Think Tun tripel at AC beer fest

The Atlantic City beer festival opens on Friday, and amid the tide of beers from 75 breweries at the sixth edition of the Celebration of the Suds, this beer should stand out: the Belgian tripel brewed at the Tun Tavern by homebrewers Vince Masciandaro and Evan Fritz, under the guidance of the Tun's brewer, Tim Kelly.

Vince and Evan's beer paced ahead of 19 other brews to claim victory in the Tun's first homebrewer contest. Top prize was the opportunity to scale up their recipe and brew a commercial batch for the Tun's taps and for the Friday and Saturday crowds at the AC beer fest. (The beer will be taphandled At The Shore Belgian Ale because of a tie-in with The Press of Atlantic City newspaper and its entertainment guide, At The Shore.)

The pleasure Vince and Evan got from playing pro brewer for a day should be all yours. The beer they brewed will have no equal at the festival. It's imminently fresh – brewed in early March, racked over this week for serving. It exists because of the festival – brewed specifically for the event. And Vince and Evan rose to the challenge of brewing on an exponential scale.

Talk to Vince about his beers and he'll tell you that he's his own toughest critic. A minor errant flavor you forgive because you've tasted it in store-bought brews is a rough spot that Vince wishes he had or plans to file down. A flaw is still a flaw to this Marlton guy, and that's that. And that's why his beers have that certain above-and-beyond effort that gives them a fine finish.

For Evan, homebrewing isn't about shaving some pennies off the cost keeping the fridge stocked. Hardly. Brewing's an intriguing science to him, a challenge, and re-creating the best beers he finds on the store shelves is equal parts holy grail and the proverbial practice that makes perfect.

He brews practically every Friday afternoon at his home in Williamstown (he'd love to do it daily as a professional), with the same goal Vince has: to make a great beer.

And that's what they did for the festival.

Cheers.

New brewery license issued

New Jersey has a new licensed brewing entity.

And Suydam Farms LLC just may be the Garden State's first licensed nano-brewery (depending on whether Cape May Brewing has been granted its license, and fleshing out details about the actual size of Suydam's operations).

The folks with Suydam (a Dutch name pronounced SOO'-dam) acknowledged they had received a limited brewery license – the license under state regulations that allows production brewing – and that brewing was supposed to commence Wednesday. They didn't, however, have time to provide further details during the phone call last week. (The state Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control says the license was granted on Feb. 28. We left phone and Facebook messages with Suydam hoping to find out what kinds of beer they'll brew and what their target market is.)

Suydam Farms raises the number of New Jersey brewery license-holders to 21 and becomes the fourth brewery licensee since 2009, the year that broke a 10-year drought on brewery start-ups. Last year, Port 44 Brewpub in Newark and New Jersey Beer Company in North Bergen began brewing; Iron Hill brewpub opened its doors in Maple Shade the year before.

Suydam Farms is located in Franklin Township in Somerset County. Although it's unconfirmed, we've been told Suydam picked up the 2-barrel system once used at the Cedar Creek brewpub, a short-lived oasis for craft beer fans in South Jersey in the mid- to late-1990s.

Given that small size – and prevailing brewery industry descriptions – Suydam would fall into the nano class, a size distinction that no one was making back when Cedar Creek was brewing in Egg Harbor City in Atlantic County. (At 2 barrels, Cedar Creek had half the brewing capacity of Dave Hoffmann's Climax Brewing, which became New Jersey's first production craft beer-maker with a 4-barrel brewhouse that fed into an array of larger fermenters, thereby giving Dave production volume beyond his brewhouse capacity.)

Cape May Brewing, which had a license application pending earlier this year, is planning a 3-barrel nano (with a one-third barrel start-up phase), while Flounder Brewing is a nano-brewery in development in Hillsborough.

Part of the Garden State agricultural landscape for nearly three centuries, Suydam Farms is known for its U-pick pumpkin patches and promoting farming and conservation (the property falls under the state's farmland preservation). Beer enthusiasts may know Suydam Farms for growing hops – such as Cascade, Centennial and Chinook. The Jersey-grown cones have made their way into beers produced at Triumph brewpub in Princeton and those made by Princeton-area homebrewers.

Joe Bair, whose Princeton Homebrew shop (located on Route 29 in Trenton) has carried Suydam's hops on its shelves, knows the farm for its generosity and beer scene camaraderie.

Joe used to host Big Brew/National Homebrew Day gatherings at his shop until it was hit by a flood several years ago. Suydam Farms stepped and offered their property for the event held annually on the first Saturday in May. The farm also has hosted meetings of PALE ALES, the homebrew club Joe founded 16 years ago.

"They've been very nice to me and very nice to the club," he says.

It's important to note – since there's a proposal pending in the Legislature to create a farm brewery license in New Jersey – that Suydam's license was granted before any action on that legislation. The farm brewery bill, introduced last summer, remains in committee.

Stay tuned.

Uno's cask event

When there are big beer festivals happening all around, this one, Pizzeria Uno Chicago Grill and Brewery's cask event, has always proved to be a nice oasis, a retreat from the crush of the crowds.

