River Horse's countdown to Lambertville exit

The brewery seen from across the canal

Say you own a craft brewery that turns out some quite popular beers. 

And for every batch of beer you make, part of the cleanup chore involves some aerial maneuvering: raising the forks on your forklift all the way up their mast so you can fetch a bin of spent grain raked from the mash tun at your second-floor brewhouse.

Try dealing with that about six times per brew day. Doable, but a little tricky, certainly logistically cumbersome, and a huge mess if one of the bins should accidentally fall.

Graining out the hard way

Here's another scenario ...

Your distributors are due to pick up pallets of beer. So you need to know if they're bringing the 40-foot truck or one about half that size. Uh, it's the long one? Please get here early. 

The cramped local road your brewery sits along is the only access, and it's dotted with some homes, offices and galleries ... it's not exactly ideal, having big commercial trucks navigating that narrow lane.

So what would you do under those circumstances? Probably move. 

River Horse Brewing is. 

For those reasons and more, River Horse is exiting its 17-year home of Lambertville, heading about 15 miles south to Ewing, outside of Trenton, to a single-floor, stand-alone building in a business park along Graphics Drive. 

The new location on Graphics Drive

The new location in Mercer County promises to cure a lot of River Horse's current headaches, big and small, as it serves both immediate and future growth needs. 

"It's been a cautious path, this move," says Chris Walsh, who bought the brewery with co-owner Glenn Bernabeo in 2007, a time when River Horse was pretty much a withering brewery, a label in some serious trouble. 

"We wanted to do it for a long time, but in the beginning we had to fix the business. A move then, it would have been too much. We had to get the brand stable."

They did. And then some. 

The brewhouse on the 2nd floor

River Horse is New Jersey's second-largest craft brewery, coming in behind Flying Fish Brewing, which itself moved just last year from its original home of Cherry Hill to nearby Somerdale. 

These days, River Horse cranks out almost 10,000 barrels of beer a year, a tide of draft and bottled ales, both big and sessionable, in five year-round brews, plus five seasonals (brewer's reserve beers, too). 

Packaging River Horse Special Ale

The lineup includes a trifecta of Belgian styles (Double Wit, Belgian Freeze dark ale, and Tripel Horse), and once boasted a popular lager that had to be retired for the sake of freeing up tank space for production. 

(Dunkelfester, a dark lager made for Oktoberfest 2008, though a hit with the brewery's following, met a similar fate for similar reasons, having never seen its planned seasonal reprise.)

At 25,000 square feet and with four high loading docks to accommodate delivery trucks, the new location is expected to goose production by 30 to 40 percent over time and enable the return of that idled brew, River Horse Lager. 

"That's the short-term thing we'd like to do. It  had a big following," Chris says. "But the whole lager family is now open." Like a pilsner, a perfect warm weather style to slip into the seasonal lineup beside the brewery's über-popular Summer Blonde Ale.

Seek and find

Situated in the shadow of Ewing's town hall and police department, the new location was most recently used as warehouse space by The Mega Group, a public relations and marketing company that counts AAA Mid-Atlantic and Verizon among its clients. 

Siting the new location proved to be an arduous task. Chris says the brewery enlisted the help of Mercer County to find suitable space. After 30 to 40 prospective sites, the Graphics Drive property got the nod, pretty much to the delight of Ewing officials, who were happy to be drawing an industry with a rising profile.

Taps in the tasting room

Right now, floor drains are being installed, along with a mill room and a mechanical room. The brewery looks to leave Lambertville behind sometime in early spring, with its 25-barrel brewhouse and accompanying fermenters and bright beer tanks up and in use in Ewing around the start of April, a time when the brewery gets pushing out that Summer Blonde. 

Over time, as production needs demand, the brewery plans to replace its current brewhouse with a 50-barrel system and swap out its 40-barrel fermenters for 150-barrel tanks.

As bright as the horizon looks, and as sorely needed as the extra space is, saying so long to Lambertville is still bittersweet. The old Original Trenton Cracker factory, a 10,000-square-foot building that sits along the Delaware Canal, has been River Horse's only home since launching in 1996. 

