The ever-enduring metaphor for bad beer

Hey, we don't condone toilet humor, but when you discover the wellspring of piss-water beer, er uh bad beer, it's a public service to point it out.

Flying Fish talks move to Exit 3

Once upon a time, like in 1995-96, Flying Fish described its emergence on the craft (back then micro) brewing scene as going from minnow to fish.

Now, the soon-to-be-departing-Cherry Hill brewery, and its 14,000-barrel output, is growing from a tuna into marlin, so to speak. A bigger Fish, indeed.

Via the Garden State Craft Brewers Guild newsletter today and its own website, FF offered some details of its planned move to Somerdale (that's Exit 3 in beer series lingo), where it will make beer on a state-of-the-art 50 barrel German-manufactured brewhouse and draw its juice (or some of it) via rooftop solar panels. (Still in Camden County, Somerdale is just a bottle cap's throw from Cherry Hill.)

A decade and a half after launching with an ESB (one that would in six months' time earn compliments from famed beer hunter Michael Jackson), an extra pale ale (a light beer without being nondescript light), a tasty porter still remembered by a few folks (alas it's gone, morphed into an imperial seasonal with the addition of coffee), and quickly weaving an abbey dubbel into the lineup, Flying Fish is tripling its capacity and promising some changes to its flight of beers. (In our recollection, FF has never brewed a lager. And since you can find head brewer Casey Hughes from time to time enjoying a Sly Fox Pikeland Pilsner at Good Dog in Philadelphia, maybe a pils is in the Fish's future.)

Interesting, too, is the fact that FF's expansion comes amid a surge in New Jersey craft brewing, with the addition of seven new licensees since mid-2009, and only a couple of casualties in that bunch (Newark's Port 44 Brew Pub, which closed last summer after only a year on the scene, and Great Blue Brewing, a nano that sort of started and stopped amid some technical troubles, but hasn't thrown in the towel).

It's a good time to be following brewed-in-Jersey.

Jersey beer trivia: Flying Fish is the only brewery in the state (maybe even the country) to have a cartoon drawn for it by a Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist. Two-time Pulitzer winner Steve Breen, who worked at the Asbury Park Press in the 1990s, sketched a Cheshire-like cat perched between a pint of Fish and fish in a bowl, devilishly eyeing the brew Fish, not the finned fish.

Make it big

Some Jersey-brewed big beers to talk about: a first-ever barleywine by Tun Tavern brewer Tim Kelly; the upcoming release of Cricket Hill's pro-am brew; a reprise of Climax Brewing's imperial stout; and a new dimension in take-home beer from Trap Rock.

Thirst for first
Brewers come and go, but sometimes the beers they make end up staying, brewed by the next hands to take over. And sometimes a few of the predecessor's beers stay in mind. Such is the case at the Tun, where memories of Ted Briggs' barleywine have survived for some folks more than four years after Ted left Atlantic City. (Ted's now the brewer at Lander Brewing in Wyoming.)

Amid that scenario, Tim Kelly, who took over for Ted in May 2007, decided to brew a barleywine. Coming in at 11% ABV, it's one of the biggest beers Tim has made professionally, edging out a Belgian tripel made last spring off a pro-am contest sponsored at the Tun, a wee heavy Tim did in 2010 and a Belgian brown he has done for the holidays in years past.

"Rumors keep perpetuating that I did this awesome barleywine and I hadn't done it in a while; they must be confusing me with the former brewer ... So to appease everyone, and also to challenge myself a little, I decided to develop a barleywine," Tim says. "It's dry-hopped with Cascade, aged on French oak; it's been conditioning for a couple months now. It will come out after the pumpkin lager, so this will probably be after Thanksgiving. I'll probably end up bottling about 100 bottles for retail sale, sit on them and let them age and sell them next year."

The pumpkin lager (a 7% brew) is almost gone, and when it does kick, that will open up a tap for a maple black walnut brown ale that Tim brewed a few weeks ago.

Stout royalty
Speaking of pro-ams, next month will see a teaser release of Cricket Hill's imperial stout, brewed from homebrewer Bill Kovach's recipe that bested 32 other brews in the contest Cricket Hill sponsored a year ago.

Brewery co-owner John Watts says the 10.5% ABV stout is set for official release in bombers in January, but fans of the Fairfield brewery will get an early shot at it in a prerelease event to coincide with a mid-December Friday open house.

Folks long familiar with Cricket Hill know the brewery staked out a place on the Garden State beer-scape with a flight of session beers and has been moving deeper into reserve-series big beers, notably among them an 8.5% barleywine done in 2010 that also got some bourbon barrel treatment.

Some of the barrel-aged stock got stashed away for special occasions, John says, so Cricket Hill fans should keep an eye out for them. "I can tell you, a year of aging on that, it's spectacular," he says.

Stout royalty, redux
In nearby Roselle Park, next month brewer Dave Hoffmann plans to turn out bomber bottles of his Hoffmann Doppelbock, a traditional toasty, caramel-like heritage brew (Dave's of German lineage), formerly only available from Climax Brewing as draft and in 64-ounce growlers.

"I've been making it for a long time, for like 10 years now. It's one of my favorite styles. I make it every year for the holidays," Dave says.

Climax Brewing began turning out six-packs last summer thanks to a newly acquired bottler. The bomber-bottled bock marks Climax Brewing working yet another label from its beer lineup into the brewery's new packaging model.

Early next year, look for another Climax brew to come out in 22-ouncers: an imperial stout that will make a reprise after a decade-plus hiatus. To be named Tuxedo Imperial Stout, the brew salutes the black cat, Tuxedo, that has mouse-policed Climax's brewery for 13 years.

"She did her job for all these years, so we take care of her now. She's getting older, so before she dies I want to make a beer for her," Dave says. "It'll probably be 8 or 9% alcohol, big and burly, a little hoppy in the finish ... it's the recipe I made 10 or 12 years ago. I made it twice already, but it was a long time ago, but this time it will be in bottles."

Rock in a bottle
Speaking of bottles, brewer Charlie Schroeder at Trap Rock has racked off about 30 1-liter bottles of the Berkeley Heights brewpub's Jet Fuel Double IPA, a step toward getting Trap Rock's bigger beers into more user-friendly take-home sizes (high-alcohol brews in growlers, especially ones like barleywines, aren't always the best idea, easy to finish in one drinking session).

