Old Chub or just plain chubby?

The economy has tanked. Godfather Part III sucked. And beer makes you fat.

Yep, all true. Sadly, even that last one.

But Don "Joe Sixpack" Russell has the skinny on beer calories and why big beers can make you bigger.

His latest column is worth your time and may have you chewing the fat over a pint. Just try to keep the discussion, not the beer, light.

AC beer fest: meh

It’s Saturday and Sunday (with a VIP beer judging tonight), and we’re of two minds about this thing. We’ve been to the first three but we'll skip the fourth annual edition of the AC beer fest.

For our tastes, it’s just too big, and it if last year was a measure of the direction the festival is heading, it’s getting slovenly. A drunkfest. We’ll opt instead for lunch at the Tun Tavern and a pint or two of locally brewed, then hit Firewaters inside the Tropicana casino.

And if you’ll pardon a sort of drawn-out analogy, this festival has become like being in on the ground floor of a great band, watching 'em rise, win critical acclaim, release one or two commercially accessible albums and a few successful tunes, and BAM! ... they’re playing arenas, you can’t get tickets like you used to, and the lines to get in run longer than the Nile.

Except with the AC beer fest, the long lines at the turnstile have always been there, and there are sundry other issues the promoters have never quite bothered to solve.

We will say this, at 35 bucks for an advance ticket, AC is still an OK buy, comparatively speaking; tickets for day of event are 45 bucks, and the Saturday evening session has sold out. We should also give AC some props for drawing beers that the Philly Craft Beer Festival couldn’t this year (although there was some inside baseball going on with the Philly event, so for instance, Troeg's was missing). But honestly, a good liquor store has all of the beers at these fests anyway, making for few surprises for the taste buds.

Which leads to the next point: If you’re new to craft beer and better beer, you’re likely to have a good time in AC, despite the painfully long lines. It's not much of an event for discriminating tastes looking for something special or interesting. We’ve been to three of them, groused about the issues of the first, patted backs for good some changes in the second, but saw the third just get too sloppy. Ultimately that’s bad for good beer’s image, we say.

Then there’s this: With these big festivals coming year after year and few changes to distinguish them from one year to the next, you have to wonder if they’re starting to see their up and over on the evolutionary chart, in jeopardy of dying off in favor of something more refined, adapted to the market, times and discerning tastes.

Brewers (the ones who actually make the beer and are indispensable) are more than a year beyond being pissed off about being taken for granted and asked to give away the beer or swap it for booth space. Who could blame them? They pay too much in taxes, rent and raw materials to be enabling someone else’s vision of box office gold. And as a lot of brewers have been saying lately: The ice guy gets paid, so pay us.

Bottom line: AC beer fest, plenty of beer, a lot of it great, and some folks will like it. But for our tastes meh. We’re thinking these days, smaller, more intimate events – especially ones paired with foods chosen specifically to complement the beers – are the way to go.

Meanwhile, brewpub Pizzeria Uno (Metuchen/Woodbridge, located along Route 1) is holding its second cask ale event on Saturday, March 28.

Brewer Mike Sella is still putting the finishing touches on things, so we can’t tell you the lineup yet. However, the previous one in September featured casks from Climax, Chelsea Brewing, Captain Lawrence Brewing, Troeg’s, Weyerbacher, and, of course, your host, Uno,

There was no cover, and it was pay as you go, meaning you bought a full pint of beer. And if you can’t make it on the 28th, swing by on Sunday, because the casks will be there as long as there’s something in them to pour.

Recommendation: If you don’t already have a ticket to AC, save your money, wait a week and hit Uno’s. Why? Because it’s cask ale, a great way to enjoy beer, and you’ll get full pints. Plus, Uno has good bar food. It’s definitely the better deal. And if you think you still need to see all kinds of brands and spend some more cash, there’s a Joe Canal’s packaged goods store on Route 1 just a stone’s throw from Uno. Practically every brew on the AC lineup is in their cold box, and some great ones that aren’t.

A little longer (hope we say this only once)

Some fast notes on Iron Hill coming to Maple Shade …

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

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

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

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

It's going to be a good summer.

Beer Wars

We saw this highlighted on Destination Beer, Tom Eagan's blog. And on the docu's Web site, you'll notice the screenings nationwide on Thursday, April 16.

Some of this message is a broken record, points that have been made over and over. But there's nothing wrong with putting it all under one banner. (Anyone see the news last week that AB InBev's profits were down 95 percent?)

While we're going down this road, why not toss out the beer-themed AT&T commercial that's been airing the past few months:



When you think about it, that's another reason for AB to be concerned, Madison Avenue calling on craft beer to sell phone services. Shows you how deep craft beer has worked itself into popular culture.

Anyway, the screen grab we included here has the New Jersey theater locations for Beer Wars. (Click on it to enlarge. The second column on the left just denotes the metropolitan area.)

So have a party; raise a glass to celebrate and support our side of the fight.