Sure, the brewhouse is on the second floor, an arrangement that doesn't lend itself well to brewery tours. Yeah, there have been times the forklift has been driven beyond the loading bay, out to delivery trucks waiting on the street. Sure, the ceiling buckled under heavy, wet snow a few winters back, and the building flooded about 10 years ago when torrential rains swelled the canal beyond its banks. 

Oktoberfest 2008 crowd

But those are less complaints than realities, conditions on-the-ground, so to speak. For all that, the building and Lambertville have been a big part of the brewery's identity. Lambertville's an artsy Hunterdon County town you get around in mostly by walking, taking in the specialty shops, art galleries and restaurants.

That kind of foot traffic invariably makes its way to the brewery, whether during the annual ShadFest in the spring, Oktoberfests each fall, or just whenever. Both of those events, by the way, have always pulled in large crowds, making the brewery a point of interest in the town. 

"It's been home, part of the community since '96," Chris says. "We're certainly giving up some stuff, no doubt about it."

Drink up, and fix the shore

Here's how you can put your beer dollar to a good cause:

Flying Fish plans to release a wheat-pale ale next month to raise money for hurricane relief efforts.

The beer, F.U. Sandy (the FU stands for forever unloved, and perhaps what else you're thinking), will be the first new brew coming out of Flying Fish since it moved to Somerdale from its founding location of Cherry Hill last year.

The brewery describes the beer as a 50-50 balance of two-row pale malt and American white wheat, hopped with ADHA 483, an experimental hop donated by the American Dwarf Hop Association. F.U. Sandy is an inaugural use for the hop in a beer, the brewery says.

The 100-keg production run will be draft only, but Flying Fish left the door open for something further, saying on its website "we'll see what happens."

OK, that said, here's the really important part: The brewery forecasts raising $50,000 to be steered to a New Jersey-based, grassroots charity dedicated to storm relief. The brewery is taking nominations on which charity and you can send yours via email: info@flyingfish.com.

Now, $50,000 may not sound like a lot of money (it is for a comparatively small company) when the damage from the Oct. 29th superstorm – a hurricane that swallowed a nor'easter and went on a major tear – rivals the entire state budget and that Long Beach Island alone got shredded to the tune of $1 billion.

But it is this: It's private industry contributing, and it's an example for other businesses that can to follow. Furthermore, at a time when holdouts in the U.S. House of Representatives suggest the private sector play a role (which it has – $400 million raised from relief drives/events, including the 12-12-12 concert) and prefer to play politics, stalling votes on aid, trying to blow up the aid package, and just generally and needlessly screwing things up, every little bit helps. (See The Daily Show's Jon Stewart size things up here.  And here. The rants are the both second segments in the show.)

Also, there is a serious problem at play here: The House finally approved $50 billion in aid; the Senate approved $60 billion by a far more bipartisan vote; the two versions have to be reconciled before they can get anywhere near a presidential pen for signing. And last week saw evidence of further skirmishes over the aid package, so this could get drawn out even more. Meanwhile, the Star Jet roller coaster sits in the drink.

So, by all means, fill your growlers, raise a pint and raise some money. Because it really matters.

Cape May Brewing ain't so little now

Chris Henke, Ryan Krill, Mark McPherson

 There's a constant thread in craft brewing: A lot of the folks who get into the business gravitated to it from other careers.

In most cases, those people take a lot of the knowledge of their previous occupations and vocations into their new beer careers.

And so it goes for the new faces at Cape May Brewing, New Jersey's southern-most brewery. Take Mark McPherson, who jumped into brewing from a family-owned concrete business, joining the brewery 14 months ago part-time – he's been full-time for 10 – as it ramped up for a big growth spurt. 

"I'm local down here and heard about the brewery opening up. I met these guys and saw them brewing on a small scale," Mark says, standing just off the brewhouse, pausing from an early afternoon task of tending a mash.

Taproom bar

Mark checking the kettle

Cape May launched in July 2011 in Lower Township. At that time, it was just the owners – Ryan Krill and his dad, Robert, running things from the margins of their day jobs (finance and pharmaceutical consulting), while Ryan's college friend, Chris Henke, broke clean from his engineering job to be full-time at the then-half barrel brewery and to make the beer.

The brewery and its lineup of 10 draft-only ales has been growing rather exponentially since, taking over two more units of the small business park building it calls home beside Cape May County Airport. 