Jet Fuel (yes, the brew's name speaks to the New York Jets and their followers in the Trap Rock locale) clocks in at 9.5% ABV, stuffed full of Nugget, Challenger, East Kent, Willamette and Bramling Cross hops.

Trap Rock added a third 7-barrel fermenter last month (it now has 3 of them, plus three 15-barrel tanks) to boost capacity, keep pace with growing demand and enable more runs of the bigger, specialty beers.

The long-range plan, Charlie says, also includes having have more of the big brews available in the take-home bottles and to set some of them aside as reserve brews for inclusion on the beer menu.

The new tank has necessitated some rearranging in the brewery space, plus some additional installation, before the bigger beers will be completely integrated into the brewpub's work flow.

NJ lieutenant gov pays a call on Flying Fish

Another sign that Trenton is coming around to craft beer's industry potential.

New Jersey Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno toured Flying Fish's digs on Monday.

FF's tweet off the day says Guadagno, the No. 2 in the Chris Christie administration, talked about craft brewing growth in the Garden State, and founder Gene Muller, via email, called the meeting productive.

Christie's not exactly popular in union and public employee circles, thanks to some budget austerity since taking office last year.

But his administration has been craft-beer friendly. If you recall back in May, Christie signed a proclamation for American Craft Beer Week in New Jersey, coinciding with the national observance.

And now, the lieutenant governor drops in on Flying Fish. The visit puts FF and its growth (plus the planned move a few miles away to Somerdale) in the spotlight, but the state's craft brewing industry should be able to enjoy a bounce off this moment, too.

Craft brewing is a $7 billion-a-year industry nationally, and having the governor's office warm up to Garden State beer-makers could help improve the odds for overhauling the state's brewing industry regulations and put New Jersey on par with New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware, where the rules are more brewer-friendly.

That, obviously, would make New Jersey brewers more competitive.

And who knows, maybe Trenton will fall in love with craft brewing and show it like New York State did to Brooklyn Brewery in 2009.

Keeping tabs on the rising count

Some numbers to peruse ...

The Brewers Association, the trade association representing the majority of U.S. brewing companies, maintains a searchable database of breweries across the country and in the U.S. territories of Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

The lists for the states and territories also include breweries in development, a number that comes to 739 (up from 618 the Brewers Association reported back in March, by our count).

The 739 figure is a soft number – more proposed breweries can end up in the database or come off, plus there may be some planned breweries that the Brewers Association is unaware of, while some in the database may no longer be viable, as is the case for a project still listed for Landing, N.J.

Simply put, however, the database addition is certainly a reflection of the growing number of folks looking to get into the craft beer business, hoping to join the more than 1,750 breweries now churning out beer in the U.S.

Here are some breakdowns gleaned from the database:

California, a big state with a large, beer-friendly population, leads with the way with 98 in breweries development, followed by Texas (49) and Colorado (48).

The Garden State clocks in with 17 – nearly as many projects in development as there are craft brewers operating in New Jersey (19).

Odds are, most of the Jersey projects are production breweries of some sort, whether nano or larger.

Brewpubs prove to be a tough path, given municipal – not state – control over bar licensing, a condition that sharply drives up the start-up costs. (Despite that, there currently is a brewpub project in development, Laetare in Monmouth County.)

Nonetheless, 2011 has been one of the busiest for startups in the state since its early days of craft brewing in the mid-1990s. (Still, though, the Brewers Association ranks New Jersey 42nd in breweries per capita, with one brewery for every 439,595 people. The Garden State has about the same number of breweries as Vermont, which has the best per capita ratio. New Jersey's dense population, of course, busts the curve for us.)

The current growth phase over the past two years comes on the heels of a 10-year drought in adding new beer-makers. Changing demographics – the age 21-to-30 crowd is heavily into full-bodied beers of all styles – and bars' stampede to add craft taps are giving a lot of homebrewers and others who entertained the idea to start a brewery the confidence that they can make a go of it.

"New Jersey is not so much making up for a lost decade, as simply picking up where they left off," says industry watcher Lew Bryson, who co-authored New Jersey Breweries (2008) with Mark Haynie.

"Beer bars have been doing a lot of the heavy lifting, and now that some of the more conservative-minded beer sellers have been convinced that this 'microbrew thing' has legs, there's opportunity for a small brewer," Lew says. "Is it a startup bubble? Some of them aren't going to make it, sure, but that's going to happen in any surge like this, in any industry. Three steps forward, one step back. Demand keeps rising; you need more capacity to fill it, and you need more new beers to drive it."

Jersey snapshot
State regulators, so far in 2011, have licensed four production breweries – two nanos (Great Blue and Cape May Brewing) and two beer-makers with brewhouses at 15 barrels or greater (Carton and Kane Brewing).

Three more are sprinting to toward the finish line – Flounder, Tuckahoe and Turtle Stone – and expect to get the green light to begin making beer by the end of the year.

Much farther behind them are ones like Blackthorn Brewing, a planned father-daughter enterprise, and Black River Brewing, a planned Pennsylvania project with ties to New Jersey.

Chip Town and his daughter, Jacqui, of Jackson in Ocean County, are still siting a location for Blackthorn Brewing but envision their brewery of malty English and Irish ales ending up in their home county or southern Monmouth County.

Part of the banking world for 30 years, Chip, 55, has been making beer at home for the past 15 years; Jacqui, 25, a recent graduate of The College of New Jersey with degrees in marketing and chemistry, has been homebrewing seriously for three years.

(Jacqui came up with the brewery name, a nod to Ireland and the iconic walking sticks; Chip's mother's family is from County Roscommon, in the northwest of Ireland. The Towns also maintain a blog about their project.)

On the drawing boards for a couple of years now, Chip says plans call for Blackthorn to have a 20-barrel brewhouse to feed 40-barrel fermenters and hit the market in bottles and draft. The Towns are in the process of completing their business plan and will then pursue private investors.

"Once I have capital in my fist, I'll be out looking for warehouse space, hiring a brewer and start ordering stainless," Chip says. He doesn't expect problems with finding a location. "I've been working with a commercial real estate broker (who says) there's a lot of quality food-grade commercial space available out there because of the economy."

