A planned brewpub & blessings through beer

Just two years ago, word that the Garden State was getting a new brewery was enough to make it seem like the Earth had moved.

After all, Iron Hill brewpub was the first craft brewer to open in the state after a 10-year drought, and that opening came just three years after the loss of well-regarded Heavyweight Brewing.

But that was then. This is now.

And 2009 is starting to seem more like a whisper compared to the shout that is this year's pace of new brewery openings and breweries in development: Kane Brewing, Carton Brewing, Cape May Brewing, Great Blue Brewing – those are just the ones to be licensed since January; there six more craft beer-makers in development, from a production brewery to nanobrewers to a brewpub.

Count among those in development Laetare Brewing Company, the brainchild of Brian Donohoe, the Rev. Brian Woodrow and Casey Cavanagh, whose project on the drawing board is a brewpub that would pour Belgian and Irish ales, among other styles, and serve a menu of burgers, woodfired pizzas and steaks.

But they also envision Laetare – Latin for "rejoice" – as something else: a place where beer can bring some spirituality to people's lives through conversation, counting blessings and enjoying the things in life. “Crafting exceptional beer with the intention of bringing people together in an atmosphere of celebration!" is their tagline.

"We're hoping to show that it can be enjoyed in a spiritual sense, in a family and friends atmosphere," says Donohoe. "We want beer to bring people together, not have the end goal of just becoming drunk."

"Laetare Brewing Company is close to striking out into the drinking world in effort to re-educate folks about a lost art, rejoicing," says the Rev. Woodrow, a homebrewer-priest and parochial vicar at St. Theresa Roman Catholic Church in Little Egg Harbor. "In my ministry, I come across so many folks who are down on their luck and unfortunately turn to the drink as a sort of self-medication.

"The drink is a gift from God and like many of his gifts, we tend to overdo it a bit. Enjoying a beer for the sake of enjoying a beer seems to be a lost art. It's our hope to change that, one fine drink at a time."

The Rev. Woodrow, who has known Donohoe since Donohoe's senior year at St. Rose High School in Belmar, has supplied ample guidance to the project. In all, there are six people involved in the project, but Cavanagh and Donohoe, both students at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, are the ones taking the lead.

Hailing from Manasquan, Donohoe, 22, is majoring in hotel and restaurant management and will graduate from James Madison in December. Cavanagh, 21, of Frederick, Maryland, is majoring in graphic design and will graduate next May. (Cavanagh created the company's chi-rho logo.)

Right now the project is in the very early stages, says Donohoe, who spoke from Washington, D.C., by phone on Monday. The goal is to have a location chosen by this Thanksgiving, with an eye toward a December 2012 opening. Their preference for a location is Monmouth County, with Asbury Park an early possibility. (They have also considered Belmar. The company's location for now is given as Spring Lake, owing to some investors in that area who have signed on.)

Laetare's lineup of brews would include St. Patrick's Irish Red (a tribute that resulted from spring break trip to Ireland), Chapter XL Belgian Ale (a nod to St. Benedict and the guidelines for imbibing), an American-style IPA, a black IPA (called Man in Black, à la priests' garb), and a nut brown ale or kölsch.

Nearly a year so far in development, the brewpub project is an extension of Donohoe's interest in homebrewing and his crossing paths with Cavanagh after a performance at James Madison by the four-piece rock/alt-country band that Cavanagh fronts (he plays guitar and seven-string banjo). Donohoe says he introduced himself, and the conversation touched on music homebrewing and craft beer.

A homebrewer for 2 1/2 years, Donohoe learned the craft from his father, a hobby brewer whose beers were made using malt extract. Donohoe's quest for more brewing information led him to all-grain brewing. Brewing beer, or simply enjoy some craft beer, and enjoying conversation with friends became an activity that followed Sunday Mass, Donohoe says.

At school in Virginia, Saturdays took on a similar themes: brewing beer or just enjoying beer and conversation, often to a soundtrack of Cavanagh and his band playing. Those Saturdays "got more people into craft beer and brewing," Donohoe says.

Ultimately, Donohoe says, it all became an inspiration – Laetare.

No more runner-up; this time he's champ

July in New Jersey doesn't resolve to August without a new state homebrew champion being crowned.

This year Dave Pobutkiewicz lays claim to the title of Best of Show in the New Jersey Sate Fair homebrewer competition, taking home the honor with a helles bock that the Pompton Lakes resident will get to reproduce for the taps at Krogh's brewpub in Sparta as his top prize. (Dave's victory was announced over the weekend on the Facebook page of Sussex County United Brewers and Alchemists homebrew club.)

This bock is a stalwart brew that's taken Dave a few places, notably the Great American Beer Festival in Denver as a finalist in the Samuel Adams LongShot homebrew contest, back in 2007. (That's Dave pictured with Jim Koch from Boston Beer Company.)

Brewed at the start of 2011, Dave says the beer (6.75% ABV) came together perfectly. Not that it hasn't before. Dave's a brewing zealot, meticulously keeping notes on his many brews. (Just this past weekend, he brewed a cream ale and an IPA hopped solely with East Kent Goldings). Members of his beer club, Defiant Homebrewers, also thought Dave nailed it with his latest take on his helles, and they've sampled enough incarnations of the bock to know.

"Everybody was like, 'This is the one,' " Dave says.

Dave's no stranger to the State Fair contest – for years, he's routinely finished somewhere in the winner's circle, including runner-up to the top prize. But this is his first Best of Show, and with the 2011 title under his belt, there's plenty of satisfaction.

"I can mark this one off the list," he says.

Yet, it's the LongShot contest that is sort of a Holy Grail for him. Four of the six homebrews he entered in the State Fair contest also were submitted in this year's LongShot competition. (His helles, an ESB, Oktoberfest, and Belgian strong dark were entered in both contests, while a nearly 2-year-old 12% barleywine and a hefeweizen rounded out his fair contest submission.)

Alas, a chance at LongShot glory, to have his recipe reproduced by Boston Beer for a national release, eluded him this year.

"The LongShot I try really hard for," Dave says. "I've been there before. I gotta get back there; I gotta repeat on that."