And now, after talk of making beer, how could you not close with the Rolling Stones' "Salt of the Earth?

Well, almost all about bock

Quick correction: No maibock at today's Ramstein open house. Look for maibock at the April 11 open house.

Maibock was on the marquee back when the planning was coming together in the late fall. But it had to be pushed to the April date.

There still will be the eisbock, the star of today's open house kickoff. And there will be Double Plantinum Blonde and the wheat doppelbock. And of course Ramstein Classic Wheat and Amber Lager.

And we're blogging from High Point at this very moment. Hope to see you.

Reminder: All about bock

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Poor and stupid?

PubScout Kurt Epps gave us a heads-up on this one, the reason why liquor and wine were targeted for tax hikes in the next state budget, but not beer.

Kurt relayed some of a New Jersey 101.5 radio broadcast he heard, pointing out that the hosts said the state treasurer’s reason for beer being excepted was because beer drinkers are poor and stupid (to be clear: poor and stupid are the hosts’ words).

We haven’t listened to 101.5 since its former Jersey Guy jock Craig Carton picked a fight with Dick Codey by mocking the then-acting governor’s wife over her battles with depression. But as with a lot of talk radio, there is an anything-goes, rile-up-the-public style of discussion, even if it means being boorish. So yeah, poor and stupid. Wow.

But more realistically, The Press of Atlantic City did quote Treasurer David Rousseau in Thursday’s editions on the reason for no beer tax hike. Here’s the snippet (it's apparently from some media availability):

• “We wanted to protect what we believed was the middle-class and lower-income people's, you know …” He then stopped and said simply, “We'll leave it at that.”

Here's 101.5 audio of Rousseau. And here’s the whole Press story, which is a follow-up to Gov. Corzine’s budget address, a localization of elements in the budget, notably the liquor and wine tax angle through the eyes of those affected.

We’re going to give the treasurer a little bit of a pass for what seems like a foot-in-mouth comment, that we as beer drinkers are wage slaves who live at the bottom rung and drink a cheap beverage as we go about our miserable existence at our miserable station in life. That’s really a complete dumb-ass thing for him to say, since a sixpack, or even a fourpack, of craft beer can run you over 10 bucks these days, depending on the style.

So we say to Mr. Rousseau, our esteemed treasurer: Man, are you out of touch. And we won’t leave it at that. Let us once again provide the link to Eric Asimov’s New York Times article from a couple years ago, that our beer ain’t the beer of the 1970s and ’80s college days, meant to be bought on the cheap and swilled like we’re a bunch of plebeian idiots with nothing else to do. Nope, it hasn’t been that way for well over 20 years nationally, and for a decade and half, New Jersey has been part of the craft beer movement.

But to be sure, by knocking his comments we’re not asking for our brewers to have to pony up higher taxes and decide whether consumers should share the pain in passed-on costs. Actually, we feel lucky. Truly. We had to deal with higher prices last year because of hops and grain shortages (the latter’s increase stemming from some ill-conceived, government emphasis put on corn as a biofuel. If Rousseau knew anything about beer, he could have said, “Beer drinkers already had to accept higher prices last year because of a spike in raw materials costs. Let's give them a pass.”).

So, we do, on many levels, appreciate the break on a beer tax hike – for now anyway, since a budget presented in March isn’t a budget passed in June. But if Trenton truly has a long-range plan in mind for digging New Jersey out of its financial quicksand (and judging by the repeated failures to put us on sound footing, there isn’t a plan, since the governor’s budget message seems to be the same year after year, as does the Legislature’s reaction), then lawmakers would make New Jersey more business friendly.

For brewers, that means a few things that we’ve been carping about in this election year, and learned from discussions with a few of our state’s taxpaying microbrewers. Chief among them is the fact that the state would collect more in excise and sales taxes if breweries were allowed the freedom to sell unlimited quantities retail (like wineries can) to people who stop by the breweries for tours. You could also toss in there the freedom to sell a couple of pints per person for on-site consumption during tours. Right now, as we’ve noted, the limit is two sixpacks or two growlers per person per visit, and small samples – only a couple of sips – are allowed to be served to visitors.

If brewers could sell more, then that’s more sales tax collected, more money in the state’s purse. The trickle-down effect is, when brewers sell more, they end up brewing more to meet demand, and therefore pay more in excise tax. It’s win-win. And before anyone wants to make the argument that breweries would be competing with retail outlets and against their own distributors, well no they wouldn’t. The breweries tend to be located in places that aren’t exactly shopping centers. So their foot traffic is far less. And they generally charge more per sixpack than liquor stores, and they really don’t want to become nightclubs (they just aren’t set up for that).

The point remains, however: Why deny the potential to collect more in sales and excise taxes (even if it's a modest amount), without having to raise either tax rate?

Modernizing the beer regulations means another thing: Letting brewpubs hold production brewer licenses, and production breweries hold pub licenses, so long as they meet local ordinances and get the blessings of their host towns (and have the capital to pull it off, since getting a consumption license is onerously expensive).