Blackthorn has been able to tap industry insiders for advice, something Chip is grateful for, noting Jersey brewers and their counterparts across the country have readily answered questions he's had.

"I've spoken to people in Texas, New York, Colorado ... Gene Muller (from Flying Fish) has been a huge help to me. He's let me pick his brain," Chip says. "Jesse Ferguson at Carton has been helpful; they've just gone through everything we're going through."

The Towns expect Blackthorn beer to find a niche in the local market. "Seeing what Mike Kane and Augie and Chris Carton are making – they're doing the West Coast styles – no one seems to be focusing on the maltier profile," Chip says.

Jersey vs. Pennsylvania, a business decision
Dave Grosch lives in Flemington in Hunterdon County, where he owns D&K Specialty Coffee, a wholesale coffee distribution company that supplies restaurants. He's also into brewing beer at home, quite active in the hobby over the past seven years. Dave, 45, even got to lend a hand at River Horse Brewing on a day the Lambertville brewery was making a batch of its flagship lager.

He's done well in homebrew competitions across the Delaware River, last year earning the title Homebrewer of the Year in southeastern Pennsylvania.

Friends suggested Dave go commercial. A fellow homebrewer in his club circles, Bryan Clayton, 30, of Lansdale, Pa., had designs on going pro, too. (Bryan is a project manager for a clinical research company.)

The two teamed up for Black River Brewing, a production brewery project they want to equip with a 20-barrel brewhouse and locate in Bucks County, Pa. They're eyeing the greater Philadelphia market, hoping to enter it with a Vienna lager, saison, IPA, and porter in bottles and draft.

Dave says they're working on a business plan and are about to begin raising cash for the project; then they'll pin down a location.

They chose Bryan's home state because the business climate is friendlier to craft brewing than New Jersey is. Among their concerns is New Jersey's restrictions on retail sales from the brewery, long a complaint among some Garden State craft brewers.

In Pennsylvania, Black River would be able to sell from the brewery tasting room everything from pints to kegs, so long as it adheres to seating requirements and sells some quantity of food. That's not possible in New Jersey, where production brewers' retail allowance is currently restricted to two six-packs or two growlers for consumption off premises.

"The main advantage is, you can be like a bar, but you're not trying to be the corner bar," Dave says.

Such sales, he says, would be vital revenue stream in addition to distribution to bars on either side of the Delaware, and in Pennsylvania state stores and packaged goods stores in New Jersey.

The brewery's name, incidentally, is a nod to the Lamington River in New Jersey and the Black River in Ireland, where Bryan has family roots.

Still a nano, just a bigger nano

A capacity boost at Cape May Brewing Company.

The nanobrewer located in Lower Township in Cape May County has stepped up its brewing batch size to 1.5 barrels and has added five 2-barrel fermenters that will allow the brewery to phase out the nine 35-gallon fermenters it began operations with back in late spring.

The quick jump to a tripled brewing capacity is part of Cape May's business plan, says co-founder Ryan Krill.

The original brewing setup – designed Chris Henke, the company's brewer, and fashioned from repurposed half-barrel kegs – was directed more at getting the nanobrewery licensed and up and running in the craft beer market than it was to brew and maintain a flow of beer inventory.

"The new setup is stainless steel tanks Chris got from a stainless distributor and got welded with fittings. It's more efficient," says co-founder Ryan Krill, who took some time on Friday to talk about the brewery's jump from brewing 12- to 13-gallon batches to 46 gallons.

Other changes include the addition of a second cold box and regularly scheduled brewery tours. The tours began in July as announced-date events but are now set for each Saturday (noon to 4 p.m.). The tours have proved popular, Ryan says, drawing crowd sizes of 100 people during the allotted hours.

Also, the brewery has also joined the Garden State Craft Brewers Guild, one of three newly licensed craft breweries in the state to do so. (Kane Brewing and Carton Brewing, both in Monmouth County, are the other two.)

Cape May is still supplying a single bar account (the oceanfront Cabanas in Cape May), but Ryan says the tiny beer company that he started with his dad, Robert, and college friend Chris has seen a gradual increase in production.

The brewery produced 16 barrels from July to September, in the form of their flagship Cape May IPA, a one-off dark IPA (a beer that was done on a lark, so it's highly improbable to ever see it return), a porter, stout and wheat beer.

Heading into the Thanksgiving holiday you can expect a cranberry wheat beer, Ryan says.

Elsewhere
Speaking of Carton Brewing, the Atlantic Highlands production brewery that came online in August will begin conducting brewery tours this weekend, Saturday and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. (Judging from their website, this week they pilot-brewed a milk stout – Carton of Milk Stout – a brew that was always in the company game plan.)

Additionally, Carton is teaming with Kane Brewing, the Ocean Township production brewery that opened last July, for a benefit beer dinner on Oct. 14th.

Chocolate & Beer, Beer & Chocolate

Chocolate stout, chocolate porter ...

When it comes to putting chocolate in beer, those two styles are ready candidates.

Which is why Iron Hill brewer Chris LaPierre, looking for something a little different, opted out of those styles and turned a brown ale into a chocolate brown ale loaded with 22 pounds of dark Belgian chocolate for an October beer release at the Maple Shade brewpub.

The beer and a truffle, made with wort from Iron Hill's mash tun by chocolatier Mike Collins of Reily's Candy in Medford, were the centerpiece of an event this past Wednesday night that also saw a selection of Reily chocolates* paired with IH beers.

The video gives you the backstory to how this fusion came about. But the quick version goes something like this: Chris grew up in Medford and knew of Reily's, a 40-year fixture in the Burlington County town. Mike, who's been with Reily's for almost half of the shop's existence, is a Iron Hill mug club member and discovered IH beers at the company's West Chester, Pa., location.

Combining their crafts seemed like a natural idea, and the result is Reily's Chocolate Ale and the Iron Hill truffle.

*The pairings at the October 5th event:

• 70% Cacao with Gogi berries & Abbey Dubbel
• Tierra Missou Truffle & Bourbon Wee Heavy
• Jalapeno Chocolate & Ironbound Ale
• Vanilla Caramel & Oktoberfest
• Bourbon-Soaked Cherry Cordial & Cherry Vanilla Porter
• Iron Hill Chocolate with Caramelized Wort & Reilly’s Chocolate Ale

Steve Jobs, 1955-2011

Apple founder Steve Jobs died yesterday, and if you own an iPad, iPhone or an iPod, you can't escape how profound the guy's vision shaped your life.