Climax fires up new bottler

An inside look at the bottler acquired by Climax Brewing.

For the first time in its 15-year history, the Roselle Park-based maker of ales and lagers began putting its beers in 12-ounce bottles and six-packs, a move that for the most part retires the 64-ounce growlers that were the brewery's longtime shelf presence at packaged goods stores.

After a month of set-up and testing of the bottler it bought from Fegley's Brew Works (Allentown and Bethlehem, Pa.), owner Dave Hoffmann launched the new packaging last week with a run of his India pale ale (a top-seller for Climax).

Dave already has label approvals for his nut brown ale and a golden ale, so those will hit 12-ounce bottles soon, as will seasonals like Dave's eponymous Hoffmann Oktoberfest. Dave's also expanding his reach, lining up a distributor for South Jersey.

Port 44 for sale

Port 44 Brew Pub in Newark is being offered for sale.

Owner John Feeley said in a brief phone interview Tuesday that he listed his Commerce Street brewpub a month ago. According to a listing at loopnet.com, the asking price is $2.1 million.

Feeley, who is also a lawyer, says he was unable to devote the time it takes to operate the business and now wants to find a buyer who can run it and offer quality beer.

The brewpub opened in April 2010, featuring guest tap beers. It was one of two new craft breweries to open in the state last year. (New Jersey Beer Company in nearby North Bergen is the other one.)

Following a grand opening that August attended by Newark's mayor, Corey Booker, Port 44 began pouring a lineup of house beers made by brewer Chris Sheehan.

Test brews go smoothly at Carton

An inside look at the test-run brew days at Carton Brewing.

Augie Carton, who founded the Atlantic Highlands brewery with his cousin Chris, says the two beers – a generously hopped session pale ale à la kölsch yeast and a double IPA brewed July 17th and 18th, respectively – are on track: "30 barrels of each beer bubbling away."

There are still some minor details to get squared away at the brewery, but an early August launch is the hope of the crew at Carton, which brewed those two initial beers under a temporary license from the state.

NOTE: Special thanks to Mike Kivowitz from New Jersey Craft Beer for an assist on the video.

Calendar note: Lions, tigers & beers, oh my

A menagerie of Jersey animal-named craft breweries at this Saturday's Summer Ale Festival at the Philadelphia Zoo.

Flying Fish ... River Horse ... Cricket Hill, plus Triumph (think of its Pennsylvania brewpubs for this one) and Climax Brewing are on the card for the fundraiser festival, now in its third year. (Alas, bad news if you don't have a ticket: it's sold out.)

The event is a special one for Climax owner Dave Hoffmann. Dave's a huge fan and supporter of zoos (the big cats are a personal favorite of his) and enjoys putting zoo tours on his itinerary whenever he travels.

"I've been to so many zoos ... San Diego, I went to a couple of really big zoos in Europe, couple of big zoos in Canada. I've been all over the place, lots of zoos," he says.

These days, Dave does fewer festivals than he did when he launched his Roselle Park-based brewery 15 years ago. But he jumped at the invitation to be part of the brewery lineup for last year's edition of the zoo festival and again this year.

He gives the Philadelphia Zoo high marks.

"At the Philly zoo you can get real close to the animals, like the big cats, the gorillas. Whereas in most of the other zoos, they're kinda far away. It's a really good zoo, very well kept," he says.

Brew trifecta for Kane

Three brews in the fermenters at New Jersey's newest craft beer-maker, Kane Brewing.

The Monmouth County brewery broke the seal* on its brewhouse earlier this month with a Belgian single (a blonde ale) dosed with a Trappist ale yeast from East Coast Yeast.

After a short production break to fine-tune some of the brewery's control systems (i.e. gylcol), brewer Clay Brackley and founder Michael Kane fired up the kettle at the end of last week, brewing an American pale ale and a West Coast IPA.

"The first brew day was little longer, since were getting used to everything. The second and third days went smooth. We hit our gravities and volumes," Michael says. "The flavor profiles are looking good."

For beer geeks and the curious, German pils malt, some Vienna malt and wheat make up the grain bill for the 5.2 percent ABV Belgian blonde that's likely to be just one batch this summer but is expected return next year as Kane's summer seasonal. It's hopped with Styrian and Saaz.

The brew also serves as a step-up for the Trappist ale yeast, since it will get used in an upcoming big Belgian brew intended for the fall season taps, although the actual style hasn't been decided yet.

Michael traced the specifics of the second brew, the American pale ale, describing its grain bill as 2-row with some Munich malt, a touch of rye, and crystal 77, and hopped with Columbus and Hallertau in the boil and finished with Cascade and Centennial. You can expect the "C" hops for the dry-hopping.

"We hope (the rye) will add a little spiciness, more than you get with the average pale ale," Michael says. The brew will be around 5.5 percent ABV.

The third beer features pils, 2-row, cara-pils and crystal 44 malts, angling for a lighter color and drier finishing IPA at 6.5 percent ABV. "We weren't going for a super malty IPA, but we wanted to make sure there was some body to it," Michael says.

The brew was hopped with Columbus and Chinook in the boil, with later additions of Citra, Ahtanum and Centennial. Michael says it will be dry-hopped with some combination of those varieties.

This year has been an especially active one for craft brewery start-ups in the Garden State, with three licensed so far. Right now Kane Brewing is the state's newest craft brewer, a title it's not likely to hold for long, as Carton Brewing in Atlantic Highlands moves closer to licensing and its official launch. That could come sometime next month.

Calling Ocean Township home, Kane occupies industrial park space not far from where Heavyweight Brewing made its celebrated artisanal beers before closing shop five years ago. The closing left Basil T's brewpub in Red Bank as Monmouth County's sole craft brewery.

Basil's opened its doors in 1996 – a big year for craft brewery start-ups in the state – and Red Bank in particular has been at the forefront of craft beer in New Jersey, with the long-defunct Red Bank Brewery and its craft lagers part of that history. (Departing Basil's brewer Gretchen Schmidhausler got her start with Red Bank Brewery.)

