspaper (a couple of times, years back as we understand it), but there are a couple of things to point out: One, this is Web 2.0. What was put into print years ago can be, and sometimes should be, brought back around for an online audience. Two, a good story ought to be told now and then.
Gregg is a great painter who regularly chronicles what he sees, using oils in basic colors, not a panoply of hues some art supply house mixed and tubed for sale (Gregg says he can, and does, make the color gradations himself, thank you), applying the colors heavy (impasto, as it’s called) to symbolize the hands-on hard work brewers do.
His portraits include Garrett Oliver of Brooklyn Brewery, Gretchen of Basil T’s, Carol Stoudt, and Dave Hoffmann of Climax Brewing in Roselle Park. (Gregg also created the labels for Climax.) Soon the team that brings you Troegs’ great beers will be on canvas. Look for the video in April or May.
(If you haven’t tried their Dead Reckoning Porter, grab some while it's still on the shelves. It's getting late for that seasonal, but it’s a great beer, one that's been in our glass a lot lately. Or reach for Long Trail Ale, an exceptional brown ale, and Troegenator, a solid double bock that wins awards and a permanent spot in our fridge.)
All about New Jersey beer? Yeah, that's still the mantra. However, sometimes you can't help but look through the bent-back tulips, to see where the other beers live.
That would be the description folks at Flying Fish Brewing offered about their new bottling line, which the Cherry Hill brewer expects to put through some test paces come Monday, a week after its arrival and installation.
We popped in last Tuesday for a peek at the new machinery and its 24-spout carousel, double the size of its predecessor. (We were at the Fish for the inaugural run of the original filler – November 1996 sticks in our mind – but a balky motor on the conveyor stymied getting beer into bottles that day.)
The new filler offers a needed speed boost (from 48 bottles per minute to 100 bottles) for the Fish, which saw output top 10,000 barrels last year. (Match that to the output from 1997: 800 to 900 bbls.) Getting some extra floor space is still in the brewery's long-term game plan.
Top speed is 150 bottles per minute, but hitting that mark requires some automation the Fish is not quite ready for.
We took a spin over the Ben Franklin bridge yesterday afternoon to Nodding Head Brewery and sat in on an organizational meeting for the first Philly Beer Week celebration.
Putting in the face time were lots of names in the Philly region’s craft beer scene (i.e. Carol Stoudt of her eponymously named brewing company; Tom Kehoe of the remade Yards Brewing, plus Flying Fish’s head brewer Casey Hughes popped in from Cherry Hill; more on the Fish in a minute).
We went to check out the storytelling prospects from a video standpoint, then beat a hasty retreat from Sansom Street (after downing three great Nodding Head beers: Bill Payer Ale, 700 Level blond ale, and All Night Ale, which is dosed with some espresso) to finish shooting B-roll of city landmarks for a promo project for White Dog Café’s Brewer’s Plate event.
But all of that’s not the point … The point is, Philly Beer Week, March 7-16, is just a couple months off, and things are taking surer shape. Check the web site, for the events. One thing we have our eye on is the planned real ale festival. Cask conditioned ales, poured from the hand pump … hard to beat. If you’ve ever been to the Great British Beer Festival, well, real ale is what it’s all about.
Philly Beer Week is as much a boast as it is an extended bash. It’s Philly claiming bragging rights as “America’s Best Beer-Drinking City,” a place where the bars and restaurants’ tap handles offer a cornucopia of styles and flavors. (Sadly, that’s something difficult to say about our home state, New Jersey.) So for nine days, the city’s laying it on the line with what is intended to be an annual event, with a mind toward proving the boast isn’t just the beer talking.
Busy, busy, busy One thing to note about Philly Beer Week is that it comes amid a hopping beer schedule (no pun intended). The Philly Craft Beer Festival is March 1 at the Naval Yard. The Brewer’s Plate is March 9 at the Independence Visitors Center, and the Atlantic City beer festival is March 8-9. (All three are on our schedule, and we're still wondering how to do both the Real Ale Festival in Philly and the AC festival on the same day.) So little time, so many beers.
Klatch Porter We’d like to think it was our recommendation last year to espresso yourself that prompted Flying Fish to turn out a 2008 rendition of its Imperial Espresso Porter (8% ABV), the brew that appeared last year as a salute to the brewery’s decade-plus of longevity. But we’d be fooling ourselves. Folks at the Fish knew this well-received beer (dosed with some Colombian roast) was too good to not make an encore. It’s out now, and in our fridge, in our glass as we type. It's a seasonal, so get it while you can.
Labor of Love Like, the animated graphic above? We cranked it out today, using Apple’s Final Cut Studio suite. Cheers.
It's been busy lately, so BSL posts have been few since this past fall. Later this week we'll catch up with some things that are happening.
In the meantime, this is a clip that we concocted a couple years back whilst trying to divine the how-to's of Apple's Motion program.
Alas, we were unable to bring the finishing touches to it at the time (for whatever reason). Now if we can only remember how we did it.
Bye the bye, the bottle is Flying Fish Extra Pale Ale (XPA as it's known in a few circles). Thanks to the kind folks at the Fish for letting us dot the webscape with their copyrights.
This is short notice (but not really since Lew Bryson’s blog “Seen Through A Glass” has had it listed for a couple weeks now):
Baltic Thunder, Victory Brewing’s new rich, gale-force porter that is heir to the throne of Perkuno’s Hammer, gets a draft unveiling this Saturday (that’s Jan. 5th) at The Drafting Room in Exton, Pa. A kind, female voice at the bar today confirmed the event is still on and says serving starts at noon. (See Lew’s site for the on-tap details.)
The story thus far Named after the mythological Baltic god of thunder, Perkuno’s Hammer was the imperial porter created (with some key and label-credited assistance from Lew) by Tom Baker of Heavy Weight Brewing, the diamond in the rough brewery based in Ocean Township, Monmouth County (just south of Red Bank, where the original Basil T’s puts pints on the bar and Tom has guest brewed).
Robust, high gravity beers were the province of Heavy Weight, which sold its beer in four-packs (Smaller Package – Bigger Beer, as their saying went). Tom developed a following as an artisanal brewer before deciding to close HW (in August 2006, thereabouts), and take his mash rake and cross the Delaware to Philly (Mount Airy section), where yet even more blog words say he recently signed a lease for a new brewpub, where he can dust off his recipes under the banner “Earth, Bread & Brewery.”