Brewpubs right now, as a lot of us know, can only make beer for on-site consumption, or for takeout. The beer must be purchased at the pub. You won't find it at a liquor store. It makes more sense to let them brew and sell to both their bar patrons and diners, and to distributors, who would sell it to their liquor store accounts, who then offer it at retail. It’s worth pointing out that some of the pubs are brewing below their capacity, because they can only sell to people who walk through their front doors. That’s lost revenue to those businesses and the state.

So we ask, why shouldn’t Basil T’s in Toms River be allowed to keg off beer, sell it to a middleman, who gets it on tap, for instance, at the Blue Claws stadium in Lakewood? Or let the Tun Tavern do likewise and have its beer sold on tap at the Atlantic City Surf’s stadium? There never seems to be a credible answer for why they can’t. The same goes for production breweries, no good answer why they can't hold pub licenses and get into the restaurant/tavern business with their product (it’s allowed in Pennsylvania, and seems to work just fine there.)

The state’s arcane and archaic rules continue to cost it revenue, sadly at a time when Gov. Corzine is sparring with state worker unions in a pick-your-poison debate over furloughs and layoffs (12 days unpaid furlough vs. cutting 7,000 jobs) and scrambling to come up with revenue to balance a budget that seems to grow more unbalanced as the economy tanks harder.

No one is so naïve to think that beer is the magic bullet here. But over the long haul, more beer brewed and sold means more revenue for the state. That's easy math. And fairer rules could translate to more brewers. And more revenue in taxes and fees.

And we’ll leave it at that.

Exit to ale

If you read Lew Bryson and Mark Haynie’s New Jersey Breweries guidebook, you’d know that Flying Fish was planning a special beer series to bottle a little bit of Jerseyana. Specifically, the brewery planned its own take on the time-tested NJ Turnpike "what exit" humor.

Now, at last, the path to new beer has been paved, and you can take Exit 4 with a drive to the packaged goods store. (We picked up three of the bomber bottles last week at a Canal's in Marlton, but haven’t had a chance to try it yet.) And if you’ve got tall tales about the Turnpike or videos, FF has set up a Web site where you can share them.

Exit 4, by the way is Mount Laurel (or Philadelphia/Camden Aquarium, if you’re looking at a toll ticket), right down the road from the brewery in Cherry Hill. Besides being the back of a green FF shirt with the numeral depicted in bottle caps, Exit 4 is also an American turn on a Belgian trippel. As FF points out, the choice reflects the brewery's long history of turning out Belgian styles (i.e. their dubbel, grand cru and farmhouse ale).

This beer series poses some important questions. For instance, what happens if you miss the exit? Probably can’t buy a bottle with E-ZPass, right? Guess there’s no chance of it being poured at the Walt Whitman rest stop, huh? And what’s the next exit after Exit 4?

The answer to the last question is: You get to help decide with your tales and videos.

Updates from River Horse & Boaks Beer

A quick post with some updates (no more tax talk for a change).

We caught up with Glenn Bernabeo from River Horse last weekend at the beer and barbecue festival at WXPN in Philadelphia (a shout out to the Pobutkiewicz brothers, Dave and Russ, for sharing a surplus ticket).

Between pours of RH Belgian Double Wit and a new beer with molasses, Glenn gave us an update on what’s been going on at the Lambertville operation. (Some points he made confirm plans we’ve noted in the past. Also, sorry for the photo quality; iPhones are cool, but a digital SLR camera they are not, especially in low light.)

If you liked RH’s double IPA, Hop-a-lot-amus, it’s coming back around in bottles. Soon. RH released it draft-only back in the fall. Look for the next iteration, with ramped-up hop aroma, to hit the shelves in April (that’s when their Summer Blonde Ale comes out as well).

In early May, RH will release another Brewer’s Reserve, this time a rye hefeweizen, aptly called Hefe-rye-zen (we think that’s how it’s spelled, or something close). RH’s Brewer’s Reserve series has done well for them, notably their first one, Belgian Double Wit, which debuted a year ago and quickly earned a spot in the regular lineup. One of the more recent reserve series beers, an oatmeal milk stout, was quite popular, too; it’s scheduled to come back in October.

Also returning is Dunkel Fester, a big hit of a dark lager that was draft only last year. It’s in bottles in August (a long wait for Fester and the stout's return, but it will be worth it; trust us.) Along the way, you’ll see pumpkin spice in Tripel Horse, Glenn says.

And here’s a cool one, draft-only, but damn, seems like when RH says draft only, things end up available in bottles pretty quickly afterward. Glenn says the brewery is observing Philly Beer Week (it starts this Friday and runs through the 15th) with Dubbel Honey Weizenbock. It's been specially brewed for PBW. You can try it at the Philly Craft Beer Festival at the Cruise Ship Terminal at the Navy Yard this Saturday, or at the Fair Food/White Dog Foundation Brewer’s Plate food-and-beer pairing on Sunday, held this year at the Penn Museum (at U Penn, of course), a popular spot for beer functions, to say the least.