It happens at noon on Saturday at the brewpub in Metuchen. PubScout Kurt Epps has the beer lineup.

Growth, choice & is there ever too much?

New Jersey added two craft breweries last year, a period in which the total number of US breweries jumped 8 percent and the percentage of production volume and sales dollars both rose by double digits for craft brewers, according to the craft beer industry's trade group.

Three months into 2011, one thing is certain: There's plenty of beer to slake any kind of thirst, a veritable cornucopia of styles, brands and flavors that for some has begun to raise the question of whether consumers are becoming overwhelmed by the Great Wall of Choice.

The short answer is sort of; the long answer is nope with a because. In fact, the abundance of choice, says Swarthmore College psychologist Barry Schwartz, could buttress brand loyalty.

In a statement issued ahead of the Craft Brewers Conference, which kicked off Wednesday in San Francisco, the Colorado-based Brewers Association, says small and independent brewers produced 11 percent more volume last year over 2009 and saw retail sales dollars increase by 12 percent over 2009. That translates to growth of more than 1 million barrels of beer.

The number of craft brewers also rose from 1,587 in 2009 to 1,716 last year, reflecting the largest number of breweries in the US since the turn of the 20th century. (There were 1,759 breweries operating last year, when you include the non-craft ones.)

"Prohibition caused a dramatic decline in the number of breweries in the United States, but the number of breweries is now at an all-time high," says BA director Paul Gatza. "With well over 100 new brewery openings in 2010, plus 618 breweries in planning stages, all signs point to continued growth for the industry."

In the Garden State, production brewer New Jersey Beer Company (North Bergen) and Port 44 Brew Pub (Newark) launched their brands last year, raising the state's craft brewery count to 20. Meanwhile, four applications for production brewery licenses were pending before state regulators at the end of last year.

That's good news to anyone who thinks the more choices, the better. Like Pat Vaccaro, a Rutgers University student from Long Branch, who talked craft beer recently while browsing a reasonably well-stocked (but not a chart-topper of selection) cold case at a Wegmans in Monmouth County.

Overwhelming? "Not at all," Pat says. "I've had 90 percent of what they have here. So long as it doesn't have fruit in it, I'll drink it."

Still there's this item in Beer Business Daily that wonders if the price paid for aisles and cold boxes teeming with craft brands is an exercise in diminished return.

Schwartz, the Swarthmore psych professor and author of The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less (2004), by and large gives the beer industry a pass from his premise that a plethora of choices turns consumers off, makes them unable to chose, and when they manage to do so, they're nagged by the thought that they perhaps didn't actually make the best choice after all.

The reason beer gets an exemption: choosing a brew – sixpack or single bottle – from the wall of eye-popping labels, and picking one you're ultimately unhappy with, is an error that's easy to correct, easy to move beyond given the lower price than a car, computer or clothes. Plus, with those latter items there's the expectation of keeping them for a while.

However, Schwartz, who discussed the topic during a phone interview last week, says the hyper array of beer choices could end up favoring well-known or familiar brands (or beers that have the most engaging packaging or labels for that matter). Opting for the familiar is a way of dealing with a problem that seemingly can't be solved, steering away from a random choice.

"Nothing will bring brand loyalty back faster than a proliferation of options," he says.

Do this: Toast Michael Jackson on Sunday

This item takes a lead from a Charlie Papazian Facebook post:

Sunday would have been Beer Hunter Michael Jackson's 69th birthday. The Briton known for traversing the world in pursuit of beers of all stripes died in August 2007, leaving a void in the discourse about great beer.

His impact on folks who enjoy beer, like his beer travels, was far-reaching. Here in the Garden State, Jackson formed some tight bonds, including friendships with Mark Haynie of Mid-Atlantic Brewing News and Gary Monterosso, a onetime columnist for Mid-Atlantic and the host of Still Crazy After All These Beers web shows.

Jackson also featured Dave Hoffmann's Climax brews in his published beer guides and suggested River Horse brew a Belgian tripel and call it Tripel Horse. He gave Flying Fish's ESB an endorsement in the brewery's guestbook when FF was just a half-year into its brewing operations.

So, as Charlie suggests in his Facebook note, Sunday is MJ's birthday: raise a glass of your favorite brew to toast and remember a champion of all things beer.

NJBC looking back & moving forward

Hudson County's only craft brewer is closing in on its first anniversary.

And with that, there's certainly cause to celebrate. New Jersey Beer Company began brewing April 28 last year, then launched the brand in May at the Copper Mine Pub (North Arlington) and The Iron Monkey (Jersey City), two craft beer bars that have shown the brewery some love.

Since then, the North Bergen beer-maker has worked to carve out a regional market and build a local fan base as it navigates the sometimes-stormy straits (i.e. the brewery's crippled bottler) of being a start-up business.