The V sign Beforehand, though, all the forlorn beer faces staring at the possibility that Perkuno’s Hammer would strike no more were buoyed by the news that Victory (of Downingtown, Pa., whose great beers we drank practically all December long, in between Jersey brews) had reached an agreement under which it would brew PH under the label Baltic Thunder, with some alterations here and there to the recipe, if we’re not mistaken.
A sneak peak Tom was able to dole out a taste of the heir to PH as the finale to a talk he gave on the maltiness of beer last fall at Tria Fermentation School in Philly. If you were one of the 30 or so lucky folks there that evening, you can attest to the richness of PH’s progeny. (If you’ve never been to a Tria session, and you like to not just drink beer, but talk beer and gain a better understanding of the chorus of flavors that entice and wow you, then sign up for a Tria session. It’s fun and informative, and comes with great pretzels from Sansom Street, excellent cheeses and warm hosts and great speakers.)
Storm clouds are gathering. Listen to the thunder. It’s hammer time again.
What they (Victory brewers) say: Truly a worldly beer. Baltic Thunder represents the Baltic Porter style admirably. Exhibiting the enticing, toffee roast of the British porter that originated the style in the 18th century, and the soothing, subtle fruit nuance of contemporary brews that flourish from Helsinki to Vilnius today, this dark lager honors the Baltic god of thunder. Created by an inspired collaboration of brewers and tempered with a touch of turmoil, Baltic Thunder rolls on to bring you enchanting light as the darkness fades.
Hops: European whole flower. Malts: imported German 2 row and roasted malts. ABV: 8.5%
The way you knew it: A dark and mysterious, subtle, Baltic porter, a style difficult to find outside of the Baltics. PH's grain bill consisted of ample amounts of Munich malt with some chocolate and other specialty malts and Roman beans, fermented with a Bavarian lager yeast. Lew Bryson called it a collision of doublebock and imperial stout. 8% ABV
October’s done, now November reigns, but orange is still the color of the season.
As in pumpkin. In your beer. But only for a while.
Scanning the Garden State beer landscape, we found pumpkin beer flowing from at least four brewpub taps: Basil T’s of Toms River, Harvest Moon, Triumph and the Tun Tavern. We’ve downed pints at three of the four and have the lone holdout in our sights.
Three of ’em are ales, one’s a great pumpkin, and one – the Tun’s – went lager.
And with that said, we have a small confession at this point: Pumpkin beer isn’t our thing.
We'll drink it, and we appreciate it – even defend it when someone questions its credibility as a beer (read: Bud and Coors Light drinkers fussing over fruit in beer). But coming on the heels of Oktoberfest beers (an easy favorite), and looking ahead to big winter beers, pumpkin has always been a blink: a pint, a thank you and goodbye. (We also don’t go for pumpkin pie; it's just us …)
But this fall, we decided to tack a different course and take a new look at our orange-and-amber seasonal friend; it’s beer, and brewers go to some trouble to put this style on the bar (read: pumpkins in the mash and the accompanying spices require a good brewery cleaning afterward).
Pumpkin zest We warmed up by going outside (figuratively) the Jersey pumpkin patch, taking home a six of Post Road, Brooklyn Brewery’s one from the vine. That was good enough to get rolling, but it’s bottled, not fresh from the tap.
Next stop Atlantic City, the Tun Tavern. Brewer Tim Kelly enlisted the pub’s kitchen help to cut and roast 20 basketball-size pumpkins for this 6.4% ABV lager, a scaled-up recipe from his homebrewer files that goes light-handed on the spices – no allspice, just nutmeg, clove and ginger, with the latter the most prominent of the three. (Hops are Nugget, Perle and Fuggle; yeast – Bohemian lager; the beer cooled its heels for three weeks; Tim confesses a little longer would have been preferred, but it wasn't in the cards.)
This is pumpkin beer. You could smell pints of pumpkin from the far end of the bar, or at least on the day after the shuttered Sands casino came tumbling down in a demolition lollapalooza (Oct. 18th) we could (maybe it's the power of suggestion). That’s pretty much how Tim planned it, pumpkin loud and clear, spice mixed into the background.
Roll on, pumpkin Meanwhile, an hour north of AC, Basil T’s in Toms River pours a slightly muted pumpkin ale (80 pounds of pumpkin in the mash, Willamette hops, allspice, cinnamon and ginger). Brewer Dave Hoffmann’s session ale (5.5% ABV) starts beery and finishes with a pumpkin flavor. It’s an easy two-pinter. Or three.
Go west … By the time we got to Triumph (in New Hope, Pa., but pumpkin’s on tap at their Princeton location, too) our old way of dealing with pumpkin was gnawing at the edges of our new commitment. In a word, we caved. We ordered something else first. But you would, too, at the sight of a real-ale ESB served at cellar temperature – unfiltered, low-carbonation, and beckoning with hops and malt flavor – on the menu. So the first few steps through Triumph’s pumpkin patch were a little off track. We came around eventually to the flavor and aroma in question – pumpkin and spice. But old biases and habits don’t easily disappear. The ESB was just irresistible.
Great pumpkin Harvest Moon probably has the most interesting of the pumpkin ales. Brewer Matt McCord has already gone through a batch brewed to his primary pumpkin ale recipe and is now pouring an imperial version on George Street in New Brunswick.
This one’s a sipper (and the one next in our sights, the next one on our list to try), 9% ABV, and served in 12-ounce snifters. Matt mashed with 130 pounds of pumpkin (including 100 pounds of fresh pumpkin) and spiced things with nutmeg, cinnamon and allspice. (Northern Brewer and UK Fuggle hops in the kettle.) But here’s an interesting twist: Matt tossed some whole vanilla beans into the serving tank to give things a graham cracker crust kind of finish.
So this month think pie. In your beer. We are. Finally.
Dave’s maibock, or helles bock ( pick a label), took him from Pompton Lakes, NJ, to Denver and the final round of LongShot judging at the 2007 Great American Beer Festival. But that’s where things sort of stop. Notice we said "stop," not "end."
The judges opted to not include Dave’s brew in next year’s LongShot sixpack (which Boston Beer will brew and send to package stores near you beginning next February). That distinction goes to a double IPA by Mike McDole of California, a weizenbock from Rodney Kibzey from Illinois, and a grape ale from Boston Beer employee Lili Hess. (A Samuel Adams staff homebrew competition is part of the LongShot contest, if you recall. )
But back to Dave.
Ask him what he’ll enter in 2008, and he’ll say that he’d rather not say, revealing only that every beer style category is fair game.
He’s an experienced homebrewer with plenty of honed recipes that have won over an array of contest judges (in state and regional competitions) and colleagues in his club, the Defiant Homebrewers, whose members, by the way, have done well in past versions of the LongShot contest, but still find that top prize – the sixpack – elusive.