Here’s RH’s tasting notes on the Lenten wheat bock: Munich and caramel malts up front, rounded out by orange blossom honey, clocks in at 7.5% ABV. We're looking forward to it.

Meanwhile, we also caught up with Brian Boak of Boaks Beer/Boak Beverage yesterday.

If you recall, Brian contracted with High Point Brewing in Butler to brew his flagship Russian imperial stout, Monster Mash (10% ABV), and a lineup of Belgian beers. Monster Mash and the Belgian dubbel Two Blind Monks (7.4% ABV) will be at the craft beer fest and the Brewer’s Plate, plus PBW bar events, including the Grey Lodge, on Monday and Tuesday.

To be sure, Brian’s runs a small operation, relying on High Point to work his beers into their brewing schedule wherever they can. That's not necessarily an easy thing, since High Point also does contract brewing for the folks who own the sister restaurants of Trap Rock.

Brian's found a lot of success with his beer in eastern Pennsylvania and expects to be selling his beer in the Pittsburgh area in May or June. Not bad for a guy who has had hand-labeled case after case of bottles and hauled keg after keg to his Pa. distributor in his white Boaks Beverage van.

And there's a change on the horizon for him. By mid-April, a 30-barrel fermenter that Brian had custom-made in China (for about 19 grand) is expected to be installed at High Point. That will give his brews some much-needed dedicated fermenting space. Pretty cool for him, we say.

Dodging a bullet – for now

A $7 billion hole in the state budget, and some of the suggested ways to fill it for now include higher taxes on liquor and wine.

That’s what The Star-Ledger is saying today in a sourced story that headlines the solutions with another tax hike on people pulling down $250,000 a year or higher. (That was done by McGreevey about 5 or 6 years ago).

But what we care about is beer, and it looks like beer dodged a bullet for now. But bear in mind that these fixes are for the fiscal 2010 budget, which has to be in place on July 1st with spending and revenues evened out.

So, yeah, beer is safe. For now. But the Legislature won't push this through until June, so higher taxes on beer could still get tucked into that. Just have to wait and see.

And speaking of beer and tax revenue, we tried to find out just how much our microbrewers and brewpubs generate for state coffers via fees and taxes. If you recall, we filed inquiries under the state Open Public Records Act. It was a logical approach, and we asked about New Jersey wineries, too, to create a comparison.

However, we only got half an answer from the New Jersey Treasury, and that was for wineries, expressed as gallons produced for each year from 1996 to 2007, and a multiplier of 70 cents per gallon (yes, Treasury was making us do the math). So for example, in 2007 (a big year for Jersey winemakers) 204,290 gallons were made, multiplied by 70 cents per gallon (damn, that’s a steep tax, but as a finance mind we talked to over the weekend says, “Wine sells for more per bottle”). The math comes to $143,000 for '07, and that’s just a state alcoholic beverage tax tied to production. There’s still the sales taxes the wineries collect, which, alas, is a figure we don’t have.

Ditto for beer. Here’s why ...

• The Division of Taxation has informed this office that they do not differentiate New Jersey microbreweries and brewery/distributors from out-of-state breweries. Therefore, we have no records responsive to your request.

What the state is saying is, they don’t break down entities and revenues paid per entity for their internal reporting, meaning distributor Hunterdon Brewing – and all they beer they sell – gets lumped in with say, River Horse brewery for all the beer they make in Lambertville, which gets lumped in with the next brewer (say Cricket Hill), which gets lumped in with the next wholesaler, and so forth. (The alcoholic beverage tax for beer, according to Treasury, is 12 cents a gallon, or $3.72 a barrel – the 31-gallon unit breweries usually deal in).

Treasury didn’t say they couldn’t tease out the state’s craft brewers and brewpubs to provide a figure. They can and would for a processing fee – and here’s where things stall – of about $3,000, paid by the filer of the OPRA request (to wit, us). And that sum is just a guess on Treasury’s part. And here’s why: No one has ever asked for the information, so all of the computer scripts to capture the data would have to be written and run by the folks working at Treasury, in addition to doing their normal data processing jobs.

So (in Soup Nazi voice), no beer figures for us! However, Treasury did say about 20 million gallons of beer were produced or transacted wholesale in New Jersey in 2007, generating over $2.3 million in alcoholic beverage tax revenue alone. (Most of that figure, undoubtedly, comes via Budweiser in Newark). Again, this doesn’t include sales taxes on beer sold by packaged goods stores, or the mere two sixpacks or growlers breweries can sell per person per visit.

But all is not completely lost. According to figures that Jersey breweries reported to the Brewers Association, the Colorado-based national trade organization for craft brewing, Garden State microbrewers produced 26,376 barrels for 2007. That comes to just over $98,000 in alcoholic beverage tax revenue for the state.