In addition, Triumph Brewing once eyed the artsy town for a second location. (Triumph opened in Princeton in 1995 and followed that up years later with brewpubs in New Hope, Pa., and Philadelphia).

Triumph is again considering a presence in Red Bank. If that comes to fruition, Monmouth County could end up with four craft breweries, more than any other county in the state, and outpacing its neighbors to the north, Middlesex County and Essex County, by one. (Middelesex County is home to brewpubs JJ Bitting, Harvest Moon and Uno Chicago Grill & Brewery. Essex County has craft brewers Cricket Hill, Gaslight brewpub and Port 44 Brew Pub. It's also home to the outsized mainstream brewer Budweiser in Newark.)

*Figuratively speaking, of course. Not an equipment malfunction.

Black Belgian IPA, would you believe?

Another collaboration beer by South Jersey brewing neighbors Iron Hill and Flying Fish.

The previous one was a chocolate coffee stout, and this one isn't getting any lighter: Black Belgian IPA, a collision of styles that reflects a shared tongue-in-cheek nod from brewers Casey Hughes (Flying Fish) and Chris LaPierre (Iron Hill) to the trend of collaboration beers.

"I kinda like the idea of collaborations. It's always fun to brew with your friend, but I've always thought that they're more about marketing than anything else," Chris says. "I can't say that there are too many collaboration beers that I've had that I see they came up with something that either of the brewers wouldn't have come up with on their own.

"We both think they're kinda gimmicky, but we also think they're a lot of fun to do, which is why we're doing it. And because we think they're gimmicky, we decided to throw in every gimmick we could think of, and two of the big trends out there right now are black versions of beers that aren't usually black and Belgian versions of beers that aren't usually Belgian. So we thought we would do a Black Belgian IPA. And to make it even more trendy we're going to barrel age some of it."

But to be sure, the brew won't be all about parody.

Like last January's mashup of IH's Luca Brasi coffee stout and FF's Exit 13 chocolate stout, a collaboration borne more out of serendipity than actual planning (Chris was grabbing some yeast one day last fall at Flying Fish when Casey gave him a sample of Exit 13 that tasted like a natural fit with a coffee stout in Iron Hill's serving tanks) you can expect the results of the next crossover beer to put flavor ahead of gimmicks and trends.

There's just too much award-winning brewers' sense heading into it.

"We already know that Belgian yeast character works well with American hops. I do a few American-Belgos here; Casey won a gold medal with his American-Belgo (Exit 4). We also know that hops will work with black beers. We do a black IPA here that's very popular. Hops work with black beers and Belgian black beers work together, too. We're kinda combining all three of those, we know two of those things will work together and think three of them will together as well."

Unlike the chocolate-coffee stout collaboration, which was a firkin filled with a blend of beers that then got a little extra treatment (vanilla beans, cocoa nibs and Belgian yeast to prime it), the next brew will be designed from the ground up and will be full batch for Iron Hill's tanks (think 7 to 10 barrels).

The brew will be at least the second collaboration this year for IH: Chris did a saison with his girlfriend Suzanne Woods, of Sly Fox (although it wasn't a true Sly Fox collaboration) and third overall since opening in Maple Shade.

And it looks like this will be Flying Fish's third collaboration. Exit 6 Wallonian Rye, which came out a little over a year ago, was done with the folks at Stewart's Brewing in Delaware.

NOTE: The Black Belgian IPA gets brewed July 27th and will be released on Aug. 27th in conjunction with Iron Hill's IPA event. Chris has been been saving a quarter keg of every IPA he has made since about January and plans to tap eight of them that day, plus some FF Exit 16 Wild Rice Double IPA (a brew that debuted around March 2010).

Carton Brewing fires up kettle in test run

Carton Brewing christened its 15-barrel brewhouse Sunday with back-to-back brews of a not-for-sale American pale ale called Boat Beer that, along with an amped-up IPA, will make up the brace of beers the Atlantic Highlands brewery is targeting for launch.

Another round of brewing was planned for Monday, with back-to-back runs of the double IPA called 077XX. (The name is a play on Monmouth County ZIP codes).

"Boat is our session pale ale: kolsch yeast, German malt bill and American hops. It's a 4.2 (percent ABV) session beer hopped within an inch of its life to keep it interesting for the whole session," says co-founder Augie Carton, explaining the brew that was first in the kettle.

The beer is bittered with Crystal and Nugget hops, with later additions of Galaxy, Citra, Cascade and Nugget again.

"We started (brewing) this morning. We just added our hops in the boil, so we're about an hour out from finishing it. And then we're going to do it again. Thirty barrel fermenters, 15-barrel brewhouse, so we're doing that twice to fill the fermenter," Augie says. "We did a water brew yesterday (Saturday) to make sure all the seals worked. But this is it. This is a first, true 15-barrel brew of this recipe that we've pilot-brewed probably 30 times."

The two days of beer-making were allowed under a temporary permit from state regulators, who granted the special permission so Carton could put the brewing equipment through the paces while a representative from manufacturer Newlands Systems was available to provide technical guidance for brewer Jesse Ferguson. (That's Jesse up top and at left; Augie is pictured at far right in photo below.)

The expected 60 barrels of beer from the brewing sessions won't be commercially available until the state officially issues Carton its limited brewery license. Augie expects that to happen sometime next month.

The brewery is awaiting installation of its kegging equipment and cold storage unit. The latter is expected to be installed by the end of the week. In addition, the brewery is also waiting for local officials to give a final blessing of the brewery building renovations.

Despite those unfinished details, Carton Brewing is on the cusp of becoming the Garden State's 24th craft brewery, following a run of six breweries coming online in New Jersey in just the past two years.

Two breweries opened last year – New Jersey Beer Company (North Bergen) and Port 44 Brew Pub (Newark), while 2011 has so far seen nanobrewers Great Blue (Somerset County) and Cape May Brewing getting licensed, and the larger production brewer Kane Brewing (Ocean Township) launching this month.

Three more nano breweries – Flounder Brewing in Hillsborough, Pinelands Brewing in Egg Harbor City and Tuckahoe Brewing – are in development, as is larger production brewer Turtle Stone Brewing down in Vineland.