Dave thinks he can remedy that. He is, after all, a Defiant Homebrewer. And that 55 pounds of malt is a good start.
NOTE: Special thanks to Russ Pobutkiewicz for the photos of Dave with Boston Beer's Jim Koch (top) and Dave during an interview (above).
We heard the call last night, so we’re popping open a bottle of our best beer in the fridge and announcing our support for Stephen Colbert for president.
Why? It just makes sense.
Politics these days are filled with silly crap, i.e. Hillary’s manic laugh; Barack’s flag lapel pin; Mitt Romney’s name; Giuliani dragging his past (there’s a joke in there, think about it); Fred Thompson, period (honestly, this guy shouldn’t get elected to anything higher than school board or act in anything other than role playing in group encounter, he’s just that stiff and bad on camera and at the podium; who cares what he has to say? 99 percent of Washington doesn’t care what we say) …
Nation, if we can borrow Steve’s line for a minute, these people have nothing on Colbert. He stands for truthiness, just us and the American way.
But that’s not the reason we’re backing Colbert.
It’s because when he elected to announce on Jon Stewart's "Daily Show" that he was considering to weigh the possibilities of whether or not to be in or out of the race vs. sitting on the sidelines or getting in the game, he did it with a beer in hand. (He subsequently announced he had "heard the call" on his show, The Colbert Report.)
OK, so it was a prop, along with the hay bale, to show how regular-guy he is. (Sorta like Lonesome Rhodes, but then that was a dark side of Andy Griffith 50 years ago and we're starting to veer off course; great Kazan film by the way, though). We don’t know what kind of beer it was (only a neck label was on the bottle, or stage light glare; we couldn't make it out), but that doesn’t matter. He chose to do his talking with a beer. (We think Samuel Adams should be his running mate.)
Plus Coldbeer, er uh, Colbert, last week lampooned the Miller-Coors announcement of combining brewing operations. Tastes great, less Rockies (that’s our joke, by the way).
So we endorse Stephen. You can’t turn your back on a guy with a beer and something entertaining to say.
Overheard at the Central Jersey Beer Fest in Woodbridge last month: “Pretty good festival. Wish there was more brewers here.”
Not once, but a number of times we heard this. Full disclosure: We asked, so yeah, that’s why we heard about there being only four Jersey craft brewers – three brewpubs, one production brewery – pouring at Parker Press Park on Sept. 29.
But those words should be taken to heart by Jersey’s craft beer industry. The folks who went drink your beer and appreciate what you create. And that is – aside from the obvious, beer, – choice. Craft brewers create options for people who like beer. Porters, stouts, ESBs, IPAs, Oktoberfests, Vienna lagers, amber ales … Some notes This was the inaugural Central Jersey Beer Fest, the proceeds of which will help pay for a Veterans Day parade in Woodbridge.
So on a first try, getting only four brewers – three really when you consider that the hometown brewpub, J.J. Bitting Brewing Company, was the organizer – isn’t bad. If you checked the schedules of other craft brewers in the state, you would have seen they had other commitments for the same day. Others just opted not to go. Maybe it’s festival fatigue, or a desire to first see how the festival went and then sign on for next year.
And speaking of next year, we hope this festival does grow. It’s centrally located with great access to public transportation (train station); the town has embraced it and offered up a spacious park with plenty of shade trees; and it fills the fall calendar slot.
If we had our way, we’d turn it into a real Oktoberfest event with beer tents and the state’s craft brewers ceremoniously tapping actual wooden barrels of fest beers brewed for the occasion.
Sound like big production? Maybe, but High Point Brewing already does this, at least three times each fall. Barrel tappings, that is.
And while we’re making suggestions for a bigger event, we’d also suggest networking with the state’s German-American clubs. Feels kind of odd, to us anyway, to just co-op their cultural event and not genuinely have them represented.
Tech note: The video is up (runtime is just over 7 minutes), but we're not happy with the resolution we're getting with YouTube. We're also a little frustrated with blip.tv at the moment, since the resolution is better on that site, but the only html that's available for embedding in the right dimensions ends up playing all the Beer-Stained Letter videos we've posted on blip, when we merely want the latest one to play.
This is an ongoing headache, the crapshoot of getting quality image resolution, and results from cross video formats (QuickTime to Flash). So we're checking some advice sites to find reliable settings for the source video that gets uploaded to YT, blip, et al. We hope to get our hands on the Flash software next year (costs about 700 bucks, and shouldn't be confused with the free download Flash player). By the by, the video was also submitted to Current.tv, but we don't know what's up with them. They haven't posted it, and looks like their site, after a redesign, morphed into something with a heavy emphasis on social networking.
In the meantime, our recommendation is watch the vid in iTunes (search for the blog title under podcasts) or at the blip.tv site.
Gemütlichkeit And speaking of German-American clubs, we got to enjoy an evening at the Oktoberfest held by Deutscher Club of Clark on Saturday.
Two oak barrels of Paulaner Oktoberfest beer were flown in from Munich for this dinner. That’s a really big deal, since only five of these barrels get parceled out to the Northeast this time of year. Deutscher Club got a brace of them. Did we mention it tasted great? It was also unfiltered. Golden, too. (For more about Oktoberfest beer, check out Lew Bryson's piece in Condé Nast Portfolio.)
But Oktoberfest isn’t just about the beer. It’s about keeping good company, too, the conviviality. So a special note of thanks for the warm hospitality that we, as guests unfamiliar to the club’s regulars, received. Prosit!
This time tomorrow, Dave Pobutkiewicz will be at the biggest beer party the USA can throw.
And while he’s at the Great American Beer Festival, he just may sweeten his time in the Rockies with a victory in the Samuel Adams LongShot national homebrewers contest.
As one of four finalists, Dave's flying to Denver courtesy of Boston Beer Company. If you recall, we caught up with him back in June when he learned the maibock he brewed at his Pompton Lakes home made the cut from out of more than 1,700 entries.
That alone is enough to give you the confidence to become a professional brewer. But we think Dave’s got one more win in him with that golden beer. And we caught up with him again today to say so and wish him luck.
Some folks might be nervous being so close to glory. But Dave says he's pretty calm about things. His younger brother, Russ, who’s also a homebrewer, is tagging on with him and packing a digital camera to record the trip for posterity.
Let’s hope that Dave's picture winds up on the side panel of next year’s LongShot sixpack.
Skipping Long Beach Island’s Chowderfest this year? But your dance card still has an opening for this Saturday? Then here’s a cozy beer event you’ll probably want to be part of.