Jobs knew what you wanted before you did. And that's how Apple made really cool stuff, game-changing stuff.

In a trickle-down fashion, Jobs shaped craft beer enthusiasts' lives, too. Just look at all the beer apps for the smart phones that are out there now, then remember that the iPhone revolutionized mobile phones and turned us all into a gadget-wielding bunch.

On a much more local level, the stuff that sprang from Jobs' mind has had a hand in New Jersey craft beer, from its leading edge to its current growth phase.

Flying Fish set up shop in Cherry Hill 15 years ago with Macs as its business computer platform (and on the Web a year ahead of that).

Before Carton Brewing began sending beer out the door this summer in Atlantic Highlands, you would find Augie Carton enthusiastically using an iPad to show off versions of the brewery's marketing materials and tap handle prototypes.

And finally, not to be self-serving, this blog site has always spun from Apple gear: Every word, image and video has made it to the Web thanks to a Mac or Apple software.

So if you're enjoying a beer today, take a moment to toast a visionary.

Hold up your end of the bargain

River Horse Brewing holds its annual Oktoberfest from 1-6 p.m. on Saturday at the brewery on Lambert Lane in Lambertville.

The brew lineup for this pay-as-you-go event is Lager, Special Ale, Tripel Horse, Hop A Lot Amus, Hop Hazard, Hipp O Lantern and their new Brewer's Reserve, a dunkelweizen; the featured musical entertainment is Ludlow Station, the jam band head brewer Chris Rakow plays guitar in. (Check 'em out here, playing at last April's ShadFest.)

Unlike past years, the 2011 edition is a one-day-only affair (rain date is Sunday; past editions of the fest were spread over the weekend), and the brewery is calling on its legions of fans to lend a hand to a couple of local food pantries that are struggling to keep up with demand for their help in the flat economy.

So if you're going, pack along some of these items, and consider it holding up your end of the bargain in return for the great gig that River Horse puts on ...

• Canned soups, tuna, salmon, chicken, vegetables
• Canned or dried beans
• Rice and whole grains
• Pasta
• Tomato sauce
• 100% fruit juices
• Condiments - ketchup, mustard, salad dressings, etc.
• Baking mixes
• Cereal- hot and cold
• Baby food
• Sugar-free items (juice mixes, Jello, pudding, etc.)
• Dog and cat food

Cheers.

Turtle Stone projects December licensing

Craft beer's return to New Jersey's southwestern reaches looks to be entering a homestretch, as the planned Vineland-based brewery Turtle Stone Brewing expects to get its brewhouse set up this fall and potentially licensed to start making beer toward the end of the year.

If successful with that pace, Turtle Stone will become the third production brewer licensed in the Garden State this year (the others are Kane Brewing and Carton Brewing, both in Monmouth County); 2011, as a growth year, is on track to see the most craft brewers – seven – get the green light from regulators since 1996, when craft brewing was still getting established in New Jersey.

Turtle Stone founder Ben Battiata (that's Ben above on the right, talking to Mark Haynie of Mid-Atlantic Brewing News) took some time last week to talk about the progress with his brewery, the first in Cumberland County since Blue Collar Brewing ceased operations in Vineland seven years ago.

BSL: You had your 15-barrel brewhouse and fermenters in storage for a while. Where are they now?
BB: Right now they're in our brewery facility. The next step is getting our floor done and we'll be able to get the equipment set up ... I've got to do some electrical and plumbing work, set up my cold room, set up my tanks. Then we'll be set to go.

BSL: The regulators with the state, they're telling you early December?
BB: They've reassured us – as long as our equipment is set up to their satisfaction when they come out and do their inspections – we'll be approved by December.

BSL: You're so close you can taste it?
BB: I'm getting very anxious. It's really close.

BSL: You also redid the company logo ...
BB: We did. We ran a contest online through a graphic arts website. I think there was 120 different designs to choose from and we did select a design. It actually turned out nice. I like it a lot and we got a lot of good feedback on it.

BSL: Has anything changed with the beers that you want to enter the market with?
BB: Not really. We still want to go with the jasmine green tea blond (ale), and we still want to do the American stout. They're probably going to be the two first beers we put out there. I'd like to work in a winter seasonal beer; that's in the works right now. One of the first seasonals, or specialty beers, we're going to do is – Vineland is considered the dandelion capital of the world – so we're going to make a saison using dandelions and lemongrass. It's going to be like a nice spring seasonal beer.

BSL: You're a big supporter of locally produced commodities. What are your thoughts on that, and who out there in the wider world that is your neighborhood of South Jersey can assist you with that?
BB: Being located in South Jersey, we have quite a bit of farmers just in the town we're in alone. I know a lot of beekeepers. Our honey jasmine green tea beer is going to use local honey. If I could get any other locally grown products to put into that I will. It's difficult to get as much barley that we need locally, so I don't know if that's going to be the case. With the dandelion beer, I have some growers right now who are going to grow the dandelions for me for that particular beer.

BSL: Besides the honey and dandelions, what are some other possible commodities?
BB: What I plan on doing for our fall beer, rather than a pumpkin ale, as an alternative, we plan to use local sweet potatoes, maple syrup and some additional spices. It's actually based on a sweet potato casserole recipe that I make every year. So I'm making a liquid version of that.

BSL: You're raising money, via a website, for packaging equipment. The $30,000 goal isn't a deal breaker, is it?
BB: No, no. The Kickerstarter thing is a campaign we decided to do. It's based on more creative-minded ideas. We actually had to apply and get approved – our idea actually had to get approved by this particular company. It's money to assist towards probably our bottling system. Initially we're going to start with kegging. But the money itself is going help to purchase our packaging equipment, which we've yet to purchase.

BSL: Have you looked into getting financial assistance through that program backed by Boston Beer?
BB: We did actually look into it. Our county is too far south. They do actually approve certain areas of New Jersey (where) they will process these loans. For us, we're too far south.