On the first day of this spring, a foursome doing a beer-circuit tour of North Jersey stopped by the brewery's tasting room; moments before, a fan from Jersey City restocked with two growlers of 1787 Abbey Single. Outside, a truck driver who spied a guy leaving the brewery with a freshly filled growler took advantage of the red light at Tonnelle Avenue and 43rd Street to strike up a conversation about his favorite NJBC brews.

Heartwarming moments indeed, but founder Matt Steinberg (above) is keeping a practical focus as he looks forward to toasting the first anniversary. Between brewery tours, Matt took some time to talk about the first year, some of the rough spots and some of what lies ahead.

BSL: How are you marking the occasion, the first anniversary?
MS: I haven't got so far as to plan anything yet. But I think I'm definitely going to talk to Vito (Forte) about doing something at the Copper Mine. That was the first event, the first time our beer was served. It went on that weekend at the Iron Monkey as well. They were our first two customers at the same time. We did a second launch party at the Monkey. There's a decent chance we'll look both of them up and talk about doing an anniversary celebration, a typical (meet the) brewers night kind of thing.

BSL: You opened with a flight of three flagship beers, the 1787 Abbey Single, Garden State Stout and Hudson Pale Ale. What else did you stir into the mix, what seasonals?
MS: We added two. We had the Wee Heavy, which, I guess, is our winter seasonal. Then we did a second running of Sixty Shilling Mild out of that, a Scottish style pub ale, real mild, like a 3.2, 3.5 (ABV) kind of ale. We didn't sell that outside the brewery; we had it here, basically sold growlers of it. We used it for some events, too.

Ideally our spring seasonal would be out by now but it hasn't happened that way. The next thing coming out will be an IPA; in theory it could be in our next run of brewing. We may try to squeeze something out in the summer, too ... It might be awhile before we add something into the full-time rotation.

BSL: Let's talk about being a start-up. There's some choppy water that comes along with that. What are some of the hurdles you've encountered?
MS: It's politics; it always comes down to money. It's all the things you didn't think you were gonna have to pay for, and kegs that don't come back and you have to go repurchase ... the taxation at all those various levels you try to anticipate; things like insurance cost an absolute fortune, a lot more than they probably should. Things like that have definitely played a part.

BSL: And getting on sound footing with your brewing system?
MS: I definitely think we've ironed out a couple little issues we had with the brewing. In the first few batches, there were some glitches in the system, things we had to figure out workarounds for, figure out how we were going to do things, and equipment breaking down ... stuff like that here and there, just the typical kind of stuff you would run into in a brewery and a lot of other manufacturing kinds of business.

BSL: The equipment breakdowns ... the unhappy thing there is your bottler isn't in use anymore.
MS: Yeah, you'd think you'd get more than six weeks out of a brand-new piece of equipment.
BSL: What happened with it?
MS: The thing was breaking from day one. It took us about six weeks to get the thing to properly fill bottles. We had parts falling off, breaking off. We literally broke almost every damn piece just in the normal operation. The manufacturer put some wrong parts in, which ultimately ruined the fill head. So it got to the point where we were getting maybe one out of every six or eight bottles that would actually have 12 ounces of beer and a cap on it. It got to the point where we couldn't properly fill bottles with that thing. You could fill them faster with a hand bottler, but you can't send stuff out to market with a hand filler.

BSL: So what's going to happen with the bottler? Are you going to be able to sell?
MS: I may throw it on ProBrewer – see if somebody else wants to take a crack at it – for a horrible loss, considering it's a 6-week-old piece of equipment. Worst case, we'll sell it for scrap, see what we can get out of it.

BSL: And you're committed to being back in bottles?
MS: I think we have to. That's just what the market is around here; we have to be able to supply it. I sit there and see whole lot of untapped market. It's got to be dealt with ... I don't know if I'd add another year-round beer until we have the bottling situation fixed. That's really what kind of determines a year-round beer, something you're going to put in bottles and have out on the shelves all the time.

And frankly, that's the higher priority right now. I'd rather fix that and get our three flagships back out in bottles rather than worry about bringing a fourth beer out into the rotation. Seasonals are a way we can get something out there in a small run and at least be doing some new stuff.

BSL: Let's talk about something more positive, where you've solidly made inroads, where people like you the most right now, your fan base.
MS: Up north, in Hudson County and Jersey City in particular. More beer has moved in that town than anywhere else. Last summer, we definitely had some good runs down the shore, in particular the Abbey I know seemed to do really well in the beach kind of towns. The Philly area has done all right for us. After that, it's really kind of spotty, it's a couple here, a couple there. But, you know, we're trying to bring them up where we can.

BSL: In terms of getting your message out, how many events have you done in the past year?
MS: Seems like back in October we were doing two a week at least. Our typical meet-the-brewers nights at bars, I would say we did at least 20 or so of those and then we probably had another half dozen in festivals. Then there's some random stuff here and there, more like charity sponsorships where our beer ended up getting served.

BSL: Are you glad you go into this business?
MS: Yeah, absolutely. No regrets at all. I certainly wish we had done some things differently, but hindsight is good like that. I certainly didn't do everything perfectly, a few things I wish we could have back, but never once did I go "I can't believe I did this."