And since it’s the inaugural version of the Central Jersey Beer Fest, you’ll pick up bragging rights for getting in on the ground floor.
And who knows if it grows big, maybe one day you’ll be able to nostalgically reflect that you remember when the Central Jersey festival in Woodbridge drew just a handful of Garden State brewers.
The Ws When: 1-5 p.m. Where: Parker Press Park in Woodbridge. Wallet: Admission is 20 bucks, or 10 if you’re a designated driving adult. What you get: A souvenir taster glass (made from REAL glass, no plastic; cheers to that) and an opportunity to sample some great beer to a backdrop of live music while you browse the wares of local vendors. The event also benefits charity (veterans groups), so check with your accountant, you may be able to write off the admission charge. Weather: As of this writing, the forecast for Saturday is a sunny 75 degrees. (The rain date is Oct. 6, just in case.) Why: Because beer is culture, community and fun, and this festival could turn into the fall counterpart to the annual gathering held by the Garden State Craft Brewer’s Guild in June aboard the USS New Jersey battleship museum in Camden.
Unlike that summer festival, Saturday’s event comes not from the guild, but courtesy of the efforts Woodbridge’s own J.J. Bitting Brewing Company, which got a great assist from its hometown, and John McCormac.
If you’re still holding an old (and presumably losing) lottery ticket, say from a couple years back, you’ll notice John’s name on the reverse side as New Jersey state treasurer. He left that Trenton job and is now mayor of Woodbridge, and he made Parker Press Park available for the festival; Woodbridge has embraced the event as one of its Main Street happenings. John says the festival allows for an added theme to the Main Street events, which also include a farmers market. Plus, he points out, J.J. Bittings is a solid local business.
Note: The festival isn't exactly a municipally sponsored function. But the site help Woodbridge is providing merits mentioning, since finding a festival location – rented at a reasonable rate or used free of charge like the USS New Jersey – isn’t easy. So if you go on Saturday, take a moment to raise your taster glass to Woodbridge. (Trivia: John's a formidable contender when it comes to 1960s TV Batman trivia. He's also a bigtime Yankees fan, whose colors he flew in his ground-floor office in Trenton those years ago when we crossed paths.)
The lineup J.J. Bitting: Beers the home team brewpub will be pouring include Avenel Amber, J.J.’s popular raspberry wheat, Victoria’s Golden Ale and an Oktoberfest dubbed Bad Boy. Pizzeria Uno: Woodbridge’s neighbor from Metuchen plans to serve up its IPA, Gust ’n’ Gale Porter and hefeweizen. Climax Brewing: Look for an Oktoberfest and possibly a cream ale that the Roselle Park brewery revived earlier this year. Tun Tavern: Folks at the Tun in Atlantic City helped spread word about the Central Jersey festival and are looking into the prospects of organizing a similar event in the land of diving horses and tumbling dice. Until then, look for the Tun’s Leatherneck Stout and Vienna lager to be the brews it will take to Woodbridge.
Tomorrow is a day when we wish we were in Munich. We’ve bent elbows at the Great British Beer Festival and had pints in the Liverpool pubs where John, Paul, George and Ringo tossed ’em back when they favored drainpipes, leather jackets and wowed the Cavern Club.
But Oktoberfest (runs Sept. 22-Oct. 7 this year) , the real deal, not the American interpretation, is something we’ve yet to experience. (It is, however, high on our international to-do list.)
With that being the case, we looked for a way to put a little Gemütlichkeit into our autumn equinox this year, not just the array of festbiers brewed in the Garden State in our stein. The result is “A Taste of Oktoberfest.”(Runtime: 8 min., 16 sec.; it's also on iTunes, check under podcasts and search for Beer-Stained Letter. Tech note: Frankly, iTunes is the best bet for image clarity, and with the iPod's ubiquitousness, tons of you Windows users have Apple's iTunes and its native QuickTime format. Hey, watch it on your iPhone, download it to your iPod; show it to a friend. Reach out and touch-screen someone.)
A barrel of thanks to Greg Zaccardi (left) at High Point Brewing, whose Oktoberfest beer was just named one of the top 10 Oktoberfest beers in North America by Draft magazine; and the charming Ernie Licht of Oley, Pa., whose really cool garment shop (Ernst Licht Embroidery and Imports) turns out lederhosen and dirndls so the waiters, waitresses, dancers, musicians – and yes even you – can have a fest-best look in the season’s traditional togs.
Also deserving mention are Ursula Weuste of the Deutscher Club in Clark, NJ, and Paul Ulrich of the Bayern Verein Newark, both of whom obliged us by allowing cameras at the Deutscher Club’s facility and the latter’s Oktoberfest event on Sept. 8; Pete and Marianne Ehmann and Rick Ernst, the Schuhplattlers with the Bayern Verein; and Bernie Bunger of Bernie’s Orchestra. By the way, Bernie, the strains of “Du du liegst mir im Herzen” remain stuck in our head.
And one more: Kevin MacLeod, whose www.incompetech.com music site we stumbled onto and made use of his “Four Beers Polka” to open the shots.
Said Kevin, after we sent him a link to the vid: “Wow. That was an incredibly appropriately titled piece of music!” Thanks again, Kevin, it had the right bounce to get things going.
Where to go for O-fest
If you’re looking for an Oktoberfest gig, consider these options:
Tun Tavern, Atlantic City, Saturday, Sept. 22nd German buffet from noon to 6 p.m. on the Tun’s patio. The price is $24.95 for food and unlimited beer. (That’s almost 35 euros, based on recent exchange rates.) Brewer Tim Kelly took the trouble to brew the Tun’s Oktoberfest using a decoction mash, a process that really turns up the malt flavor and isn’t an easy task for a brewpub that normally would do an infusion mash. So, if you go, raise your glass to Tim’s effort; he was really thinking of you.
Triumph, New Hope, Pa., 2- 6 p.m., Sunday, Sept. 23rd Schnitzel, sauerbraten, weißwurst to eat, festbier, kölsch, kellerbier and pilsner to drink. Triumph makes great beer, but their keller is killer.
Basil T’s, Toms River, 6:30 p.m., Friday, Sept. 28th Brewer Dave Hoffmann’s Oktoberfest beer gets paired with a main course of kassler rippchen, spatzel, potato pancakes and of course, red cabbage. Can you smell the smoked pork? Music by Erik and his Firehouse Polka Band. Price is $65, but includes appetizers, wurst sampler and dessert.