BSL: These days, no one gets into the craft brewing game without doing some serious back-channel work – outreach to places like bars, the places that can push the product. How have you networked?
BB: Our area is a little deprived of craft beer (bars). We're going to push the local idea. That's actually good enough for a lot of these bars that don't really carry craft beers. They want to carry something that people have some connection to, whether it's the town that they live in that the beer's coming from, or the neighboring town. That's something that I think is going to help us a lot. Everybody is welcoming to the idea. We've gotten such good reception.

As long as we've been planning this – which has been over five years at least – a lot of people have been anticipating, have been waiting, so there's also that aspect. I think once we're out in the market, they're going to be jumping for it.

Oct. 18 release for new Beach Haus brew

East Coast Beer Company is poised to release its second label, a fall-winter seasonal follow-up to its Beach Haus Classic American Pilsner, which debuted in the Garden State craft beer market a little over a year ago.

Beach Haus Winter Rental, a German schwarzbier-inspired black lager (5% ABV), was brewed a couple weeks ago in Rochester, N.Y., at High Falls Brewing, East Coast's contract brewer.

East Coast president John Merklin says the beer will be bottled and kegged Oct. 17 and brought into New Jersey Oct. 18.

John describes the dark-ruby colored brew as a medium-bodied beer with a maltiness and roastiness, a hint of chocolate and some subdued hops.

"We think it's really in line with what we're trying to do as a beer company – accessible but rich styles. We gravitated toward that as a style because it's the right fit for us," he says.

Don't look for a big release party, but John says the East Coast crew will be hitting the trail soon, radiating out from the company's Point Pleasant home base to promote the new addition to the Beach Haus brand. (A pale ale that has been on East Coast's drawing boards for a while is being targeted for April.)

"We're going to be here, there and everywhere, talking about Winter Rental with folks," John says.

Since East Coast's launch into the New Jersey craft beer market around Labor Day of 2010, the company has extended its reach outside the Garden State.

Beach Haus entered the Pennsylvania market back in June (it's in 14 counties now), and East Coast has met with New York distributors, although it has not signed on with anyone yet.

Back at home, Beach Haus cracked into the suburban chain restaurant scene (the pilsner is in 25 Applebee's locations up and down the state), where craft beer in general has been making deeper inroads against the likes of Bud Light and Coors Light, the long-established brews found at the eateries flanking the malls and shopping centers.

Craft beer's growing presence in such establishments (think Harpoon's IPA at TGI Friday's) is a reflection of its surging popularity. Finding Beach Haus, or any other Garden State brand for that matter, mirrors that trend.

Pinelands Brewing siting new location

Pinelands Brewing, a South Jersey nanobrewery in development, is looking for a new building and possibly a new host town.

Founder Jason Chapman said the building in Egg Harbor City (in Atlantic County) that he and partner Luke McCooley chose back in the wintertime for their planned 1-barrel brewery now looks to be unsuitable. (That's Jason in the hat, talking to Ben Battiata, of Turtle Stone Brewing, a South Jersey brewery that's in the process of coming online.)

The building had housed a soda company in a former life (that's what made it attractive for a brewery, Jason says) and most recently was the home to an indoor flea market-like business.

Complications with the town have arisen over the location and are forcing Jason and Luke to scrap the building and look elsewhere, possibly in Burlington County.

"We had been leasing the building with the optimism of getting through the city, but have actually hit some hard times with them. It was a tougher battle than we previously could foresee. Right now, we've actually backed out of the lease, and we're scoping out a warehouse in Burlington County," Jason says.

One of the sticking points relates to a pre-existing condition that stipulated the building was to be knocked down to make way for parking for an as-yet unfulfilled city redevelopment project.

City officials wouldn't consider the brewery project as long as the redevelopment condition was still in force, and trying to get it lifted would tie up a lot of time and financial resources.

"For someone trying to start a small business, it's very difficult," Jason says.

The setback is disappointing, Jason concedes, but he says he's looking more forward than backward.

"It's a learning experience. No one said it was going to be easy. When you start this kind of project, the cards are stacked against you," Jason says. "But I remain confident. I will persevere. I'm hungry for this. I want to hold a position in bringing craft beer to South Jersey."

Senses working overtime

Funny tasting beer is no laughing matter, and when presented with it, we turn up our noses, spit it out and/or shove it away.

Sometimes off flavors are obvious; other times they can be a "what's wrong with this picture?" moment and take a little bit of deduction to zero in on what just killed the pleasure of a pint.

Occasionally, the need to know exactly why is less important than the sensory conclusion that the beer had noticeable flaws, for whatever reason. Other times – like aspiring to become a bona fide beer judge or just to have a well-sharpened palate – you want to be able to draw the more formal conclusions, rather than just settle on the broad summation that the brew went bad.

That's where flavor orienteers come in. (The phrase is our coinage.)

New Yorker Mary Izett is one of those folks who helps you straighten out your taste buds' compass and parse those things that went awry in a brew (she's presenting a workshop on the subject at Amanti Vino in Montclair on Saturday). It's an endeavor she got into five years ago, when she started the NYC Beer & Food Pairing group, and the New York City Degustation Advisory Team a year later with Chris Cuzme, leading people, as she says, "through beer and food pairings and consulting with bars and restaurants."

The New York City/Long Island columnist for for Ale Street News also teaches beer judge certification classes, among other topics on brews, and you'll find her leading educational seminars at Get Real NY fests.

Her tips for putting the finer points of good tasting into your memory banks and not leaving them on the tip of your tongue are a combination of practice and study.

"The best approach is to slow down and focus. When I studied for the BJCP exam back in early 2006, I carried the guidelines and a notebook with me everywhere I went," Mary says via email. "I took notes on every beer I drank, comparing these to the guidelines and really focusing on what I was seeing, smelling and tasting. I learned so much by doing that! And now the BJCP guidelines are available as a smart phone app, and there are some really nice apps for taking beer notes.

"I also highly recommend reading Randy Mosher's Tasting Beer – so much excellent information is contained within this tome. It's a must for anyone looking to improve their beer palate."

Let's not forget, there's plenty of great beer everywhere these days, from great brewers of all stripes. But let's not kid ourselves either. There's some beer out there that's not up to code. And the sources of and reasons for brews tripping the funk alarm in a bad way are many.