BSL: You can take pride in that you brought a local craft brand back to Hudson County (Mile Square Golden Ale and Amber Ale were mid-1990s craft brands of the now-defunct Hoboken Brewery.)
MS: I'm trying to. Right now, we're still in the weeds enough that we've got to get over the hump. So I'm going to save the celebrating for another day. I think we're well on our way. I'm happy with the way we've grown the brand. I think the beer's steadily gotten better and better throughout. More and more people are having it now than had it before. I'm really looking forward to the summer when people start flooding New Jersey to head down to the beaches. I'm really hoping we can make sure they're drinking our beer when they're doing it.

ABOUT THE PHOTOS:
Tara Bossert of Jersey City (middle picture) holds growlers of 1787 Abbey Single. She discovered NJBC through Dorrian's. "I prefer to support entrepreneurs and local businesses because I really think it helps form a community. It's always great when you have local businesses around. It connects a company with an actual person, versus a big conglomerate like Bud," Tara says.

Foursome (from left in third photo) Jim and Jeanne Woodhouse and Judy and Frank Sharkey sample some Garden State Stout.

Tripel checking

That big, pro-am Belgian tripel brewed at the Tun Tavern for the Atlantic City beer festival is coming along.

Tun brewer Tim Kelly (shown at left taking a sample on Thursday) projects the beer will come in around 9 percent ABV or a little higher when it finishes out fermentation.

Come Monday, Tim says he'll begin to step the fermenter temperature down, with filtration of the beer set for March 30.

The beer, brewed with Tim's guidance by homebrewers Vince Masciandaro and Evan Fritz earlier this month, will be served at the AC beer fest on April 1-2, as well as at the Tun Tavern itself.

Vince and Evan took first place in the homebrew contest sponsored by the Tun, winning the opportunity to re-create their tripel on the Tun's 10-barrel Newlands brewing system.

The end to the 2 six-pack maximum?

Two South Jersey lawmakers are pitching the idea of letting Garden State production brewers retail directly to the public from the confines of their breweries.

For a long time now, those brewers have been allowed to sell a maximum of two six-packs or two growlers directly to individuals who stop by their breweries for tours.

But it looks like bill A3520, apparently eases that two six-pack/growler limit and forgoes requirements that retail sales occur during brewery tours. That is to say, there isn't language specifying maximums or occasions in the measure sponsored by Democratic Assemblywomen Celeste Riley (Cumberland County) and Pamela Lampitt (Camden County).

If that is the case, then the legislation addresses a concern among several Garden State production brewers who have long wished they could sell a case of beer (or more) to people who stop by their breweries.

What wouldn't change under the bill is where you can drink the beer you've just bought: you can't crack open a cold one at the brewery. The measure doesn't turn the breweries' sampling/tasting rooms into bars.

(The bill was introduced in late November and referred to the Assembly Law and Public Safety Committee; Assemblywoman Riley is also the sponsor of a bill to create a farm brewery license.)

Kane Brewing equipment in house

The components arrived just over two weeks ago, and now they await being slotted into place to become the brewery that will produce ales under the Kane Brewing brand.

But before that can happen, founder Michael Kane says officials in his host town, Ocean Township in Monmouth County, must green-light the site plans for the 7,000-square-foot industrial park space that Kane leased last August.

The brewhouse, trio of fermenters, bright beer tank and hot liquor tank were delivered Feb. 28. That's a little later that Kane had forecast back in January, but establishing a brewery is, no pun intended, a fluid process.

Stay tuned.

No. 9, No. 9, No. 9

Beatles references aside, the big announcement from the owners of the Iron Hill brewpub chain today is word of a ninth location, this one planned for Chestnut Hill, Pa., toward the end of this year.

But the more interesting news nugget for New Jersey beer drinkers was found toward the bottom of the news release: Iron Hill intends to open a North Jersey location by 2015 as one of five new brewpubs in locations from the Washington, D.C., area to the Garden State's northern half.

Iron Hill's Maple Shade location, which opened in July 2009, was the brewpub chain's eighth and a homecoming for the trio of Jersey guys (Mark Edelson, Kevin Finn and Kevin Davies) who founded the company in Delaware and built it up there and in Pennsylvania before making a go of things on this side of the river.

The Maple Shade site has become wildly popular among South Jersey beer enthusiasts. The tidbit about North Jersey was something of back-channel discussion among Iron Hill faithful and insiders.

Now it's in the news release. So stay tuned for a specific location.

Munich study for Iron Hill's No. 2 brewer

Iron Hill assistant brewer Jeff Ramirez will get to hone his brewing skills in Germany this spring.

Jeff heads to Munich March 26th for a five-week study gig that comes as the back end of his training with the Seibel Institute of Technology.

"This is their 12-week international brewing diploma," says Jeff, who's been with Iron Hill's Maple Shade location since it opened in 2009.

"Basically there's seven weeks in Chicago, different modules (of study). They'll go over the wort production, raw materials, fermentation biology, cellar stuff, packaging, the business of brewing. Then you go out to Germany, in Munich, and work at Doemens, which has the World Brewing Academy. There you do applied techniques."