Ludwig’s Garten, Philadelphia, Saturday, Sept. 29th Ludwig’s wedding to Therese started it all, and this way cool German eatery in Philly (check out the hop vine decorations over the tables) draws a huge crowd to Sansom Street. Begins at noon. Look for High Point to tap an oak barrel at the festival.
Long Valley Pub and Brewery, Sunday, noon-5 p.m., October 7th Authentic German food to go with Long Valley’s great ales. And bear in mind, Long Valley – the scenic locale in Washington Township, Morris County, NJ, used to be called German Valley.
Oktoberfest at home this year?
Hey, don’t knack it, things could be wurst. Sorry, we couldn’t resist. Yes, New Jersey can be your bier Garden State and you can have a fest at home. If you grill it, they will come. Don’t forget to stock up on pretzels and beer: Flying Fish has again bottled (and kegged) its widely available Oktoberfish; High Point’s fest is draft only, but if you need a keg or have a growler, you’re probably in luck. (But hurry.) Climax Brewing in Roselle Park sees Dave Hoffmann offering an Oktoberfest that’s different than what he turns out for Basil’s. Dave bottles in the half-gallon size (that’s 1.8 Maß, and perfect for sharing), plus kegs. Check with the brewery on distribution.
We’re coming to this a little late, but nonetheless, it’s worth saying a few words here about Michael Jackson and the visit he made to Flying Fish Brewing a decade ago.
The news that cues this reminiscence is that Jackson, the fabled beer writer and critic from Britain, died last week (Aug. 30th). He was 65, and to craft beer fans and those with a taste for great Scotch whiskies, he was a legend.
For us, in our nascent days of becoming more informed beer drinkers and daring homebrewers (forget stringing words together about beer), he was an important reference source, with his books, columns in several publications and his “Beer Hunter” documentary series that we discovered on NJN (on Saturday evenings, probably after it had already been featured on the Discovery Channel) during the early ’90s.
The show depicted the bespectacled MJ, with his bushy goatee, mutton-chop sideburns and wiry mane, in his world pursuit of beers and beer styles to tell you about, to celebrate. But it wasn’t just about the beer, it was also a glimpse at the people who made it and the beer's relevance to homeland cultures.
His spotlight on Belgium was beyond cool. And after watching it, you could confidently discuss with your beer brethren what was up with Samuel Adam’s Cranberry Lambic, just what Boston Beer was trying to copy.
Memorable, too, was the installment that touched on German stone beer, and within a couple of years of that segment’s airing, thanks to the import craze taking off, you could find that smoky beer – in the green relief bottles with the swing tops – on the shelf at Canal’s (in our case, Canal’s on Route 70 in Marlton). But alas, it’s no longer among their imports. Pity that.
It was a great, fun beer to try. And for that we owe Michael Jackson. Ditto for Batemans Good Honest Ales, and a penchant for English ales, altogether.
Remember, this was the early/mid-90s, and around New Jersey the beer landscape was just starting to change. And if you were part of the new order, Jackson was certainly one of your guides. He turned you, too, into a beer hunter, and you could blame him for your zeal to try new (to you at least) beers (and styles), and the overstock in your fridge that always seemed to grow as you tried to pare it down.
Gone Fishing
Six months after Flying Fish released its two flagship beers – an ESB and extra pale ale – Jackson paid a call to the brewery on Olney Avenue in Cherry Hill. (We were lucky enough to be there, lending some picture-taking ability for the occasion.) We forget why Jackson was in the area and who coaxed him into coming by. Most likely, given that it was March, MJ was probably heading to Philadelphia for tastings at The Book & The Cook event.
Still, whatever the catalyst, there was a palpable sense of excitement on the part of the brewery crew during his visit.
At the time (1997), FF’s portfolio also included a Belgian dubbel, a porter that’s since been pulled out of the regular run of its beers, and an India pale ale that was brand spanking new to the lineup. There were only four fermenters in the brewery to complement the mash tun and kettle, and the bottling line that will be replaced early next year was just getting broken in.
So for a fledgling brewery, an MJ visit was, well, just geer! (Jackson would pay a subsequent visit to Flying Fish, around the beginning of this decade.)
Ten years on, a lot of the discourse of that March Friday morning is lost in the mists of time. But we do recall that MJ sampled the flagship ales and the IPA, commenting – politely, even as if wondering aloud – that the head had diminished too quickly on one of the brews. But he sized up Flying Fish’s ESB as worthy of seconds, and signed the brewery’s guest book, leaving a compliment that he "could sink quite a few of these."
And to American brewers in general, he likewise paid a compliment.
Brewers across Europe, he said, were somewhat set in their ways, as far as styles went. A German brewery, for example, would stick with the beers it’s noted for, staying that course and not undertaking, say, a best bitter or stout. But Americans, joining the widening beer renaissance, were boldly interpreting styles from all around the world – bocks, stouts, pale ales – under their breweries' banners, and with much success.
And those beers, MJ said that day, were among the pleasures he found in coming to America.
OK, so what if those rolling hills, and yes even mountains, in northwest New Jersey can’t hold a candle to the Alps. There’s still a taste of Bavaria to be found where Passaic and Morris counties draw their border.
And August is when you’ll find the small crew at High Point Brewing toiling away to produce one of the brewery’s draft beer specialties: Oktoberfest. Come next month, the second Saturday in September (Sept. 8th, 2-4 p.m. to be exact), you’ll be able to catch the spirit of the deutscher party that defines the fall season.
And at High Point, that moment goes something like this: A big oak barrel from Austria spills forth a hearty, copper-hued, malty beer (6% ABV) that’s become a favorite across North Jersey and a distinguished guest on Samson Street in Philadelphia.
“We take a big brass spigot and wooden mallet and just bang away on it until, BOOM! we open the keg. And that’s how we debut Oktoberfest at High Point Brewing Company,” says Greg Zaccardi, the brewery’s founder.
The tapping is the high point, if you don’t mind the wordplay, of the brewery’s September tour and draws a faithful crowd each year. Right now, High Point is busy brewing, fermenting and lagering what will eventually be seven 16-barrel batches of the seasonal. That's about 3,500 gallons of a beer you don't want to miss.
Greg, like a lot of Jersey craft brewers, followed the arc of homebrewer to professional brewer – he also has an undergraduate degree in chemistry – opening his brewery about a dozen years ago in an old mill along a rail line in Butler.
Before he started turning out traditional German wheat beers with a touch of American styling under his Ramstein brand – which now boasts eight beers (including a new pale ale) – he put in some apprentice time at a brewery in southern Germany, in the foothills of the towering Alps.
And so, all things Ramstein, whether bottled or draft, enjoy a German lineage, from the imported barley malts, wheat and hops to even the yeast.