The reality is, 2011 could wind up as New Jersey's biggest year ever for craft brewery start-ups – eight – should all of the projects in development come online behind those breweries that were licensed this year.

Right now, 1996 is the year with the most start-ups: six.

One for the chef

Some quick calendar notes:

Toms River brewpub Artisan's holds its mug club dinner Friday, beginning at 7 p.m., with a lineup of six beers, including a weizenbock that marks the first time ever brewer Dave Hoffmann has made that style for public consumption (Dave also owns Climax Brewing in Roselle Park).

There's also a really exceptional pils on tap, and as much as we'd like to keep talking up the beers, it's fitting to give some credit to Artisan's chef Steve Farley.

Steve puts together a really kickin' spread for this gig, including a buttermilk fried chicken that will have you ignoring your doctor's warnings about fried foods. Not because it's guiltless, but because it's incredibly good. (Think Thomas Keller of Ad Hoc fame – that kind of chicken).

So go for the beer, stay for the food.

Meanwhile, Saturday in Maple Shade Iron Hill celebrates its second anniversary with a bourbon-barrel aged winter warmer (kept four months in the barrel), appropriately dubbed Christmas in July, and a second generation of the Sorachi Ace-hopped Rising Sun, this time a double IPA called Second Rising and dosed with enough Sorachi for an emperor.

(One of the cool things Iron Hill has done with this beer is use it to raise money for earthquake/tsunami relief in Japan. Sometimes, it's not about the beer's flavor, but what the beer can do to help people.)

Iron Hill gets a little fancier on July 27th with a beer dinner that also salutes the brewpub's two years in New Jersey. The brewpub was founded by three Jersey guys who launched in Delaware for business reasons but had always wanted to be in the Garden State.

Two years ago, they got their homecoming.

Extra capacity for Trap Rock

A much-needed capacity boost for Trap Rock.

A 7-barrel fermenter is to scheduled to be installed next month to help the Berkeley Heights brewpub keep up with current demand and give brewer Charlie Schroeder some flexibility with Trap Rock's seasonal brews.

The new tank will also allow him to create a lineup of specialty brews for take-home sales.

Like a lot of beer-makers these days, Trap Rock is finding it tough to keep up with demand for its eight taps (including a hand pump) and has watched its production numbers climb as craft beer's popularity continues to surge.

Trap Rock cranked out 475 barrels of beer last year, an increase of 40 barrels from 2009. (The brewpub did 425 barrels in 2006.) That may not seem like a big figure, but Trap Rock has a 7-barrel brewing system with an annual capacity of 500 barrels. So the brewery is nearly maxed out.

Some more stats: The brewpub sold 3,594 half-gallon growlers in 2010 and is running about 100 jugs ahead of that figure so far this year. Trap Rock sold 3,050 growlers in 2009 and 2,640 the year before.

The extra fermenter, which will supplement the brewery's two 7-barrel tanks and three 15-barrel tanks, will allow Charlie to brew an extra two batches of beer per month.

"I'm brewing six to eight times a month. I need to be at eight to 10 times a month just to keep up with current demand," he says.

The additional tank will allow for monthly brews of Hathor Red lager, a beer that has been made with ale yeast on occasion to facilitate faster turnaround and not tie up tank space. Charlie says the new fermenter will prove critical for working the brewpub's Oktoberfest seasonal into next month's production schedule, not to mention allow for big beers like barleywines, strong ales, Belgian triples and imperial stouts.

Those big beers figure into Trap Rock's plans to produce a lineup of bottled specialty beers. Charlie says the brewpub plans to buy a single-head bottle filler for that task.

"I get requests to make these beers all the time and have to tell people I just don't have the room to do it," he says. "How many bottles am I going to sell? I don't know, but taking home a growler of barleywine is not ideal. You want to (drink) that when you want to, not that night or the next day."

Cape May Brewing opens doors to public

A week after supplying its first draft account, nano-sized beer-maker Cape May Brewing welcomed the public with its first open house, a four-hour meet-and-greet on Saturday that featured beer sampling and a tour of the brewery's facility nestled in an industrial park-like building alongside Cape May County Airport.

More than a dozen craft beer enthusiasts paid a call on the state's smallest beer-maker and were treated to tastes of a one-off malty brown ale-like dark IPA, and the brewery's launch beer, a deep-golden IPA informally called Jump The Jetty.

Cape May Brewing kicked off July by picking up a tap handle at Cabanas, an oceanfront bar and grill, with Jump the Jetty, which is actually registered with beer industry regulators as Cape May IPA.

Located just a bottle cap's toss from the brewery, Cabanas (on Beach Avenue in Cape May) quickly blew through the IPA over the Fourth of July holiday weekend but is now pouring the beer again thanks to a second sixtel delivery.

Notching nine brew sessions since getting its state license in mid-May, Cape May Brewing is right now the Garden State's only producing nanobrewer. Somerset County nano Great Blue, licensed in March, has been idled with some technical problems with its brewing equipment.

Cape May Brewing cranks out 25 gallons for fermentation, a production rate that for now has the brewery at about one-third of its capacity. The batch volume is produced via combined brews on a horizontal brewsculpture fashioned from repurposed 15-gallon beer kegs, a setup not unlike what you would find in a homebrewer's garage. For its sixtels, the brewery relies on Cornelius kegs, saving money by forgoing the purchase of more traditional kegging equipment.

"It's a brewery, but it's a very small brewery," says Ryan Krill, who's a partner in Cape May Brewing with his dad, Robert, and college friend Chris Henke, an engineer by profession who built the company's brewing rig. "We're not trying to take over the world, and we're not trying to get nuts. It's an affordable business plan."

Ryan says the trio were pleased with Saturday's open house turnout, which had them filling growlers of both IPAs, selling pint glasses and logoed baseball caps, and discussing how the brewery is trying to establish itself.

"I didn't really know how many people would show up today. The only advertising we did was put it on Facebook," Ryan says. "Everything for us so far has been a slow release, a soft open at Cabanas, see how the beer's received ... A lot of people want to carry us, but the whole plan is to take our time, be slow, feel out the beer business, see what we can get ourselves into."