A few caveats, though. Not all craft or pub brewers in the state belong to the Brewers Association (just like not all cranberry producers think the Ocean Spray cooperative is a swinging deal; the brewers have their reasons). Also, the figures from the Brewers Association exclude Pizzeria Uno (as do not publish), because they’re a restaurant corporation that gets kind of batty even if you just want to take a picture of inside their lone US brewpub (in Edison). Additionally, the figures include estimates from the smallest of the small brewers, i.e. companies that produce their beer under contract with other brewers, such as Boak Beverage in Pompton Lakes (20 barrels, by the way, was their estimate).

So, getting the figure from the New Jersey Treasury folks would have been far better, as far as firm, audited numbers go.

Nonetheless, beer means revenue for cash-strapped New Jersey. Of course it’s not going to wash away the red ink and make it so state employees aren’t going to get robbed of 12 days’ pay (furloughs). But Trenton should look at the long-range picture and support the industry, help grow it.

And that, as we’ve been arguing this year, means updating the stifling regulations for brewers, and, like the bullet dodged right now, hopefully skip raising the existing beer taxes.

BeerAdvocate revisited

New issue, cleaner look following the retooling. Gone is that crappy newsprint that soaks up ink and ruins the sharpness and contrast of any image printed on it.

To their credit, the Alstrom brothers took readers' complaints seriously and let only a single issue exit their confines with that grimy, cheap-looking makeover. Good job. Thanks, bros. Enough said there.

One more item from BeerAdvocate (for the record, we do subscribe): A call to boycott some beer festivals. The Alstroms stage beer festivals, so they legitimately have room in which to press a point, or points in this case.

Their chief gripes: festivals that don’t buy the beer from the breweries; festivals that hide behind the premise of charity event (unless all proceeds go to charity); fests that charge booth rentals; and festivals that extort free beer by conditionally waiving said booth rentals.

We’ll add a couple of points to the litany: big festivals that are drunkfests and big festivals that shamelessly have crappy food concessions.

Drunkfests ... No matter how bad some groups want to paint an image of drunk driving fatalities in our state, New Jersey, according to the research arm of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, ranks 47th – near the bottom of the stack – for DUI fatalities per 100,000 people. And for the record, DUI is, as Mr. Mackey would say, is bad. Mmm’kay? But that stat is good (comparatively speaking, which is what a state-by-state ranking reaches for).

So bacchanal beer festivals … they’re bad: They sully the image of beer, which, thanks to the craft beer movement, has been successfully distancing itself from the sophomoric, frat boy image. It’s probably impossible to make that break completely, but there is a growing separation. Beer has won respect. And if orange juice isn’t just for breakfast anymore, then good beer isn’t for jerkoffs.

So why gather the products of 55 breweries under one banner and roof and tell the crowd to go nuts in an afternoon session and an evening session? Drunkfests suck. They’re bad for image, bad for business.

Crappy food … There’s a lot of attention given to beer and food these days. Food’s a natural fit, and we’re not talking hot dogs, either. Real dishes by passionate chefs, some exotic, some with fancy names and diacritical marks over letters in their spellings. If people want cheap-shit food sold at concession, then let them go to any professional sports event or concert. Please don't burden good beer with bad food.

Boycott? BeerAdvocate urges its followers to boycott festivals that fall under list of shortcomings they highlight. That's an individual's call, and admission price and recession may take care of that this year. But over the long haul, the more likely scenario is promoters who have no incentives to offer are probably going to watch their business model blow up and encounter difficulty in attracting breweries to participate.

This far into the craft beer movement, brewerania souvenirs don’t do the same business for brewers – everybody has a T-shirt and hat – so having a festival booth isn't too exciting; plus, brewers' brands have long been out there, so the exposure is not what some organizers would like to boast.

The Alstroms are right. Buy the beer, back the brewer, give them something back. Hell, the bands don't play for free, so why should the real stars on the marquee get nothing for their trouble?

Bottom line, brewers are businesses. Treat them like they are. And festival patrons, they are consumers. Respect their dollars earned and promise something value-added, something besides quantity.

More grist for the mill

Yet more on recession and the beer, liquor and wine industry’s power to raise money.

Time has as story about blue laws, and poses the question of whether the national economic crater we sit in, widening as we gaze at computer screens right now, means the end to those mindless restrictions against selling spirits, wine and beer on Sunday.

Battle lines are drawn, to be sure. Blue laws don't go down without a fight. But you can’t escape the logic of allowing Sunday sales, more so if you’re say, Connecticut, and watching tax revenue go to another state (in their case, New York). It's a thought that follows economists’ point with stimulus cash: better it be spent locally, at a your Home Depot, to weatherize your house, than on a flat-screen TV made in China.

Anyway, this is grist for the mill in our state because the handful of our craft brewers we've spoken to would love to be able to kick in some extra sales taxes they collected, if state regulators would only update our arcane and archaic regulations governing production and sale of malt beverages. (They’re sort of analogous to blue laws, even if not conceived for the same reasons.)