Worth noting: High Point’s Oktoberfest uses a monastery yeast that goes back to the 1400s – Johannes Gutenberg’s lifetime! (Sorry about the pixel typeface era, Johannes. But hey, movable type and printing presses had a good run.)
Greg says Ramstein Oktoberfest was born from a request by the Hofbrauhaus in Atlantic Highlands, six or seven years ago.
The now-closed Monmouth County restaurant (shuttered after 58 years, alas) did well with High Point’s blonde and dunkel wheats, and asked Greg and his crew to line it up with a fall fest beer.
So he obliged, and beer enthusiasts who popped in the brewery for tours were rewarded, too: A keg of the beer was kept on hand for those occasions.
The beer’s popularity grew. And grew. Ludwig’s Garten, in Center City Philadelphia, where the blue-and-white lozengy of Bavaria wafts in the breeze on Samson Street, also calls on High Point’s fest beer to join the lineup of brews it serves at its Oktoberfest street fair. Ditto for Andy’s Corner Bar in Bogata in Bergen County, one of New Jersey’s premier specialty beer bars.
So as you dab the August sweat from your brow, think of the folks who are laboring to quench your thirst. And toast them this fall.
The ship’s still there, but the hopheads have shipped out.
Until next year.
But we hope no one has to wait that long.
If you went to the Garden State Craft Brewers’ 11th take on their beer festival, you know it was a perfect day for a party: sunny, practically no humidity, plenty of food and – most import – a great cross-section of brews to sample.
And resample.
Like that rauch beer from Triumph. Or Cricket Hill’s maibock.
Those are just a couple of reasons the guild should have another festival this year, say in the fall. (Late September/October anyone? It’s been done, you know. And, say in a different location, like farther up north, for parity’s sake. Yeah, it’s the North Jersey/South Jersey thing. Bombard them with email, we say. Demand your fall festival.)
Save the credential check; we know a maibock isn’t such a reach. Pizzeria Uno, too, had a nice one in tow at the festival, and without trying too hard, we can think of other brewpubs in Jersey that served bock under the sign of the bull.
What we’re saying is that tying up fermenter and other tank space for lagering when you’re a small brewery speaks to some measure of faith in your beer and your public and that what you’re doing is worth the trouble.
And a festival is a great platform to underscore that spirit, that you cover the basics beyond the alphabet soup of ales (ESB & IPA), and can step off the beaten path, like with that rauch beer, or even get funky like that hefeweiss flavored with hibiscus that the Tun Tavern had in a growler.
And if the more cosmic-related arguments aren’t enough, then consider the practical.
Craft beer’s enjoying a bounce right now, says the Brewers Association. Sales growth, double digits, an industry segment to watch, yada et cetera yada …
So strike while the iron’s hot (or make hay while the sun shines, whatever cliché you’re into).
Plus, we’d swear that the crowd at the stern of the USS New Jersey last Saturday skewed toward the younger demographic. Not overwhelmingly, but enough that we took notice. Enough that if you mentioned Buffalo Springfield … well, you get the picture.
Now stir in this variable: We’re talking the gadget/instant message culture. Word of mouth seems to spread at light speed in that world. Word of ur kickin’ beer isn’t 2 B past ^.
But, giving credit where credit is due, that younger crowd plying the decks of battleship last weekend was really into beer.
Take the guy who told us that at home he’d probably be cracking open a Miller Lite. He rattled off a list of brews aboard ship he thought were worth his mug.
We’re thinking that after Saturday, he’s had his last pils-E-ner.
Footnote:
As you can see, the video is up. It's also viewable here at blip.tv, and here at YouTube. Blip has better image quality – we originally had the blip file posted on the blog, but subbed in YouTube, the more widely known site, and finally swapped in Current.tv, which became available much later. (By the by, HomerJDoh works for Beer-Stained Letter.)
If you're unfamiliar with Current.tv, it's the site and cable television channel that Joel Hyatt (of Hyatt Legal Services fame; you have our word on that) and Al Gore (yes, that Al 'Inconvenient Truth' guy) created in 2005. There's some fantastic, very credible and intellectually challenging – even moving – work on Current.tv. Check it out.
The video is also viewable on iTunes – just in time for iPhone!
Thanks to everyone who availed themselves of an interview. Thanks to Flying Fish for some key support; thanks to the brewers guild and the battleship folks.
And thanks to yeast for making beer.
PS: We usually don't do this, but since we got an email from a beer fan in Illinois recently ... DVD copies of the video are available at no charge; just send us an email and we'll oblige.
PPS: Contest! A prize (to be determined eventually; heads up, though, it won't be beer) to whoever can create the most words from these six letters: ESB and IPA. Entries by email throughout July.
A beer festival is like a big potluck dinner … That kind of reminds us of Homer’s advice to Bart: “Son, a woman is like a beer. They smell good, they look good, you'd step over your own mother just to get one!” Anyway, we were saying festival, potluck etc … The point is, one thing you want to know about a festival is who’s bringing what.
Well, we’ve got some answers, albeit a partial list, but it can help you navigate Saturday’s 11th Annual Garden State Craft Beer Festival aboard the USS New Jersey.
We’re not going to go into the how-to’s of festival tasting, i.e. beer styles to start with before working your way to heavier styles. Or remind you to keep up your water intake. A lot of that’s been covered in the past by so many other beer writers. (Think back to Don “Joe Sixpack” Russell’s take last March before the Philly festival.)
Plus, so much about beer – flavors and favorites, ales vs. lagers – is as individual as an iPod, so we’ll just say what we know about the beers that'll be going into your logo’d commemorative tasting glass. (A barrel-sized thanks to the brewers – many of whom were up to their elbows in prep work for the festival – for fielding our emails and calls asking for their beer lineup.).
So here’s what we know:
The Brewpubs
• Tun Tavern (Atlantic City): The Tun has a new brewmaster, Tim Kelly, who invites you to check out some Devil Dog Pale Ale and the Tun’s summer staple, hefeweiss. Tim also promises to have something else to wow the festival crowd with.
• Pizzeria Uno (Metuchen): Make your bock maibock, says Uno’s brewer Mike Sella. His golden bock (7.2% ABV), fashioned with Hallertauer and Saaz hops, is among a flight of beers that includes the brewpub’s year-rounds Ike’s IPA, Gust N Gale Porter, plus a dark mild.