"There are plenty of commercial beers that I come across that have off flavors," Mary says. "I just tasted a commercially brewed blond (from a craft brewery) a few days ago that was a (diacetyl) butter bomb. And it was at a very reputable bar that keeps their lines immaculate. I've had flawed brewpub beers, too, and as a BJCP judge, plenty of flawed beers in competitions.

"Dirty lines can also be a problem at some bars. And of course, kegs can be mishandled before they get to a bar, and casks can be poured for too long. There are plenty of opportunities for flaws ... I think you'll come across the most in whatever realm you drink the most, be it homebrew, brewpub or commercial beers."

O-fests on tap

Oktoberfests on the radar:

Artisan's brewpub in Toms River serves up its annual Oktoberfest on Friday night (7 p.m.), a multicourse affair where the märzen is the headliner (with a main course of short ribs with beer sauce) and a pumpkin ale (with apple strudel) is the encore.

• Oct. 8: River Horse's annual salute to the autumn fest in Lambertille. It's set for a 1 p.m. start at the brewery's back lot and will run just one day this year. (Rain date is Sunday, the 9th.)
• Oct. 9: Long Valley Oktoberfest, noon, brewpub parking lot.

Upcoming: Ken Burns docu on Prohibition

Something to keep on your radar for this weekend: filmmaker Ken Burns’ new documentary work, Prohibition, a spotlight on America’s 13-year, wrongheaded experiment with temperance.

The three-part, five-hour series begins at 8 p.m., Sunday (Oct. 2) on PBS. Burns’ documentary, made with Lynn Novick, traces the headwinds of the temperance movement, how it played out and why Prohibition was such a colossal failure.

What makes Burns’ Prohibition worth your time is simple. A lot of what we know or heard about America's going dry is shaped mostly by Hollywood gangster dramas. Burns’ docu serves up a refreshing round of facts, and once again the filmmaker calls upon author Daniel Okrent (a source in the 1994 Burns-Novick docu Baseball). Plus, you may notice a lot of the political fits, obfuscations and maneuverings playing out today look similar to those of the early 20th century.

Okrent’s 2010 book, Last Call, is the definitive account of the Prohibition Era, pulling together all the social and political forces that set the Terrible 13 in motion, and detailing how America stayed wet when the mandate was dry.

The 18th Amendment, and accompanying Volstead Act, marked the first time the nation’s charter took away a right and the first time the country took an eraser (the 21st Amendment) to something it had added to the Constitution.

Prohibition did not ban the partaking of alcoholic beverages. It only outlawed the commercial manufacture, importing, transporting and sale of intoxicating beverages (consequently, lots of religious and medicinal production of spirits and wine resulted, both genuine and disingenuous; homebrewing also got a nice boost).

The result of going dry – the unintended consequences – gave rise to a regiment of gangsters and widespread corruption (in New Jersey, at least two names come up – Newark’s Abner “Longy” Zwillman and Atlantic City’s Nucky Johnson) and a sprawling illegal booze trade (by both land and sea) to slake the thirst of folks who had no intention of ending the party. (Jersey trivia moment: The 18th Amendment was ratified in January 1919, taking effect a year later. The Garden State was the last of the nation’s then 48 states to ratify Prohibition, in 1922, two years after dry had become the law of the land. Connecticut and Rhode Island were the only states to say, “Screw it, we’re not going there,” and did not ratify the go-dry amendment.)

Despite its demise 78 years ago, Prohibition has had a lasting effect: the federal income tax (to replace lost tax revenue on booze); women’s right to vote (suffrage boosted the odds of Prohibition’s passage, since women were at the forefront of temperance); mixed drinks (something was need to cover the shitty taste of bathtub gin); and his and hers restrooms in bars (a byproduct of speakeasies, since before the dry era women usually did not frequent bars, but rather quietly imbibed at home).

There was also a colorful lexicon of slang, of which a few phrases still remain, while others make for great bar names, i.e. blind tiger, rumrunner.

For beer enthusiasts, the end of Prohibition gets celebrated each April 7th, the day beer became legal again in 1933. (Jersey trivia moment: Eight months prior, in August 1932, candidate FDR gave a campaign speech in Sea Girt in Monmouth County, during which the future president talked of giving Prohibition the heave-ho.)

On Sunday, pour yourself a beer and toast the cooler heads who prevailed and consigned Prohibition to the ash heap of history.

NJ @ GABF

New Jersey beer enthusiasts who descend upon the Great American Beer Festival tomorrow through Saturday will find some of the trappings of home in Denver.

Jersey craft brewers attending the 2011 incarnation of the nation's biggest beer fest are Cricket Hill, Flying Fish, Harvest Moon, Iron Hill and Long Valley.

There's also a group presence of the Garden State Craft Brewers Guild: Flying Fish, Iron Hill, Cricket Hill, Kane Brewing (one of the state's newest breweries), Basil T's and Harvest Moon.

Cheers.

Old World tradition, New World innovation

Belgian beer made in New Jersey by a Belgian, as an American for Americans.

That's the vision Wim Vanraes has for his planned Saint William Brewery, a project that the Somerset County resident has been nurturing for a year, building momentum via blogging and paying calls on other beer-makers on the Garden State craft brewing landscape that he seeks to join with a triple, a honey ale and an amber ale.

Wim, 31, is a Belgian native who lives in Warren Township and became a U.S. citizen last year.

So far for his planned production brewery, Wim has met with financial and branding consultants – advisers who will become his core management team. The first round of financing is expected to be in place by year's end, Wim says, and a third-generation Belgian brewer who trained him has agreed to work as a consultant and help set up the brewery.

Right now, he's siting a location (the New Brunswick area is a possibility), searching for a viable building that can be adapted to a brewery. Constructing a building is also an option, should a suitable existing building prove elusive. Other details being worked out include what size brew house and fermenters to start with. Of concern is keeping within a financial safe zone, but also ensuring appropriate growth potential has been accounted for.

"There is a lot that comes with opening a brewery nowadays; it isn't sufficient anymore to have a great beer you can make. There is the whole production side to it, but that is not enough in itself," Wim says. "In order to be able to keep making great beer, the brewery has to be successful as a business as well, balancing the passion and art of the brewer with the calculations and projections of the economist. Especially in rough times as we see now, everything needs to be planned and anticipated and prepared for, beyond the beer and production aspects. The reward will be there in the end: great beer, made in a healthy brewery."