Ryan explained how Cape May Brewing will pace its output: "We're just doing Cabanas now. After about a month, we'll have a good feel for how much they need and how much we need at the tasting room. After that point we'll see how much extra we have, then we can work on new accounts. But we're not going to try and get a new account and then find out we can't supply a new account."

Chris adds: "As we've been saying, it's just figuring it out. We go slowly so we don't get ourselves in a situation where people are yelling at us for not keeping up the supply."

As far as the beers go, if you've had the opportunity to taste Jump The Jetty, you can expect some tweaks to dial up the hop character. The ale trends toward a milder take on IPA, less bitterness up front. "It's good, but it's not exactly where we want it to be ultimately," Ryan says. "The next batches have been hopped up more."

The dark IPA, likewise, sidesteps some of the more traditional hallmarks of the style, and answers some of those variations with a toasty character.

The beer is the result of attempting something off the beaten path with ingredients on hand. "We had an extra day to brew. We said let's brew something different – before that we had four batches of IPA – so we said let's try something different," Chris says. "So we collected all the hops we had in our freezer ... doubled up on our dark malt, which is crystal 50, and we got a very interesting beer.

"We really don't know what to call it. I've been calling it dark IPA because the base was kind of an IPA, but they were older hops so we didn't get the extraction that we thought we'd get out of the hops, bitterness-wise. But you do get the dark malt; that hits you at the end. You get that dark, toasty feel to it," Chris says.

NOTE: Check with the brewery's Website or Facebook page for future open houses.

Action in Trenton talk topic at Guild fest

Most of us would rather drink beer than talk about what the state says you can do or can't do, as far as brewing and selling it go. But proposals to make New Jersey a friendlier place for its growing, 15-year-old craft beer industry do warrant some discussion.

Continued discussion, at that.

As in getting out the message about why brewers are pinning their hopes to the legislation that would modernize rules written back in the early 1990s, when microbrewing looked more like a passing fad than a budding industry that could generate tax revenues and create jobs. That's what the interview subjects in the video discuss.

For craft beer enthusiasts, the changes would mean more choices choices in the marketplace, since brewpubs would be able to sell beer at locations other than their restaurant-breweries. For the brewers who already bottle, the changes would, among other things, let them sell more beer directly to folks who stop by for brewery tours.

Meanwhile, the legislation, introduced in May in the state Senate and Assembly, has picked up an additional sponsor: Sen. Anthony R. Bucco, a Republican from Morris County.

Keep the discussion going.

One more sponsor for beer legislation

The legislation to modernize New Jersey's regulations for its craft beer industry has picked up another sponsor.

Assemblywoman Joan Quigley, a Democrat from Hudson County, is the latest lawmaker to get behind A3969, which with companion bill S2870, would give the state's craft brewers some business freedoms already enjoyed by Garden State wine-makers and craft brewers from surrounding states.

Quigley, who serves the state's 32nd legislative district, counts among her constituents production brewer New Jersey Beer Company, which is located in North Bergen.

With the process of making laws, there's strength in numbers – the more sponsors, the greater the chance bills will be posted for floor votes in each legislative chamber, and the better their prospects for passage. Quigley is the fourth assembly member to sign on, joining Craig Coughlin, Jon Bramnick and Patrick Diegnan Jr. The Senate version right now has two sponsors: Tom Kean Jr. and Donald Norcross.

To recap, the legislation would:

• Remove the arbitrary two-brewpub limit per owner. For instance, say you already own the Ship Inn; you can open one more brewpub and that's it. No matter how savvy of a business person you are or how many jobs you pledge to create, or how much you vow to buy from local suppliers, you max out at two. How many other businesses can you think of that the state limits you to a mere two locations?
• Allow small breweries to sell beer directly to consumers from their brewery locations. (Right now, breweries can sell two six-packs or two growlers, that's it.)
• Allow small brewers to sell their product at 10 locations across the state directly to consumers. This relates to BYOB restaurants. Wineries already have this privilege, and it hasn't hurt bars or packaged goods stores (the former can always put the beer on tap or stock the bottles; the latter can probably price competitively.)
• Allow small breweries and brew pubs to offer samples to consumers both at their breweries or off-site, such as at charity events and festivals.
• Allow brewpubs to sell their beer at other bars and restaurants that they own but do not have a brewery on-site, yet have a retail consumption license.
• Allow brewpubs to sell their beer off premise, through distributors, in the same manner as production breweries. Imagine going to Canal's and finding your favorite Bittings, Gaslight or Tun Tavern brew on the shelf, or laying hands on an Iron Hill brew at a store in North Jersey. If you need a clear example for this, think of Pennsylvania's Sly Fox, which has brewery-restaurants and also does production brewing. Think Sly Fox again, because a diversified revenue stream (as opposed to relying on just foot traffic into the establishment for your revenue, like Garden State brewpubs have to) makes for a healthy company. Which is why Sly Fox just announced plans to triple their production capacity (yeah, it means shutting the Royersford restaurant-brewery, but they'll be opening a bigger production brewery.)
• Increase the amount of craft beer that both production breweries and brewpubs could produce annually.

A chat with Kane Brewing's Clay Brackley

It's beginning to look like a stretch run at Kane Brewing in Monmouth County.

Floor work is finished, and the brewhouse, fermenters, and bright tanks that arrived months ago have been set in place.

Founder Michael Kane expects electrical and plumbing work to be largely finished this week, setting the stage for necessary local inspections and final inspection by the state. The current forecast is for brewing by the end of June (barring any hitches with inspections).

Since late March, when he arrived in Ocean Township to take the job as head brewer at Kane, Clay Brackley has been conducting pilot brews (among other tasks), testing both malts (brands and varieties) and yeast strains, resolving some quality preferences that will be crucial to Kane's inaugural batches of beer (think American IPA) and beyond.

Clay, a Nevada native who homebrewed while he studied forestry in college, came to Kane via a somewhat circuitous path: Nevada (BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse chain), Alaska (head brewer at Sleeping Lady brewpub in Anchorage) and Pennsylvania (Victory Brewing).