• JJ Bitting (Woodbridge): Like lager? Like a dark lager? Still like a lager when it goes goth? We do. And we’ll be looking for this schwarzbier, Bitting’s Black Magic. (Totally tangential trivia: The USS New Jersey was launched in 1942, the same year that christened the Harold Arlen-Johnny Mercer tune “That Old Black Magic,” a song that would go on to chart for boatloads of singers, including Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. and Louis Prima.) Other brews Bitting will have in tow: Bierstrasse Hefeweizen, Bitting’s Best Bitter and J.J.’s Raspberry Wheat.
• Long Valley Pub and Brewery (Long Valley): If you, like the USS New Jersey, call South Jersey home, chances are you haven’t been to Long Valley. It’s worth the trip up, for both the brewpub and the scenic part of Morris County the pub draws its name from. In the meantime, brewer Joe Saia is sending a crew to Camden to share some Lazy Jake Porter, a gold medal winner at the Great American Beer Festival. Rounding out Long Valley’s N.J. festival lineup is Grist Mill Golden Ale and an IPA that cuts an English jib. • Harvest Moon (New Brunswick): It doesn’t take a Rutgers math major to figure out an IPA that has Hops2 (that's squared) in its moniker means you’re in for an exponentially hoppy drinking experience. The equation here is German hops + American hops + English varieties for dry hopping = Harvest Moon’s Hops2 Double IPA. Brewer Matt McCord plans to have enough of the IPA on hand so hopheads, and anyone else with an adventurous palate, won’t be denied. Ditto for the casual beer drinker.
The Production Breweries • Cricket Hill (Fairfield): Co-owner Rick Reed once told us he thinks a well done American lager is a style that's becoming a little bit forsaken. Perhaps that’s why the Cricket has one, aptly named East Coast Lager, a refreshing brew that has found a niche in our fridge. Look for it, plus their American Ale, Hopnotic IPA (another one of the Cricket’s that is usually in our fridge), and the Colonel, that is, Colonel Blide's Altbier. High Point Wheat Beer Company, aka Ramstein (Butler): What’s that old saying, that bit of advice for success, “Do what you do best …” Well, High Point’s name says it all: Wheat Beer. Greg Zaccardi used to work as a brewer in southern Germany, and took a lot of that Deutschland bier ethic and sensibility back home to create some great German style wheats and lagers. Look for Ramstein Blonde, High Point’s take on the traditional unfiltered weiss, and Ramstein Classic, a dark wheat that beer writers 10 years ago dubbed the future of dunkel wheats. See for yourself how that claim holds up. • Flying Fish (Cherry Hill): The Fish is the big fish when it comes to Garden State craft beers, and will probably crack the 10,000-barrel mark this year. We remember when they were just starting to swim and recall the Saturday open house in October ’96 when the mash was struck for their very first Abbey Dubbel. Fish folks say they’re bringing a bit of everything to the festival. We hope that means HopFish, their really creamy and tasty IPA, in addition to their ESB and quenching Farmhouse Summer Ale (which we turned our neighbors onto).
Festival Details
Admission: Tickets are $35 and still available online through ticketweb.com or at the ship's ticketing office, 856-966-1652 x107. Price includes keepsake tasting glass and self-tour of the battleship. Entertainment: Music by the Cabin Dogs. Food: Vendors will sate your appetite for the right price (seriously, there will be stands where you can buy food). Parking: Garage is located at the Camden waterfront complex; shuttle buses will be available to the battleship.
Dave Pobutkiewicz (pronounced POE' • but • KEV • ich) picked up that nom de bière thanks to his two-year quest to clone Fuller’s marquee brew.
It helps, too, that the initials for extra special bitter distinguish him from several other Daves in his homebrewer club, the Defiant Homebrewers, who meet at Defiant Brewing Company just across the state line in Pearl River, N.Y.
But if you ask what his favorite beer style is, ESB Dave will tell you maibock, or helles bock, as beer aficionados also know it.
“There’s so much challenge to making a light-colored, full bodied beer,” says the 39-year-old from Pompton Lakes in Passaic County who has homebrewed for 11 years.
Now, Dave has another reason to enjoy a helles bock. His interpretation of the style scored him a berth in the finals of the 2007 Samuel Adams American Homebrew contest.
With that honor, Dave – who’s one of two finalist from the competition’s Boston regional judging – and finalists from the San Francisco and Chicago regionals get an invitation to the Great American Beer Festival (Oct. 11-13) in Denver.
That’s where Boston Beer Company will announce two winning homebrewers, whose beers will be brewed by Boston Beer for the next Samuel Adams LongShot variety pack.
A third homebrew, from the Samuel Adams employees contest, will be chosen to round out the nationally distributed sixpack through voting by attendees at the GABF.
(The variety pack is made up of two bottles of each beer. The current variety pack, featuring brews from the 2006 winners, includes an old ale, a Dortmunder style export and a boysenberry wheat ale.)
Boston Beer’s brewmasters, beer judges from the Beer Judge Certification Program, and other qualified judges put their palates and noses to good use to select the finalists. The company announced the final four from the more than 1,700 entries last Friday.
Dave found out a little earlier in the week in a phone call from his homebrewing compadre, Chris Baas of Midland Park in Bergen County, who entered an alt and kölsch in the contest. (Chris' alt finished in the top 10 of the Boston regional judging, by the way.)
“He said are you sitting down, Sam Adams just called me,” Dave says, describing what he thought was the introduction to a bittersweet moment: his losing and Chris setting his sights on Denver.
But it was the other way around. Chris was calling to inform and congratulate his friend.
Chris, a finalist in a separate Samuel Adams’ homebrew competition last year, shipped both of their entries to the Boston judging – just a day before the mid-May deadline. But he didn’t have Dave’s phone number handy, so he listed his own as the contact. When the Boston Beer folks called Chris, they were actually looking for Dave.
Chris describes his friend as a "meticulous brewer" whose toughest critic is perhaps himself. "He’s so critical of his own beers. He doesn’t make flawed beers. We all keep telling him his beer is good," says Chris.
Dave, a service technician who helped install the coolant lines at Defiant Brewing ("I'll work for beer," he jokes), says he almost didn’t have enough of the bock to enter. The 5-gallon batch – tweaked and refined from a previous take on the bock – was so good, he came close to finishing it in the month or so before the contest deadline. The Sam Adams folks would need seven bottles; Dave got down to eight, cutting it that close.
Dave and Chris, who’s also a beer judge, are no strangers to beer competition.
Chris has been in the winner’s circle in Best of Brooklyn and other contests. Dave has watched his own brews, such as an imperial stout and Belgian strong ale, finish in the top three. He also took a first place in New Jersey State Fair competition with a hefeweizen, just getting edged out of the best-in-show award.