Wim was born in Sint-Niklaas, a town in the province of East Flanders. He was raised there and lived there until after graduation from Ghent University eight years ago with a master's in archaeology. (His wife, Melissa Lariviere, teaches second grade. Melissa is originally from Detroit, but moved to New Jersey when she was little.)

Right now Wim works as a freelance translator/proofreader (English to Dutch, Dutch to english). Before the economy soured, he worked with a company that cleans air conditioning units and commercial kitchen exhaust systems. Starting a brewery is a path to career change.

But Wim notes there's much more to it than that. Beer is central to Flemish culture, part of its folk traditions, and something he's been involved with since his youth. It's a catalyst for socializing, a force that unites people.

And that makes it a natural fit.

A chat with Bitting brewer Chris Sheehan

Newark's only craft beer-maker, Port 44 Brew Pub, folded shop just three months past its first anniversary in Brick City. On July 22, the hottest day of 2011 in Newark – a record 108 degrees Fahrenheit – the financially struggling restaurant-brewery's air-conditioning conked out. The doors closed. (The For Sale sign had already gone up, sometime around the start of July; asking price, $2.1 million.)

Tossed out of work by the closing, brewer Chris Sheehan, who came to Newark fresh from Chelsea Brewing in Manhattan (he also put in time at at Triple Rock Brewery & Alehouse in Berkeley, California, and San Francisco's 20 Tank Brewery), needed a gig, a beer-maker in search of a mash to strike.

Opportunity knocked in late August, after J.J. Bitting brewer James Moss decided to relocate to New England.

Two brews (a brown ale and a hop harvest ale) into his tenure as keeper of the brewhouse in Woodbridge, Chris took some time last week from washing kegs and other duties to talk about brewing and the beers he wants to make at Bitting. He also fielded some questions about Port 44.

BSL: How long have you been with Bitting?
CS: I've been here for just over three weeks now. After Port 44 laid me off, I was unemployed for about two weeks and then picked up one week of work over at Greenpoint in Brooklyn, just one week of work there. While I was working there, I had already been in communication with Mike (owner Mike Cerami). Mike was looking for someone to step in here, so I ended up coming over here. In these economic times, been unemployed for only two weeks is not all that bad.

BSL: Bitting has its lineup of beers that are always expected to be on a share of its six taps, but you're going to bring some things to that mix, right?
CS: Mike told me the only three beers he wants to keep on at all times are the golden (Victoria's Golden Ale), the raspberry (wheat) and the amber (Avenel Amber). After that, I have room to work within my styles. I'll still bounce things off of him ... I do want to make sure the customers here are happy. I personally can't stand pumpkin beers, but I'm going to be doing a pumpkin beer. From what I gather it's been pretty popular here; I don't want to disappoint the customers.

BSL: One of your preferred styles of beer is stout, right?
CS: Well, I have a reputation for stouts. Six of my eight Great American Beer Festival medals were for stouts. By the same token, I consider myself more of California-style brewer, or a West Coast brewer.

BSL: You worked in San Francisco for a while.
CS: Yeah, my career began in California. My whole philosophy and approach is, if I'm doing a wheat beer, I'll do an American-style wheat beer. When I think of East Coast brewers, I think of brewing much more in traditional European beer styles. When I think of West Coast, I think American styles.

BSL: Lots of resiny hops ...
CS: Lots of hops, yes, in the appropriate styles. There are other styles that are not so hoppy, but are American styles, like wheat beer for example, like an American-style wheat beer versus a German hefeweizen. This place in the past has been pretty much a classic East Coast-style brewery. That's where I'm going to be bringing a little more of a different approach, as far as my philosophy being more West Coast. Not necessarily hops all over the place, but yes hops come up a little bit more in some of the beers. But at the same time, as far as the styles I brew, I'm gonna steer away from German-style hefeweizen. I'm probably gonna do an American-style wheat beer instead, come next summer. Maybe I'll do a wheat wine in the wintertime. I don't have a specific plan at this point, I'm just kinda feeling my way at this point. I have respect for the regular customers, and I don't want to come in here and just start throwing all sorts of stuff at them they're not into. It's important the customers want to drink the beer you're brewing.

BSL: But perhaps they will be able to, at some point, have a signature Chris Sheehan stout?
CS: Right. Definitely. The brown ale, we have it on cask right now, it's waiting to come on when we run out of dunkelweizen. That is basically what Mike wanted to be our dark beer for now. He didn't want to go totally into stouts at this point. But when that brown ale runs out, we'll follow it with a stout.

BSL: Bitting has traditionally done a barleywine ...
CS: Yeah, and that's where I touched on wheat wine instead of barleywine. I doubt that it's ever been done here. I'm all for a barleywine, too. I have no problem with a barleywine.

BSL: Have you done them a lot?
CS: Yeah, I've done barleywines in the past. I had a whimsically named beer over at Chelsea – it was a barleywine – just for a joke, we called it Imperial Mild. That was when everyone was doing imperial versions of everything, imperial brown ale, imperial pilsner. So OK, here's an imperial mild.

BSL: Three months from now, what would somebody coming here expect to find on tap?
CS: They always do winter warmer. I will do a winter warmer, but it will not be spiced.

BSL: Should people get the impression you want beer to taste like beer?
CS: I am a purist ... My mentality is beer should only be made with the four necessary ingredients: malt, hops, yeast and water. Maybe I can broaden that with: a grain, hops, yeast and water.

BSL: Let's talk about Port 44 for a minute. Newark is home to a Budweiser brewery, so Port 44 was the only craft brewery in New Jersey's largest city. It's a shame it closed back in July.
CS: I still believe it could be a successful business, with the right management and the right money. It has tremendous potential to be a very successful business ... You look at the (nearby) Prudential Center; it's the third-largest grossing arena in the country. Any start-up business, they say you should have financing to cover your two first years of operation, all of your expenses for your two first years of operation ...

BSL: So while you were serving up Port 44's brews, who were the regulars who came in?
CS: We had railroad guys – NJ Transit engineers. A whole group of them were mug club members. Other local business, small businesses. We had all sorts of regulars from Public Service (PSEG) and from Prudential.