Michael describes Clay's fit, aside from his obvious brewing experience, as something of a shared vision, an understanding of what Kane Brewing should be in New Jersey's craft beer market.

"We were trying to find someone who would fit in well with what we wanted to do ... someone who had the same interest in the style of beer we're going to be making and seemed to really enjoy brewing beer and was really into the craft beer scene and had the energy we're looking for," Michael says.

For his part, Clay says his time in Nevada taught him the nuts and bolts of large-scale beer-making, instilling in him what makes for best practices in a brewery. Alaska, rich in beer culture and ironically a place where you could get craft and import brands unavailable in Reno, was where he began hitting his stride as a brewer. (It also landed him in the winner's circle of the Great Alaska Beer & Barley Wine Festival.) Pennsylvania was a brief layover in his return to the lower 48, and Victory Brewing in Downingtown, Pa., imparted some important lessons from an automated brewery. But at the same time, Clay notes, it separated him from that certain intimacy with the product that a craft brewer experiences.

Clay, who just turned 30 last week, recently took some time to chat and talk about his brewing experiences and his path to New Jersey.

BSL: What got you into brewing?
CB: I started to make beer in college to save money. I liked craft beer from the beginning. When I was younger, I remember tasting my dad's Coors Light or Budweiser and I thought it was terrible. I thought all beer was bad until I got a taste of some Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, some hoppier beers and some English beers.

I liked them, but it's really hard to afford $8.99 or $6.99, $7.99 a six-pack when you're in college and just scraping by. I found out you could spend like 22 bucks on ingredients and make five gallons of beer. Sure, it takes time and effort. I thought it was fun at the time and started doing it and got the brewing bug. It's like people who love to cook. You learn how to do something, you love to do it and you keep doing it.

BSL: And then, perhaps, on grander scales.
CB: I never really thought I would ever be a professional brewer. When I was in college (University of Nevada, Reno) I went for forest and range management. I just thought this is a dream job, this is something that would never happen ... I never knew how I could get into it. I'd even talked to some of the brewpubs, and their brewers had been there for years, and they weren't going anywhere. So I was like, 'I can't work there, that guy's not quitting.'

BSL: But you did get in the door, at BJ's. Talk a little about that first paid gig at a commercial brewery. How did you land the job?
CB: They had a little hiring thing when they first opening the BJs, it was mostly for restaurant people. I went to the restaurant hiring lady, I said, 'Look, I already have a job, I don't need a job ... I really love making beer, I want to learn more about making beer. I want to volunteer to work for the brewery, who do I talk to?' She got me in contact with (brewmaster) Dan Pederson.

At the time I was making pretty decent money; I was actually in the restaurant industry as a sous chef. It was a good job because I didn't have to work a lot of hours. I made good money and it worked well with my class schedule. (Dan) was offering me a Monday through Friday, 40-hour job, which was actually a pay cut at the end of the month when I looked at it. I was like, 'This is going to be a struggle,' but I thought it was an opportunity I couldn't pass up.

About three years into it, I moved from just basically a grunt assistant not really knowing what was going on, to actually running the brewhouse, just like the brewmaster. They were so busy dealing with the paperwork and the corporate stuff – logistics of getting certain beers to certain markets and the taxes. I was just basically doing what they told me to do on the brewhouse.

BSL: What was their capacity?
CB: We did around 27,000 barrels a year. They kept growing and growing. The facility was a 50-barrel brewhouse, 100-barrel fermenters. It was all draft-only, so there was quick turnaround.

BSL: What were some of the beers?
CB: Piranha Pale Ale ... the Brewhouse Blonde was a kölsch. We did Jeremiah Red, which was a high-gravity Scottish/red ale. Tatonka Stout, which is an imperial stout, and then we did some seasonals; we did a hefeweizen ...

BSL: At what point did you get to Alaska?
CB: I was working there (at BJ's), and I had the experience, but the pay scale didn't go up unless you went and became a brewmaster, and there was no opportunity within that company to advance ... I really got tired of scraping by. You can only survive on $9.50 an hour for so long before you're like, 'Why did I go to school?' And student loans were coming due. I was like, 'If I'm going to do this brewing thing, I gotta do it, I can't just stay here. I would have to quit and get another job.' ... So I started looking on ProBrewer.com and saw an opportunity up in Alaska for a head brewer. They offered me a lot better money, also the ability to have creative control, to make a bunch of beer and see what I could do on my own. I just went up there and took over.

BSL: This was a brewpub, right?
CB: Sleeping Lady Brewing Company was the brewery, and the brewpub was called Snow Goose Restaurant (in Anchorage). It's kind of a remote area in Alaska. So they just took homebrewers that had experience. It's not like you can just tap into the local brewing community and find somebody from another state. They were kinda just picking with what they had; so basically they had homebrewers – smart dudes that made good beer – but they really weren't trained on how to operate the systems properly.

BSL: What challenges were you faced with working at a new place?
CB: When I started, I didn't have any training from the previous brewer. I basically started and three days later I was brewing. I saw a lot of things that were kind of jury-rigged, kind of just put together without someone who'd seen it done by professionals before.

For instance, dry-hopping. Normally, at a large production brewery you would dry-hop in your conical fermenter because the cone allows a lot of the hops to drop out, and then you can transfer off of that. They had dry-hopped in a serving tank without a standpipe. They basically took large bags of hops and threw them in the bright tank. This was actually hooked up on their draft lines to send up to the restaurant. I looked at the draft line one day and it was empty – and there's supposed to be 3 or 4 barrels of beer in this tank. One of the big balls of hops had rolled in front of the bottom of the tank and clogged it. There was beer in there that couldn't get out. So I had to open it up, and there was all this beer I had to dump and all these bags of hops I had to throw out. That was just one instance. There were all kinds of things. That's what I did up in Alaska – I just applied the stuff I had learned at BJ's to this brewpub.

BSL: So you tightened up their practices, put them on a better footing as far as brewery management went?
CB: Yeah, I got some decent paperwork going on, started doing (yeast) cell counts on all our beers, got a clean fermenting yeast, we were pitching with the right amount of oxygen, we were keeping everything clean. I don't even know how they sanitized their loop from the heat exchanger to the fermenters. When I got there, I had to rig up some stuff to make it happen until I bought hoses that allowed me to create this loop so you could recirculate hot liquor from the heat exchanger all the way back to the hot liquor tank, so the whole loop is 180 degrees and 100 percent sanitary.