But right now, Dave’s looking forward, busy compiling the details of his bock recipe and biographical information that Boston Beer has requested.
Not to mention setting his sights on 2008. About Dave’s maibock Grain bill: Pilsner malt, light munich malt and a half pound of wheat. Hops: Spalt and Saaz with IBU in the mid-20s. Original gravity: 1.070 (17.2° Plato) ABV: Just under 6.5% Water: Dave used bottled water in the brew. “My (tap) water is ridiculously hard; I didn’t want to harsh the bitterness with that,” he says. About Defiant Homebrewers The club has about 20 participating members and meets the first and third Wednesdays at Defiant Brewing Company (brewmaster Neill Acer) in Pearl River, N.Y., in Rockland County.
Sluggish growth for the big domestic brewers, double digit growth in craft beer. That’s from the Brewers Association earlier this spring, which took a look at supermarket sales from 2005 to 2006 in a snapshot of the nation’s craft beer industry.
The breakdown, according to the trade group, goes like this: 2.4% growth for the big brewers (personified here as Bud C. Miller), while craft beer saw a nearly 18% percent surge in sales. Craft beer is the alcoholic beverage industry’s segment to watch, boasts the Brewers Association.
Given that news, and with Garden State craft beer’s showcase festival coming up June 23rd, we wanted to see where New Jersey’s microbrewers and brewpubs were situated in the industry nationwide, and what the landscape, numerically speaking, looks like for the state’s craft beer business.
The Brewers Association was kind enough to pull together some production stats for us (a million thanks to BA director Paul Gatza, who took the time during a busy spring schedule to whip up the Excel files).
If you’re into figures, then you’ll be well-armed in case there’s a pop quiz at the 11th Annual Garden State Craft Brewers Festival aboard the USS New Jersey. (These numbers probably aren’t going to help you charm the ladies, and spouting them could just get you sucked into a beer geek debate or two.)
So sit back, pour a cold one and crunch some pretzels or Planters, while we crunch the numbers, with visual aids, too! (Some quick points: The stats are drawn from figures reported to the BA by member breweries and brewpubs. New Jersey-specific figures are for the years 2001-06. Also, click on the charts to enlarge them.)
• Top state producer of craft beer: California. That's probably no surprise to anyone who really follows the industry. Golden State craft brewers brewed up 1.3 million barrels (bbls) last year. Rounding out the top five: Ohio, Colorado, Oregon and our foamy neighbor to the north, New York.
California reigns as production king with nearly a half-million barrel advantage over Ohio (859,098 bbls). North Dakota finished last at 550 bbls.
In case you’re wondering (as we were and hence pursued this project), New Jersey came in 29th with 26,384 bbls. (That’s a 2.3% increase from ’05, by the way.) Our neighbors west and south are running laps around us: Delaware (20th) cranks out nearly twice as much craft beer as New Jersey, while Pennsylvania (14th) brews almost 4 1/2 times as much.
• Most disappointing stat (for some reason, this bugged us): Alaska, which in terms of population density has less than one person per square kilometer, compared to our nearly 300 people per square kilometer, is apparently more into craft beer than we are. Alaskan craft brewers made nearly 121,000 bbls last year (for 12th place). Maybe we’re crying in our beer for nothing, but geez we’re on the East Coast, anchored by the metropolitan poles of New York and Philadelphia. Sigh, even Montana finished better than we did, at 64,306 bbls to rank 17th.
We’re not, by any stretch, laying blame on the good New Jersey brewing folks who put the better beer beside our jazzed up steaks, barbecue and hot-off-the-grill dogs and burgers. Jersey is a tough place for any business to be in business. Get into an enterprise that comes with some added regulatory pressure (à la the alcoholic beverage industry) and you can put an exponent on the degree of difficulty. More on this issue at some point soon.
Moving on … Jersey-specific stats
• The Garden State’s top craft brewer is again Flying Fish. The Cherry Hill brewer is closing in on the 10,000 bbl mark (9,785 bbls, a 3.4% percent increase) and dominated the state’s craft beer production for the period observed. River Horse Brewing in Lambertville continues as the place horse (4,750 bbls), while taking show is High Point and its wheat beers. (See the charts for the production trends and the 2005-06 year-to-year micro results.)
• In the subset category of brewpubs, Triumph (Princeton) is tops at 1,310 bbls, followed by Harvest Moon (New Brunswick), 850 bbls. (See the chart for the top six brewpubs.)
• Gone but not forgotten: Heavyweight Brewing. The purveyor of the ever-interesting Perkuno’s Hammer (imperial porter) opted to pack things in last August, with an eye toward popping up on the PA side of the Delaware River in some form. But as beer scribe Lew Bryson has recounted on his blog (with some reminiscing) the Hammer was taken in as a foster child by Victory Brewing in PA.
• Worth mentioning: High Point – aka Ramstein – in Butler and Climax Brewing in Roselle Park were rated among the top 50 craft beers based on user reviews on BeerAdvocate.com (see the June 2007 issue of their hard copy mag). Also, Philadelphia's the City Paper gave top accolades to Flying Fish's Farmhouse Summer Ale in its rating of summer brews.
The Brewers Association is upbeat for 2007’s industry prospects, forecasting the nation's 1,400 craft brewers and brewpubs will top the $500 million sales mark. All stats aside, we’re going to pour another brew in support and follow the BA's lead.
From the NJ brewers themselves: Think Jersey, drink Jersey
AHA Big Brew YouTube contest
BSL has won this three times, with "Brewers Make Wort, Yeast Makes Beer" (2008, 1st place); "The Whole Thing, Worts and All" (2010, 2nd place, featuring Barley Legal Homebrewers); and "NJ Worthsmiths" (2011, Most Watched Video, also featuring Barley Legal Homebrewers).
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Jim Koch of Boston Beer Company says you should take pride in your beer. That also goes for the state where your beer is made Jersey fresh. So click on the link.
I'm a freelance editor, writer, video producer, photographer, graphic artist and, obviously, a beer fan (homebrewer, too) ... I've even lent a hand at a commercial brewery in NJ (where else?!!??) and created some ads for a brewery that were published in Ale Street News and All About Beer.
My first taste of beer was a few sips of Falstaff at age 5 in 1965 (yes, I was drinking underage – in a simpler period of time, too). I continued to develop a taste for beer, but alas, poor Yorick, I left Shakespeare (and Falstaff) behind (but I did write about beer for my college composition 101 class, got an A on it, too).
Atlantic City’s Tun Tavern celebrates a decade this year, chalking up some longevity as a topflight spot for fresh beer (and good food) at the Jersey shore.