The training abroad wraps up with a brewery tour of Europe. "You go to Belgium, London ... go to different places like maltsters and different breweries," Jeff says.

Jeff enrolled at Seibel while awaiting word on a job at Iron Hill. The folks who run the show there have supported his endeavors, letting him take time away from work with head brewer Chris LaPierre for the course work in Chicago.

And now Germany.

Before Iron Hill, Jeff worked briefly at Trap Rock brewpub in Berkeley Heights, helping out brewer Charlie Schroeder (in the photo above, that's Jeff on the left, with Charlie). But it was at Kenyon College in Ohio that Jeff decided he wanted to be in the beverage industry.

It was either tea or beer.

"Tea is more research and travel. Beer is more labor and science, hard work," he says.

Fans of Iron Hill's beers, no doubt, are glad Jeff chose beer.

Big brew theory

How do you make a big imperial beer when your business model is dedicated to making accessible beers that invite Bud, Miller and Coors Light drinkers to step up to craft brews, but also promise not to overwhelm?

That's the challenge for Cricket Hill Brewing, as it works to replicate a brew the Fairfield beer-maker crowned the winner in a homebrew contest it sponsored last year. CH has pulled off big-yet-accessible brews in the past with some beers made to celebrate brewery milestones.

Founder Rick Reed (pictured applying an instant Cricket tattoo on festival-goer) says the brewery will do that again with homebrewer Bill Kovach's recipe for a Russian imperial stout. The specialty brew isn't due until January 2012, but test batches are already being produced. Rick took some time at the Philly Craft Beer Festival this past weekend to talk about the stout and how the beer landscape in New Jersey has changed since Cricket Hill opened its doors 10 years ago.

BSL: You've done bourbon barrel and cask beers, a barley wine ... they were higher-alcohol beers.

RR: Only 8 percent, even the barley wine was only 8 percent. We did it as a signature for our 500th brew, and we kept it at 8 percent, low-balled the alcohol because we're trying to do gateway beers.

BSL: So even though you're doing an imperial stout, you're going to keep to your traditional approach?
RR: We going to try to keep the alcohol as low as we can, as long as we get the full flavor. If that means the alcohol goes up, then it has to. The homebrewer (who had) the winning recipe, we've altered it to his satisfaction. We've done two different pilot brews with the modifications – he used some (malt) extract, and we won't do that. We're having some preliminary tastings ... it's very, very good, and it looks like the alcohol is going to be held down.

BSL: What kind of range, 8 percent like the barley wine?
RR: Eight percent, yeah. We're also doing some small-batch stuff with the second, third and fourth-place winners. One is an imperial IPA; one's an American pale ale, and the other's a dubbel.

BSL: And again you're dialing it down in that Cricket Hill style of making an accessible beer that still has craft qualities?
RR: We consider it the gateway philosophy. We're trying to get the Coors, Miller and Bud drinkers of New Jersey – and there's still plenty of them, only the lord knows why – to come over to an all-malt without getting scared off. In a perfect world, if you're a beer geek, and somebody says, "I want to try a new style," you say, "Try Cricket Hill first, they'll show you what it can taste like without overwhelming you." And from there, you can go hog wild.

BSL: You guys have been at it for 10 years now. Do you feel like you've carved out a niche?
RR: We're comfortable now. If things continue the way they have over the last year and half, we're going to be very comfortable. New Jersey's accepting craft beer now with open arms. Our (brewery) tours, we're averaging 100-plus people every Friday. Our sales are up over 50 percent from the year before and the last two years.

BSL: What about your volume?
RR: This year we think were going to hit just over 2,000 barrels. For a brewery our size, that's really amazing. We lend ourselves to draft; for a small brewery, 50 percent of our beer is draft, 50 percent is bottles. Usually it's 80-20, bottles to draft.

BSL: Is your East Coast Lager still your top beer?
RR: Yep.

BSL: What's No. 2?
RR: I would bet No. 2 is the IPA (Hopnotic IPA). It's amazing, because no matter where you go and do these shows, they either love IPA or don't drink it. In Pennsylvania, they're IPA freaks, and Stockertown (Beverage, a CH distributor) sells a lot of it for us. We're the official beer of the Philly Roller Girls (roller derby team) and they take the lager and the IPA, until the Summer (Breakfast Ale) comes one, and then they take the Summer. The lager's also in some minor league baseball clubs.

BSL: You've also been a friend, lent support to the newcomers on the Jersey beer scene, New Jersey Beer Company in North Bergen and Port 44 Brew Pub in Newark ...
RR: It's a tight community. The more the merrier.

BSL: Beer in New Jersey is dramatically different than it was, even just four years ago. Talk about that.
RR: When I first got in this business, New Jersey really had nothing. It had microbreweries that were selling their beer anywhere but New Jersey. Flying Fish was selling their beers in Philadelphia; you had River Horse selling in Pennsylvania and New York; you had Ramstein selling in upstate New York, because New Jersey's a fickle marketplace.