BSL: The kinds of beers that you were making there, what were they?
CB: We had 15 draft lines and seven of those were the standard beers. We had the Gold Rush Golden Ale, which was not even like a kölsch. I considered it like an American golden ale, but very light and dry. Then we had Urban Wilderness Pale Ale, Fish On IPA, Portage Porter, John Henry Oatmeal Stout, Forty-Niner Amber Ale and Old Gander Barleywine.

The other handles I could put on anything that I wanted to. The owner was really, really cool. He just let me brew whatever I wanted to. He was a banker, he made a lot of money, he wanted to have a brewery and he loved beer. His only requirement was anything that I put on, he could randomly show up at any time and he had better like it. Otherwise he was gonna come straight to my office. I made sure I wasn't going nuts, that I wasn't doing anything super-crazy. But I did a lot of fun stuff that was unique and different.

BSL: Such as?
CB: I made a pumpkin beer with real pumpkins. I actually bought sugar pie pumpkins, had to get there at like 4 in the morning to roast ... We brewed an ale with real squash and pumpkin, not just canned pumpkin.

We started a barrel-aging program (with both bourbon and wine barrels) ... I started experimenting with sour beers, but we weren't a packaging brewery so I really wasn't going to put sour beers through my draft lines. So I made only a couple of experimental batches that we were eventually going to hand-bottle just to have, maybe put it in a firkin.

BSL: What was the beer festival scene like up in Alaska, in Anchorage. Can you share your experiences with that?
CB: They don't have a lot of brew festivals in Anchorage. The biggest one of the year is the Great Alaska Beer & Barley Wine Festival. It's held in January, so it's freezing cold outside. It's a perfect time for barleywine, and it's been a thing they've been doing up in Alaska for a long time. Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine won in '97. A lot of guys have won in that barleywine competition. It's a very well-run competition, as well as a beer festival.

BSL: This is the 2008 competition you entered, right? Going into it, what did you think of your chances?
CB: I knew I had a really good barleywine. I brewed two different barelywines; all of it I just threw down into the barrels.

As soon as I got started and I had time to brew, I brewed barleywine and started it on my Jack Daniel's barrels. I had the barrels, and I knew it was going to take a long time for this beer to be ready. So I had some stuff to play with. And we didn't just take everything out of every barrel and put it in the tank. I took a couple select barrels, we blended those together, and some of the rest of the beer we continued to let rest. And that was our blend. That was our Old Gander Barleywine. It was a little bit unique because of the fact that it had multiple recipes, also differences from the different barrels – the same recipe in two different barrels might be very different. Some more vanilla, some toastier, some a lot more bourbon. We picked them all so it wasn't like over-the-top whiskey taste; one of them was actually a little hoppier, whereas the other one was sweeter. Blending all those beers together I think made a real big difference, and we came out with the first medal that brewery ever won. We got second place overall and we got best of show, or Best in Alaska.

BSL: What were some of the beers you beat?
CB: There was Deschuttes Jubelale ... there was Bigfoot Barleywine, Dogfish Head's Olde School Barleywine, all the Alaska barleywines from Midnight Sun's Arctic Devil to Alaskan Brewing Company's barleywine ... It's a huge, huge, huge haul. Pretty much everyone that has a barleywine gets entered in the competition. There's maybe 50 barleywines that get entered.

BSL: Talk a little about your decision to return to the lower 48 after being in Alaska.
CB: It was fun, and I really liked it up there but the seasonal aspect was getting too much for me. I wanted to be in a place that I was going to want to live for the rest of my life ... I stuck it out, I liked Alaska, but I didn't think it was a place I wanted to spend the rest of my life. So I just kinda looked for a better opportunity, and tried out with Victory for a little bit ...

BSL: And you landed with a start-up beer-maker, Kane Brewing, where you're, once again, the hand that shapes the flavor.
CB: The creative control, I didn't think I would miss it, but I did miss it.

Krogh's event on Sunday

More from the homebrew front ...

Come Sunday, Krogh's will play host to a first-anniversary soiree for the Final Gravity podcast, a homebrewing and craft beer discussion that the Sussex County brewpub sponsors.

The event runs from about noon to 5 p.m., with Final Gravity's host Jayn Cummings anchoring the live, 90-minute podcast from the Tudor-style establishment's taproom; a homebrewing demonstration will be conducted outside on Krogh's patio by members of NJHOPZ, the homebrew club affiliated with Final Gravity.

There will also be a brewer from Krogh's on hand, and an invitation has been extened to one of the crew from River Horse Brewing in Lambertville to come up to Sparta and talk about beer.

Drawing some influence from the Brewing Network out of California, Final Gravity got rolling after Jay decided to put back into service the idled recording studio in the basement of his Belvidere home in Warren County.

"We thought it was kind of a no-brainer. We love talking about beer, so why not share our passion with other homebrewers?" he says.

The show is sometimes irreverent, sometimes bawdy, but always about beer: tasty craft brews that come into the region and homebrews that are of the crews' creation.

Now in its 12th year as a brewpub, Krogh's, as a bar, dates back to the late 1930s. As part of the New Jersey craft beer scene, the brewpub annually turns over its brewhouse to the winner of the State Fair homebrew competition, scaling up the victor's recipe for brewing on the pub's 5-barrel DME system and putting the finished beer on tap.

Jay says Krogh's owner Bob Fuchs is a big supporter of homebrewing.

"Bob is a great guy to work with," Jason says. "He's totally enthused about homebrewing and the ideas we've come up with and presented to him ... he's very enthusiastic about craft beer in general."

Dump the permit, keep the law

How many homebrewers are there in New Jersey?

Good question.

The state's Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control, the agency that now regulates both commercial and amateur brewers by way of licensing and permits, can only tell you that it granted permission to 386 homebrewers in 2010.