That goes for production brewers, for which we again say let them sell unlimited retail like wineries (and let them open brewpubs, too, if they want to pop for the expense of location and licensing); and for brewpubs, for which we say let them have access to the open market and put their products in packaged goods stores and other bars willing to take them on.

Doing so puts revenue in state coffers and lets brewers boost sales (and production, too, for which they pay other taxes).

It may just make the difference between protracted recession and faster recovery.

More on beer & taxes & cash-strapped states

At the risk of sounding like Chicken Little, here's more talk on the topic of state governments in serious financial holes and looking at whose pockets they can raid without voter backlash ...

Pennsylvania beer writer Lew Bryson noticed in the Philadelphia Inquirer recently a letter to the editor urging the Keystone State to "substantially" boost taxes on beer, wine and liquor to help keep Pa.'s fiscal house in order.

The letter writer hails from a Philly 'burb, and we're going to assume that the individual is one of the everyday people, not someone with a temperance league calling behind his urging a bump in the sin tax in the name of salvation. (Worth noting: Goodman Lew didn't take the suggestion lying down and fired off a rebuttal to the Inky's opinion page.)

Anyway, here's where things lean toward scary: Joe Street-level urges his lawmakers to ramp up beer taxes, 'cause that product and its relatives deserve it. Lawmakers, with less than seaworthy vessels in choppy financial straits, may be inclined to listen to such mumbo-jumbo because it's not about the sales tax, nor income tax.

More scary: New Jersey's in stormy seas, and its vessel has a $2.8 billion gash in it right now, and that's just the current budget we're sailing under, never mind the one that has to be christened July 1 with an even keel.

Cap'n Corzine says we're taking on water and we're hard-pressed to find a port in this perfect storm, which includes an election year for the Garden State. Sales tax and income tax are historically hands-off territory anyway (barring that one sales tax hike Corzine bet his political career on in 2006), and they'll be doubly so in 2009. Though we haven't seen a beer tax hike pitched for the Garden State yet, that's no reason to think it's not on the table.

Reminder: The fiscal 2010 budget proposal goes public March 10th.

Summary: One of the engines that has conked out on the $$ New Jersey is the sales tax. Collection has sunk like a lead weight, our ship, like others, has been battered on the rocks of this recession (and ours was listing to begin with).

To repeat past posts: Think not of raising beer taxes, like Oregon has pitched and that fellow in Pa. who seems to think it's a capital idea. Instead, overhaul the regulations for brewers, meaning get behind them and help grow the industry, instead of standing in the way. Allow brewpubs to diversify their brewing, grant production brewers the same freedoms as wineries to sell retail. In short, raise revenue by having more brewers selling more beer, not by burdening the few, and ultimately us, the consumer, with higher prices.

Anger in Oregon; keep an eye on NJ

PubScout Kurt Epps points out this extortionate tax increase on brewers proposed by four Oregon state legislators.

The lawmakers want to tax Oregon brewers at about 50 bucks per barrel. It’s no secret that states are feeling mortally wounded by the recession. California’s treasury is practically collapsing under the weight of a $41 billion deficit and a Democrat-Republican tug of war that The Governator himself, Ah-nuld Schwarzenegger , is too weak to bust up.

Oregon has just about the lowest tax on beer going, making it a sunny place for brewers. In fact, it’s been three decades since there was increase in their malt beverage tax. Hence, those four lawmakers think they see some daylight here (and not surprising, brewers there say this will jack up the price of an Oregon pint by a third, from $4.50 to 6 bucks.)

But really the vile part of the lawmakers' selling point is they’re trying to wrap this proposal in some social do-goodism, bringing up alcoholism and substance abuse, and tabbing the tax to funding treatment programs.

That’s a load of shit for several reasons, one being the overall generalization and broad-brush blame saddled upon drinking beverages like beer, wine and spirits. (People in government and related agencies need to accept the idea that availability of the beverages is not the sole cause of alcoholism. It's way more complex and the social catalysts are myriad. And honestly, you want to hit a bigger health issue, try pounding on cigarettes.)

But anyway ... Think Jersey, drink Jersey. And Kurt highlighted this story for good reason: Don’t think the folks in Trenton are above trying something similar.

Here’s why: Four years ago, Dick Codey, as our acting governor, told a joint session of the Legislature during the budget address: Good news, we’re not broke; bad news, we’re heading there.

Not much has changed, except we have the current recession that has washed away revenues like sand on the beach in a nor’easter to stir in with our year-to-year budget deficits that have to be covered. That is to say, with the recession boogeyman, us and other cash-starved states are nearing desperation (Obama bailout notwithstanding). And that’s a recipe for Trenton to bump up so-called sin taxes, thinking that it’s a palatable tax affecting fewer people. (It actually works, politically speaking. For example, the per-pack state tax on cigarettes has jumped a number of times since 2005, and people still buy their smokes, even remaining brand-loyal to their Newports, and not opting for Basics etc.)