We've been banging our heads against the wall, all of us breweries, and now New Jersey is coming around. New Jersey is a very hot marketplace; you can tell because all the little breweries from across the country are trying to get into New Jersey because they see it perking up and coming alive.

Beer fests, figuratively speaking

Atlantic City's annual beer festival is less than a month off, and this past week, the Garden State Craft Brewers Guild announced the date for its annual June gathering aboard the USS New Jersey battleship museum at the Camden waterfront.

Beer festivals have become ubiquitous across New Jersey, one for almost every weekend of the year, it seems.

Chris Walsh from River Horse Brewing may have said it best when he joked awhile back, "They're happening on the half hour now."

But whatever the case, festivals are something of a numbers game, especially the behind-the-scene kind that support the attendance figures. (Yeah, yeah, the most important number is the net sum from ticket sales, plus whatever spinoff dollars that make their way into the local economies, i.e. site rental, parking, hired security and concessions.)

So while at the fifth annual Philly Craft Beer Festival on Saturday we asked its promoter, Andy Calimano of Starfish Junction Productions (that's Andy in the orange shirt in the photo at above left), to run through some of those figures.

Here are some numbers:

Beer – More than 5,425 gallons of kegged beer, plus cases of bottled and canned beer.

(Starfish's promotional literature notes 100 beers from 50 breweries, but those round numbers always seem to be the case.)

Plastic sampler cups: 6,000

Ice: 3.6 tons

Volunteers: More than 150.

Aggregator moment: A beer culture waning

The folks over at Slate feature a sobering look at the retreat of Germany's brewing industry.

It's hard times over there for the beverage that's virtually a country identity and gave the world the notion of beer purity, reinheitsgebot, an idea some have called one of the earliest consumer protections, but as Slate points out, the mandate for only hops, barley and water has had a sclerotic effect on Germany's brewing industry.

What's also interesting is the fact that Germany's youth eschew beer, seeing it as their fathers' Volkswagen, so to speak. Yet, here in the US, craft beer has become a beverage that many in their early 30s down to legal drinking age know before and better than their fathers' and grandfathers' Budweiser and Coors.

This is pretty cool ...

We like to think we're in good company on this one, as far as music for enjoying a beer goes ...

Richard Thompson is playing a Fillmore gig for attendees of the 2011 Craft Beer Conference in San Francisco toward the end of the month.

Folks familiar with this site may recognize the title Beer-Stained Letter as a play upon Richard's tune Tear-Stained Letter.

By the by, he's playing solo acoustic gigs in Newark (think Port 44 Brew Pub as your preshow watering hole) on the 18th and Princeton (think Triumph Brewing for a pint to get the night going) on the 21st.

Like we said, good company ...

A talk with Beach Haus' Tom Przyborowski

East Coast Beer Company is pilot-brewing an American pale ale to hit the market this year as its second label.

Once again the Point Pleasant Beach company is turning to Tom Przyborowski to shepherd a brew from test batches on a half-barrel homebrewing rig in neighboring Brick Township to commercial production at Genesee Brewing, the beer-maker contracted to produce East Coast's first label, Beach Haus Classic American Pilsner.

A 20-year homebrewer with a taste for English ales, Tom, 48, pilot-brewed Beach Haus, helping to shape the brew that East Coast entered the New Jersey marketplace with late last summer. (Tom has ties to Rochester, N.Y.: It's where he studied photo illustration at Rochester Institute of Technology, and yes, drank plenty of Genesee Cream Ale.)

Tom recently shared a sample pint of the upcoming ale and talked about its R&D progress, what it was like to create Beach Haus pilsner, and revealed that the composers of "Autobahn" were a catalyst to his taking the The Beer Guy job title with East Coast.

BSL: You're now full-time with East Coast Beer. How did your affiliation with the company, with John Merklin and Brian Ciriaco, come about?
TP: I met the founders through a mutual friend, one of my best friends worked with them at their old jobs. He introduced me one day – actually he sent me an email – and he said he wanted me to meet the guys because they wanted to discuss a business venture that involved beer. So I said, "Sounds good, what's the worst that can happen? I'll have dinner and some beers" ... With John I had a mutual connection, the band Kraftwerk. I knew he was a fan; my friend and I were huge fans; he was a huge fan, and although we had never met, we had this kind of a bond through some emails. So I knew that at least he would be a decent guy just because of that.

BSL: What was it about East Coast Beer Company that seemed like a good opportunity?
TP: When they told me what their plan was, basically doing this model, I was on board right away. Every homebrewer dreams of taking the next step. A lot of them find, if they're living in New Jersey, they've got to move to Colorado if they want to take the next step.

SBL: Like Charlie Papazian ...
TP: You gotta move away because it wasn't happening here. So this gave me the opportunity to go from doing 10-gallon homebrew batches to doing 15,500 gallons at a clip, which is pretty overwhelming.