BSL: So the business model it had laid out for itself was actually functioning, playing out?
CS: Yeah. The concept was good and the location was good. When I signed on, I really felt in my heart this would be a success. Whoever does buy or invest in that brewery, as long as they have restaurant or bar experience ... it could be a total success.

BSL: What were some of the brighter moments in Newark?
CS: I loved the brewery. Greg (Gilhooly, one of the founders) stumbled upon that brewhouse; we got that thing on eBay. I loved the system; I felt I was making some of the best beer of my career. It was an ITT system. From what I understand, there's only two of its kind in the whole country. I don't know where the other one is. I believe this one used to be in Michigan. It's a really unique system. I was very proud at the way I got the whole system set up.

BSL: Port 44 opened in April 2010 with guest tap beers, and its closing was well beyond that date, but just shy of the first anniversary of the Chris Sheehan-brewed beers going on tap. That has to be a great sense of frustration.
CS: It was really, really disappointing for me personally. Heartbreaking. That whole (brewing) system was my baby. I'd never done a start-up, and that's part of the reason I went there and did it, because I always wanted to be involved in a start-up. And to see it just go down the tubes like that so quickly was just very discouraging. But it was still a learning experience. I learned a tremendous amount going through the ordeal. I hope somebody will come along and be interested in buying the place.

EVENT NOTE: J.J. Bitting hosts the fifth annual Central Jersey Charity Beer Fest, 1-5 p.m. Saturday at Parker Press Park, Woodbridge, a five minute walk from the brewpub. Tickets are 25 bucks. Weather: High temp 75, 40 percent chance of rain. Rate date is Saturday, Oct. 1.

ADDENDUM: A note from a Port 44 denizen, Dave ...

I am one of the guys that was a regular at Port 44, and all my buddies were just as disappointed as I was when it suddenly closed. We happened to walk up there that day, and the doors were locked - but Chris was there and let us in. The place was hot thanks to the AC problems, and we shared our -last- beers there with Chris as he was cleaning the lines for the last time.

Sad!

Then, a few weeks back, I happened to be finishing up work in the Woodbridge area and stopped by Bittings for a late lunch and sure enough, there was Chris! I was happy he landed somewhere ...

New dimension at High Point – more space

Regulars who make it to High Point Brewing's open houses probably noticed over the past couple of months the knocked down wall at the far end of the brewery.

It is what you think: underway expansion by the makers of the Ramstein craft beer lineup. In July, High Point took over the next-door space in the Butler industrial complex that the 15-year-old brewery has long called home. The space previously had been used to warehouse DVDs produced by an indy filmmaker and distributor, EI Independent Cinema (makers of the B-movie Spiderbabe).

Like a lot of the longtime Garden State production craft brewers, High Point is running at capacity, making the business of brewing the year-round core brands and squeezing in the seasonal brews a tougher balancing act. (High Point also does contract brewing.) Hence, the need to expand.

High Point owner Greg Zaccardi (that's Greg above pouring samples from the September open house) says the back wall came down in late July, and the extra 2,000 square feet of space was immediately used for storing empty kegs. It will also be used for grain storage, and sometime next month the brewery's cold box will be moved into there.

Relocating the cold box will open up 400 square feet for the installation of more 30-barrel fermenters, an undertaking that had been on the brewery's 2011 to-do list. That project is now slated for just after the start of 2012.

Greg says the brewery needs to get past the Oktoberfest season, an über-busy time of year for High Point, which specializes in German-style beers. On the heels of that is another big-selling seasonal, Ramstein Winter Wheat Doppelbock.

(Look for more of the weizenbock to make it into 12-ounces bottles this season than last year. Most of it was draft only last time, and a larger-than-normal portion of the production run was set aside for turning into Icestorm eisbock.)

Speaking of Oktoberfest, High Point brewed 10 15-barrel batches of its popular märzen this year. Demand for the seasonal was up 25 percent, and the brewery had to make a decision about whether to temporarily cut back on brewing Blonde wheat beer, a year-round Ramstein brew, when it began its production run of Oktoberfest back in July.

EVENT NOTE: High Point will tap an Austrian oak barrel of the märzen as part of an Oktoberfest event at the Pilsener Haus & Biergarten in Hoboken on Friday.

Where the sun chills the beer

A spotlight on going green ...

If you've had the chance, say on a brewery tour in Cherry Hill or a beer event somewhere, to talk to the folks at Flying Fish Brewing about their plans to take up new digs in Somerdale, then perhaps you know they want to put solar panels on the building to supplement their electric power demands.

Word is that FF's hopes to partner with the sun have run into an environmental glitch concerning the building, leaving their plans for the solar panels up in the air. That's just a minor status update, not the final word, so stand by.

However, there is a place just outside Atlantic City where the sun does play a role in beer.

For more 2 1/2 months now, the Joe Canal's packaged goods store in Egg Harbor Township has been chilling the beer in the cold box, running the lights and everything else that needs juice, using a 255 kW solar panel system – 1,245 of the obsidian-looking panels distributed over a parking lot carport, the building's roof and an area behind the building.

Owner Stuart Stromfeld says the panels went into service at the beginning of July and can provide nearly 85 percent of the store's electrical power needs. (Stuart graciously took for a phone interview a couple days after Labor Day, as he was heading to Philadelphia airport to catch a flight to Tuscany, Italy.)

The cost advantages for the long run are obvious. It's not cheap – 65-grand a year – to power cold box space that measures 60 feet by 20 feet by 20 feet and sits in the center of the store. It always needs to always be on, of course, to keep shelves of beer and wine refrigerated.

Stromfeld says the solar panels will pare the electric bill sharply. But they're also an environmentally conscious move, and that was a factor in the decision to have them installed. Plans down the road include fitting Stromfeld's second Joe Canal's location across town with the solar panels.

Brite Idea Energy of Egg Harbor Township installed the panels. The longer days of summer provide more power production, but "actually in winter time we do very good with production because the panels stay cooler," says Christopher Brown, sales manager for Brite Idea.

Brown says Stromfeld's store was a two-year project, from design and engineering work, getting regulatory agency approvals, and then installation.

"It's been a showpiece project for us," he says.