Governor Corzine is scheduled to pitch his 2010 fiscal year budget on March 10th. The budget proposal should be on the governor’s Web site that day, too, so it’s worth a look at the document to tease out the anticipated revenues and see if the malt beverage industry or taverns are taking a hit.

But remember, the budget in March ain’t the same budget on June 30th, the date by which it must be passed. The Legislature usually grabs this thing and monkeys with it, sometimes disasterously.

So from spring to summer, be alert.

NOTE: This is an election year in the Garden State, so Jersey brewers, the taxes and fees they pay and why our regulations need some changing will be a recurring topic.

Change comes to DC? Let's hope NJ, too

Just how much is New Jersey’s micro brewing industry worth to state coffers, in terms of tax revenues and fees (including corporate and sales tax revenues)?

That’s what we’re trying to find out.

The kind folks at the New Jersey Department of Treasury (under their Open Public Records Act obligations) notified us today that they’re inclined to take another three days to process our request for the financial tallies regarding our state’s small-batch brewers, and Garden State wineries, for which we also sought the same information.

No problem, Treasury; we’re patient. And thanks for the heads-up email, even if it was obligatory.

For the record, we’re not expecting a dramatic figure from our request regarding microbrewers. And we’re curious about the wineries, since they are under less stringent regulations pertaining to direct sales to the public.

Therein lies the heart of our OPRA requests: compare the two industries. Vintners are likely generating more sales tax revenues à la direct sales to the public than microbreweries because they can sell unfettered. By law, our microbrewers can sell only two six-packs or two growlers per person per visit to the brewery.

More on that in a minute. It’s important right now to highlight the significance of the 7 cents on the dollar sales tax, especially in our state which has gaping holes in the current budget and for years now has been resorting to gimmicks to plug annual deficits to fulfill the state constitutional requirement of having a balance between incoming revenues and spending at the start of the fiscal year.

Sales tax – which, unlike income tax, everyone pays – is a big chunk of the state budget, and it’s been tanking for months now. Retail sales are down, and the folks running the show in Trenton aren’t smiling. How bad’s the frown? Well, for the first six months of the current budget year – the fiscal calendar runs July 1-June 30 – sales tax collection is off target by nearly $250 million. In that period, sales tax collection was $4.13 billion; big number, huh? See how important sales tax is?

So back to microbrewers and the strong arm of the law. Two sixes or two growlers, no more. Alas, the state is cheating itself out of sales tax revenue. How sad. Does this mean craft beer is the salvation of the state’s crippled finances (which were troubled even before credit default swaps and subprime loans and all those other finance terms that became the iceberg the SS National Economy rammed)? Of course not. Craft brewing is a niche industry, but New Jersey needs its small businesses as much as it needs its big ones. Because revenue is revenue, and selling beer generates it. So what not capitalize on it?

Having a comparison of revenues generated by Garden State wineries and the microbrewers could illustrate revenue potential if the Trenton would only take the yoke off brewers. Some of the state’s production brewers these days are rallying to that point, getting restless under the rules they've had to play by for better than a decade. And honestly, they should be allowed to sell unfettered like the wineries.

And a note to critics of this idea: Don’t confuse allowing this freedom as competition with liquor stores situated along main highways and near shopping centers, which provide enjoy far greater access to the buying public than breweries located in industrial parks etc. and tend to draw beer enthusiasts and beer travelers with their tours and open houses. To be sure, selling a couple of cases to the beer tourist serves to augment business for the brewers, not form a backbone. So if Joe Craft Sixpack on a brewery tour wants to say "I'll take all you got in cold case" and pony up for it, how is that a problem? He's buying at an added 7 cents on the dollar, which the state gets.

One other thing: This business of bottling up the brewpubs, limiting them to on-site sales only is another ill-conceived yoke on a free brewing market. Regulations requiring you be either brewpub or production brewery, both not both, are simply beyond shortsighted. And quite frankly, brewers in neighboring states enjoy that freedom and are putting packaged beer on Jersey shelves. No one’s talking about protectionism, but geez, just level the playing field and let the Jersey brewpubs have a shot at additional revenue streams. And ditto for production brewers, should they wanted to diversify their approach, let 'em open a bar under their banner if they're willing to pay the extortionate price for a consumption license (that's another topic for another time).

It just makes sense to revisit and modernize New Jersey's brewery regulations, especially in the light of a state that’s broke, does little to encourage business, and worse still, creates obstacles to commerce.

It's 2009, and DC isn't the only place that needs change.

Bloom off the rose

The new issue of Beeradvocate hit the mailbox today, smaller in page dimension (and smaller type, too), thinner in page count, and alas, now printed on newsprint stock.

Ouch. It looks cheaper, and it feels cheaper. It's a bit ironic, too, that the featured article in the current issue bears this line (to paraphrase): No shortcut goes unnoticed.