The extra space houses a 4-barrel brewhouse picked up last year from a Maryland brewpub; some repurposed rectangular wine fermenters; a 30-barrel conical tank used as a bright tank; a cold box for kegged beer; and a new tasting room that features a 40-foot polished concrete bar with 12 taps hovering behind it. (The tasting/taproom is open five days a week, by the way.)

"My dad is going to be full-time here in the spring," says Ryan. "He's checking out of consulting. He's part-time now, comes down during the week and on the weekends when we need help in the taproom."

Those weekends have been big, with brewery tours drawing enviable crowds; they've been positively booming during the summer, a peak season for any business at the Jersey shore. But that summer success has spilled over into other parts of the calendar.

Count 'em: a dozen taps 

All roads lead to beer

"It's just been busier and busier," says Ryan.

Ryan had planned to make the full-time jump this spring but did so last August and handles the distribution end of the brewery. "Every month our gross number has been increasing. Even though the summer has tapered off, it's just accelerating here for us."

Their list of draft accounts in Cape May County numbers 25 now and includes the Cape May-Lewes Ferry terminal. Their top-selling beer remains their Cascade-hopped IPA, but their seasonal honey porter sees high demand as well (a just-brewed barleywine will further their lineup; bomber bottles of special brews, like that barleywine, are also planned). Weekly production has surged, topping 20 barrels.

"It's not a consistent number for us, because we're still feeling things out," Ryan says. "We're gaining a number of new accounts. Even though that's a few accounts every week, as a percentage of the total, it's a lot for us. So we're still trying to feel out where we need to land for the winter."

Yet, that growth has meant the fledgling brewery needed more hands. 

Taproom manager Danny Otero

Thus, Mark was among a clutch of full- and part-time hires the brewery made to help it keep up. So was Danny Otero, a former corporate chef for Nordstrom's, who now manages the brewery's taproom in addition to handling some cellar duties.

For Mark, 38, signing on at the brewery meant making a decision to leave the family business, McPherson Masonry, in Erma (a section of Lower Township where the brewery is located). 

Peeling away from a family business where he was fourth-generation was a little stunning to his uncles, father and brother. But they were also impressed by the brewery and the realization of suddenly having a brewer in the family.

"It was a shocker," Mark says. "It was a shocker just to have a brewery in our area. The second big shocker was for me to be able to work in a brewery."

Cape May Brewing half barrels

But it's been very advantageous for Cape May Brewing, picking up a skilled construction worker at a time when it was shedding the skin of a very tiny operation. 

In fact, the most popular place in the operation is where you'll find some of Mark's handiwork: He built the tasting room bar.

"I did this section, too," he says, smiling and motioning to another part of brewhouse room. "I jackhammered out the concrete and put in the floor drains and repoured the concrete. I was a valuable asset. They needed a lot of concrete work."

There were advantages for McPherson Masonry, too.

"It alleviated a lot of the pressures, I believe, on the company, my coming here, one less mouth that my dad had to worry about," Mark says. "The housing industry has been very, very tough the past five years in Cape May County, because we're largely a tourist (area), a seaside resort. When the economy is bad, people don't vacation as much. They're not up to buying second homes or fixing up the second homes that they do have."

Marines turn 237 & do it with beer

Event notice

Most craft beer enthusiasts know food and beer these days are a much-talked-about ticket.

Thanks to that, beer enjoys a vaunted status like wine (set aside for now the argument that beer has always deserved that place in culinary discussion).

Food takes high-brow beer even higher. So this dish may make for a head-scratcher hearing it mentioned beside craft beer.

But since the lowly creamed chip beef on toast is on the buffet menu for the Tun Tavern brewpub's 15th observance of the founding of the US Marines this Saturday, it deserves some attention, as far as beer pairings go. (Iwo Jima Chili is also on the buffet, by the way.)

The emblematic comestible of dogfaces and jarheads (the dish has a 100-plus year association with the US military), cream chipped beef goes by a few handles in GI slang, like Stew on a Shingle, Something on a Shingle, or the more memorable Shit on a Shingle.

Yeah, it's a borrowed phrase

But what beer goes with it?

Tun Tavern brewer Tim Kelly recommends dialing back the hops. Malt flavor, too.