But the American Homebrewers Association, the Colorado-based organization that promotes homebrewing and watches those brewers' backs as far as trends and regulations go, says its paid membership from New Jersey likely tops the number of homebrewing permits issued last year by the state.

In fact, those 386 permits from last year are the most New Jersey has issued in the past six years, with the lion's share of them going to patrons of brew-on-premise establishments. You have to go back to 2007, when 359 homebrewer permits were granted, to find a similar peak within that time period.

Why are there more homebrewers than the state can account for? Probably because most people who jump into homebrewing in the Garden State don't know they're supposed to get a permit in the first place. Homebrew supply shops aren't obligated to play cop and enforce the permit rule, and many shop owners say that if they did, they'd lose more customers to Internet sales.

So it's a good thing that there's a bill in the Legislature, A4012, that proposes dumping the 20-year-old permit requirement, plus its restrictions against making or serving homebrewed beer anywhere except the address put down on the permit application, not to mention the provision that allows the ABC to carry out spot checks on permit-holders to ensure compliance.

There's also the matter of the permit's cost – 15 bucks. "The money that they charged to get that, administratively, I can't imagine that it was cost-effective," says JoEllen Ford, owner of The Brewer's Apprentice, a brew-on-premise and homebrew supply shop in Freehold. "What were they hoping to accomplish? I don't understand what the objective was to begin with, what were they trying to stop or prevent."

To many, the introduction last month of A4012 was indeed welcome news. However, the AHA notes a caveat about just tossing the permit regulation. The way the bill sponsored by Middlesex County Assemblyman Craig Coughlin is written, the AHA says, it appears to just rely on the federal legalization for homebrewing. That is to say, you can legally brew up to 200 gallons per adult per household per year.

The federal standard may seem safe, but the AHA says it doesn't leave on New Jersey's books some stipualtion that homebrewing is a legal practice and that the product of homebrewers' efforts will not be taxed. The AHA recommends that states expressly say homebrewing is legal and not subject to taxation. (Coughlin did not respond to several messages left with his office seeking comment on his bill. His district, by the way, is ground zero to the WHALES homebrew club of Woodbridge.)

Homebrewing, once the province of Prohibition-era drinkers thirsty for a beer, was legalized by the federal government in 1978. New Jersey followed suit 13 years later. Exactly why the state decided that Garden State homebrewers would also need a permit each year to strike a mash in their garage has sort of been lost to the mists of time.

But Joe Bair, owner of Princeton Homebrew (along Route 29 in Trenton), says the permit ended up being included in the state's codification of backyard beer-making because of some tradeoffs between homebrewing proponents, notably the late Ed Busch, a former member of the AHA governing committee, and the Legislature.

At the time, there was considerable opposition from restaurant and bar groups concerning craft brewing and homebrewing.

"He (Busch) had to sign off on all this ridiculous stuff," Joe says. "In order for him to get the thing passed, he had to eat that. At the time, he was a member of the AHA governors, and one by one, all the states were making homebrew legal. He didn't want to delay it anymore, he wanted results, so he compromised on that.

"He had to do whatever it took, and the result is he passed the law. That's not to say it's the law he wanted to get passed," Joe says.

Make the guild fest a rally point

Philly Beer Week kicks off tonight with an opening-tap shindig at the Independence Visitors Center.

For folks in South Jersey, and even for beer fans north of I-195, PBW is a big attraction. Be that as it may, let's still think there's no place like home.

And with that, here's a reminder that the Garden State Craft Brewers Guild festival is only two weeks away.

Yes, it's at the Camden waterfront, aboard the USS New Jersey battleship museum again, and, yes, that has been a thorn for some North Jersey beer drinkers. (We've always supported the idea of having two festivals – spring/summer and fall, one in South Jersey, the other in North Jersey).

But there is something in the air this year that makes showing support for the home-state brewers all the more important: legislation in Trenton to level the playing field for New Jersey brewers and modernize the rules under which they make and sell beer.

Senate bill S2870, and its Assembly counterpart, A3969, would put the state's 15-year-old craft beer industry on par with that of Delaware, New York and Pennsylvania, not to mention pretty much the rest of the country.

Imagine being able to buy your favorite beer from your favorite brewpub at a Canal's, Liquor Outlet or Total Wine. Imagine a BYOB restaurant selling you a six-pack of your favorite locally made beer, instead of you having to bring it in tow.

That's some of what the legislation would allow. (The Assembly version, by the way, has picked up two new sponsors: Jon M. Bramnick, a Republican from Westfield, and Patrick J. Diegnan Jr., a Democrat from South Plainfield.)

So let this video of last year's Garden State Craft Brewers festival, together with this year's upcoming festival, be a rallying point and a reminder that change is in the air.

Changes at Basils in Red Bank & Uno

From Pub Scout Kurt Epps:

After a decade turning out the ales at Basil T's in Red Bank, brewer Gretchen Schmidhausler is leaving.

Pizzeria Uno brewer Mike Sella will take over at Basil T's.

Big Brew video contest winners

New Jersey homebrewers found the winners circle for a second-straight year in the American Homebrewers Association's video contest, but a crew from Oregon took the prize for capturing what National Homebrew Day is all about.

On Thursday, the AHA announced this year's winners of the annual contest staged in conjunction with Big Brew, held every first Saturday in May.

Portland, Oregon's FH Steinbart won the Spirit of Big Brew Award, while the Barley Legal Homebrewers club, teamed with Beer-Stained Letter, won for the video that drew the most views during the 10-day judging period.

This year, apparently, the AHA has done away with the second-place finish that it had awarded over the past three contest years.

Rounding out the field for 2011: Philadelphia's ALEiens picked up an honorable mention, as did California's Humboldt Homebrewers, who, for a while, gave the Barley Legal brewers a strong run for their money in the most-watched category.

Last year, the WHALES homebrew crew from Woodbridge won the most-watched award, while Barley Legal and BSL came in second place. (BSL won the Spirit of Big Brew Award in 2008, the first year of the contest.) The Society of Oshkosh Brewers won the 2010 Spirit of Big Brew Award.

Congrats to FH Steinbart, ALEiens, Humboldt Hombrewers, and of course, to the Barley Legal clan.