The Alström brothers deserve praise for taking a parallel universe of their Web site into print media in an era when doubt surrounds the survivability of newspapers and magazines. Both are long past their better days, and that was eons before the current downturn. And amid industry shifts, specialty magazines, say like Cigar Aficionado, started doing better than general interest mags probably 10 years ago. By 2005, with Web 2.0 and YouTube becoming Internet staples, the slope got steeper for print media and the downward slide grew faster.

It was in the face of that trend that Beeradvocate in print started coming out. That its more majestic form – oversized pages and thicker glossy paper – lasted as long as it did is the real surprise. What came in the mail today was just the inevitable, and any publisher with overhead on his mind would have made the change sooner.

So, give Jason and Todd props for hanging on as long as they did before changing the format. But it's hard to not be skeptical about the reasons they spell out in an editors note on page 3.

Essentially what they're saying is the content remains the same, it's just the wrapper that's different. Yes, the content is the same, but greener, faster turn-around, glossy stock is overrated? ... Won't argue with the first two much, but the paper making no difference? That's just not so. Glossy paper costs way more than newsprint, but it does afford better photo reproduction. Way better. (Not to mention more attractive to court advertisers.) The photos now look flat, with muddy color that's off register on some pages.

The reason for the change is money. Plain and simple. To publish a magazine costs a load of dough. There are all the freelancers (writers, editor, artist, page composition person – and, trust us, they represent the low side on the overhead) to pay, and the printer, who's probably only giving you a break on the production run when you top 50,000 copies. Next comes the US mail – and postal costs aren't cheap. Beeradvocate has brewery advertising, but it's not clear if the ads are just to offset some costs, as opposed to outright paying the publication's bills.

Beeradvocate in print is still around, and that's a good thing. But what came in the mail today makes you wonder for how long.

It doesn't always happen

For the amount of space they give it – think mid-size supermarket and half the dairy case – Whole Foods in Middletown/Red Bank (Monmouth County) does a stellar job of stocking craft beer and imports (lots of Belgian brews).

That you can buy beer and groceries under one roof and through a single checkout lane is great unto itself. Not to mention, it underscores the union of quality beers and good foods. (Alas, the closest Whole Foods to us is Marlton/Cherry Hill area, and they don’t sell wines and beers. That makes the spin up the Garden State Parkway to Middletown, about 20 minutes longer than Marlton, more worth while.)

And here's the thing: Whole Foods, as is their part of their mission, highlights products with local ties. Beer included, in this case River Horse and Flying Fish (wish they carried Cricket Hill, Climax and Ramstein, too). They also pointed out New York brewers (i.e. Brooklyn, Southern Tier and Blue Point) and Pennsylvania beers. A nice, logical radius, there.

Maybe it doesn’t seem like a big deal that a beer retailer would steer you to the local brews , but you can’t always count on it. Even at the stores that have aisle upon aisle of brews, shelves flagged with Rate Beer scores and staff who’ve tried practically everything they sell. It just doesn’t always happen.

So way to go, Whole Foods. (Now just move that “seasonal” sign away from the Hopfish or put a true seasonal there in its place.)

The benefits of ale

Here’s where good beer does good things ...

Come Sunday (Jan. 18), New Brunswick’s brewpub, Harvest Moon, will be buzzing as crowds flock to George Street for the fifth annual Jimmy D fundraiser.

It’s a big event that salutes some hard-to fill boots lost by the New Brunswick Fire Department and honors a legacy of putting others first.

Harvest Moon donates a portion of the proceeds from every pint of Jimmy D’s Firehouse Red to the Children’s Burn Camp of the Connecticut Burns Care Foundation, an organization dear to Deputy Fire Chief James D’heron, whose memory the event pays tribute.

D’heron died after saving 15 people in a September 2004 house fire.

Over it's history, the event has raised nearly $50,000 for the charity, and the Irish red ale is so popular it occupies a taphandle at Harvest Moon year-round.

See more details here. Click on "News from the Moon" at the bottom left of the page.

Iron Hill: Something to look forward to

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

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

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

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

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

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

Featured bourbon barrel aged beers will include:

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

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

Maibock update/hop prices

Upon checking back with Cricket Hill Brewery on maibock for this spring ...

Owner Rick Reed says it's still up in the air, but odds are the crew there in Fairfield (Essex County) won't brew one for 2009. Just the way it is.

Meanwhile on another note, Rick mentioned the spike in hop prices is retreating. You'll recall we're paying more for beer in general these days because of the hop shortage/price jump that started working its way into the system in late 2007. (Surging barley prices had something to do with the higher beer prices, too.)

But Rick shared some figures from supplier Hop Union on Friday. He says contract prices for the 2008 crop range from $17-$19 per pound, dipping to $14-$17 per pound for the 2009 harvest. It gets better for 2010, $10 per pound.

Rick also noted availability of varieties looks better, too.

Price drops on anything are good to hear. But when you're in the throes of a recession like we are, well it usually points to some other things, too. It's hard to say exactly how it will play out for the consumer, but for now, take it at face value.