BSL: You guys launched Beach Haus at the tail-end of last summer, and it was pretty popular at some of the festivals then. Talk a little about the R&D of that beer.
TP: The style of beer we were going to do was an accident. We were throwing around the idea of a name in email. John mentioned the words "classic American pilsner" as the name for the beer, and I replied that's a style of beer that no one is really doing.

BSL: Where did the recipe for Beach Haus come from?
TP: By reading some historical information, some older magazines that talked about (the style), and just trying find as much information from old recipes, about the breweries in Newark, the breweries in Brooklyn that were doing that kind of beer, we came up with the recipe for Beach Haus.

BSL: What were some of the early test batches like?
TP: I always do a two-step mash; regardless of the beer I'm doing, I always do a two-step mash. They say you don't need to, but maybe it can't hurt. Also I really think it helps with the head retention, which is obvious in a beer like Beach Haus, because the head just lasts forever. And not all the grains are malted the same way, even though they may be highly modified ... So the two-step mash really, I think, makes a difference, for anybody that's brewing at all.

What I was doing for some of our earlier test batches, my second step, the temperature was too low, and we were making beer that was close to like 7 percent (ABV), but still this light-colored, easy-drinking tasting beer that ends up getting you really wasted because the alcohol was too high. So we modified that second step so we had a more reasonable alcohol (content). But there weren't a lot of changes in the recipe, which is kinda cool.

BSL: How does this translate with Genesee, are they following your specs on this?
TP: Absolutely. We're very involved and they're very receptive. And they really want to make sure they give us what we want. And we do do a two-step with that because the classic American style dictates that you have to have a certain amount of corn. We use corn grits, not corn syrup, so there is a two-step ... the main part of the grain bill starts out at lower temperature while the grits are cooking, then they're added, and it makes that second step.

BSL: What does the corn add?
TP: It actually ferments out fully; it adds a little bit of dryness to (the beer).

BSL: When you were piloting this, you were using the corn?
TP: Yes, flaked maize. It was always part of the grain bill. There's a certain element of flavor that is added – subtle, very subtle, as far as what you taste.

BSL: You guys are in the business of making a beer that reaches a wide audience, but also at the same time you're making a beer that reaches people who are part of the craft beer wave. How does it appeal to those two groups?
TP: People that are into craft beers get it. It's such a pleasure to be at the beer fests and guys come up to the table with their tasting glass and say, "What do you got here?" And you tell them, Classic American Pilsner, and they look at you funny; their beer of choice is Belgian tripels, they have dubbels for breakfast, tripels for lunch, beer tough guys. They'd look at it and see a light-colored beer in front of them; they'd taste it, and then they'd have this look on their face, "Yeah, yeah, this is pretty good."

You'd see that reaction a lot. They all appreciate it for what it is, a style of they're not use to drinking because 10 years ago they stopped drinking pilsner beers when they discovered everything else, and they kinda forgot how good it could be. So when they try it now, people who haven't had it for a while, they respect it, they think it's good beer.

At the same time, they can also take it to other people's (homes), if they're going to visit, instead of bringing a bottle of wine, bring a sixpack of Beach Haus. It won't sit in the refrigerator in the back until the beer geek uncle comes by nine months later and drinks whatever's left over. It'll get drunk by the hosts; the host and hostess will enjoy it as well.

The beers that we make going forward will hopefully have the same level of drinkability, accessibility. We want to have a lot of people like it, and we don't want to have anything, to start out with – (like) our next product that's coming out – too over the top, too overwhelming. We want them to all go along well with food. We want them to be part of the meal, not the appetizer, not one of the courses in the meal, to go along with the meal.

BSL: And so now you're heading back down the path of research and development with an ale.
TP: An American pale ale, yes. Hopefully it will be a year-round (brew). My hope is that it has a really good hop flavor and aroma, with just enough bittering hops that you're drinking something that's a little bit more. But again, not overwhelming. I want it to have that nice floral finish, refreshing, appeal to hop heads but not be overwhelming in the beginning on the tongue.

BSL: We're talking about what kind of alcohol content then, around 5?
TP: Yeah about 5, less than 5 and half. We'll see; we're still tinkering.

BSL: How many incarnations have you produced, and what level of the process are you at?
TP: This is about the fifth different try. We're pretty close. We want to do it a few more times. Hopefully we'll get it sooner than later, of course, but we're not going to just say, "OK, we're done let's just get it out there." We have time now, since it's early in the year, to continue doing test batches. We'll do as many as we feel we need. But now we're zeroing in; we're certainly much closer.

BSL: What are some of the nuances in this process?
TP: Part of the issue is when you go to a different facility, what their yeast is going to do overall. I've done the test batches to be not relying heavily on the yeast.

BSL: You're using a fairly neutral American ale yeast then?
TP: White Labs 001.

BSL: When you go to Genesee, how do they handle the pilot brews?
TP: They'll analyze a sample in their lab and tell us more than we can ever imagine to know about the beer. They'll have the parameters in front of them, and we can go over each element of that.

BSL: How many trips have you made to Rochester?
TP: With Beach Haus we were up there four times before we actually brewed, and for our brewing we were there on the brew day. We were there again for a taste panel, and then we were there again for bottling. We've brewed more than once, so we're always driving up to Rochester; it's better now that the speed limit's faster than when I went to college. But still it's a long drive.

BSL: Which is the harder style to make? Do you think it's more forgiving to be developing an ale versus the pilsner?
TP: I wouldn't say forgiving, but I would say maybe less nerve-wracking. You still have to be as careful, but there's a little more leeway. It's a little more relaxed, because ales themselves are. I'm having fun with the variations (of the test batches), whereas when we did Beach Haus we didn't have any variations. We were always very strict about it.

BSL: You mentioned Summit hops for the ale. You chose that variety why?
TP: It's higher alpha, but you still have the citrus notes, but it has that lower cohumulone.

BSL: How will you know that you've got it, that you've nailed the ale recipe?
TP: Part of it will be, when I first drink it, even when it's still in primary fermentation, transferring to secondary, and maybe while it's doing a little bit of cold conditioning, try it each time and you'll kinda know. If you think of a certain flavor in your head before you drink it, and that matches, you'll kinda know.

But part of it, too, is all the other people who might try that test batch. If 20 other people try it, you can just tell when they're drinking it that they like it. If I know I like it, and 20 other people like it, then hopefully 20,000 people will like it.

This one will be more by committee ... If people who aren't craft beer drinkers like it and people who are craft beer drinkers like it, then you hit the mark. And when it happens we'll know.

Tun homebrew challenge winner

The winner is: Belgian tripel.

Vince Masciandaro and Evan Fritz, both members of the Barley Legal Homebrewers club, took top prize in the Tun Tavern brewpub's homebrewer contest, winning a chance to scale up their recipe to a commercial-size batch.

(That's Vince in the middle and Evan at right, both talking with Iron Hill head brewer Chris LaPierre at last year's Big Brew/Homebrew Day at Iron Hill-Maple Shade.)

Vince and Evan's Tun-made brew will go on tap at the Tun and be served at the Atlantic City beer festival April 1-2.

The two edged out a double porter entered by Andrew Tobisen and Greg VanGilder (2nd place) and a double red ale brewed by Robert Ochs and Betsey Ford (3rd place).

Beach Haus' splash & an ale for 2011

Contract brewer East Coast Beer Company notched a run of 600 barrels for the final four months of 2010, and the company is setting its sights on releasing an ale this year to join the lager that launched its brand.

Based in Point Pleasant, East Coast hit the Jersey beer scene last August with their Beach Haus pilsner (draft and bottle), produced under contract with Genesee Brewing in Rochester, New York. Beach Haus proved to be a beer that made an impression and quickly found favor among beer drinkers, even fans of exotic and hop-heavy brews.

Founder John Merklin says East Coast now has statewide reach with Beach Haus, and the 2010 production runs puts the company's pace "slightly ahead of where we wanted to be."

But the beer business is an uphill game, and John says there's still plenty of work to be done to build on that early success and market splash.

"Our distribution continues to expand, and we pretty much have the entire state of New Jersey covered. We are having lots of regional success in Cape May and Atlantic counties, which were just added to our portfolio in December," John says.

Last week, the East Coast crew began some some final phase work on the recipe for a year-round ale to join the company's pilsner label toward late summer. Tom Przyborowski, who had been doing brewing consulting work for East Coast and helped develop the pilsner recipe, is now working with the company full time.

'"Tom studied under Dave Hoffmann (of Climax Brewing) for a number of years, and we think he provides a neat aspect of New Jersey brewing legacy to our mix," John says.

Roofs, River Horse & Mark Twain ...

A Mark Twain moment at River Horse Brewing in Lambertville ...

By that we mean, when Twain heard the New York Journal had published his obituary, he commented: The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated. And so it goes with reports of a partial roof collapse at River Horse brewery in Lambertville – the incident has been oversold by the headlines.

Owner Chris Walsh says rain and melting snow did drain down onto a portion of flat roof in the center part of the building above some fermenter tanks, weakening it and causing it to sag Monday evening. No one was hurt.

Yes, the fire department showed up, the water had to be drained, and today became a day to catch up on brewery paperwork and not production, Chris says. The affected area has been shored up and will be fixed, and Lambertville officials will reinspect the place.

The incident has made for slow-news-day fodder, with Philly TV, among other news agencies, sniffing around for a story. Meanwhile reports like the one Monday evening by mycentraljersey.com, which did the journalism no-no of posting unsubstantiated police radio chatter about the building sagging and in danger of collapse, are as Twain put it, greatly exaggerated.

Chris says the brewery expects to be back in production about Friday, finishing orders for Belgian Double Wit. Coming in the middle of winter, the brief shutdown won't set production back too much. "This time of year, there's no problem on the orders. If this was June I'd be freaking out," he says.

The brewery posted photos on its Facebook page around noon today, as well as a word of thanks to the Lambertville fire department.

Around the world in 100 beers & Jersey, too

Jersey-made brews pouring in Secaucus on Saturday.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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