"Maybe Tun Light, or Irish Red because of the cream," says Tim, who did a hitch in the Army.

We're going to suggest giving a pint of Leatherneck Stout a try next to that plate of SOS. The hops aren't upfront, and the roastiness just might balance with the cream.

But whatever.

For the Marine Corps birthday bash, you'll find the Leatherneck Stout and the Tun's house-made light beer on the tap lineup beside regulars Devil Dog Pale Ale and All American IPA, plus pair of seasonal pumpkin beers  – Tim's traditional pumpkin lager and a 9 percent imperial pumpkin ale.

Semper Fi and the birthplace of the Marines
Craft beer fans in New Jersey know the Tun Tavern as Atlantic City's only brewery, located across from the Convention Center, which itself sits at the foot of the Atlantic City Expressway. (Tun owner Monty Dahm is a former Marine, and his establishment is outfitted in Marine Corps trappings. This video will give you a taste for what the event is like.)

On Nov. 10th, 1775, at the original but now long-gone Tun Tavern in Philadelphia, the Marines were founded. It was a marshaling of troops for the cause of, well, revolution, for getting the king of England out of everyone's face, an endeavor that had begun with a can't-turn-back-now moment over the previous April.

By that November, things had grown into a call for a few good men.

The rest is history. And beer.

What: 237th birthday of US Marines
Where: Tun Tavern, Atlantic City
When: 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 10th
Cost: $12.95 for buffet, $2 pints of beer

FOOTNOTE:
The Tun Tavern deserves some applause for pitching in during Hurricane Sandy. The brewpub is located on the west side of the city, where the elevation is a little higher, so it was spared flooding by storm surge (the high water did come up the veranda, though). The Tun lost power for about three days, but pressed some gas grills into service to feed emergency responders.

Medal works

Call it the Bronze Age, Iron Fish edition.

Flying Fish, now officially calling Somerdale, NJ, its home, took a bronze medal at the Great American Beer Festival, while Iron Hill Brewery notched a silver, plus a pair of bronze medals. (Here's the complete winners list.)

Bronze finisher Exit 8, a chestnut Belgian Brown ale, debuted just before spring 2012 as the last new Exit Series brew to come out of Flying Fish's founding location of Cherry Hill.

You may recall FF's Exit 4 won gold in 2009, while its Abbey Dubbel won a silver the year before.

Speaking of Exits, Exit 16 is now a year-round beer in 12-ounce bottles and draft, giving Flying Fish shelf and tap representation in the double IPA heading.

That tidbit has been out in the beer headlines for a little while now, but it's worth repeating. Double IPAs have been immensely popular for sometime now, and this wild rice take on the style is worth your glass.

Meanwhile, Iron Hill kept its winning streak alive with a silver medal for its Rauchtoberfest (Lancaster, Pa., location), and bronze medals for its Roggenbier (Phoenixville, Pa.), Black IPA (Wilmington, Del.) and Russian Imperial Stout (Media, Pa.).

This year's medals extend Iron Hill's impressive winning streak to 16 years. That's how long the nine-location brewpub chain has been in business and more than half the existence of the GABF. 

About the pictures:
Flying Fish held an open house back on Sept. 29, an event that coincided with a town festival in Somerdale. It was a one-off open house, since the brewery is putting some finishing touches on the new digs before it begins brewery tours on a regular basis. Check the brewery's multiple feeds (Facebook, Twitter and website) if you have any questions about tours.

Photo dispatch from GABF

Mid-Atlantic Brewing News' correspondent for New Jersey, Mark Haynie, is in Denver at the Great American Beer Festival.

He fired off these pics of J.J. Bitting brewer Chris Sheehan and Harvest Moon brewer Kyle McDonald.
 

River Horse: 5 years under new owners

River Horse Brewing wrapped up its Oktoberfest last weekend, featuring its fall seasonal Hipp-O-Lantern Imperial Pumpkin Ale (among other brews), plus a cask version of its Special Ale, dressed up with bourbon-soaked oak chips, cinnamon and vanilla bean.

The crowd that packed into the brewery and its back loading area made quick work of that cask Special Ale and jammed once again to brewer Chris Rakow's band, Ludlow Station.

If you're keeping score with the Lambertville brewery, then you'll know River Horse crossed a milestone at the end of this summer, something that the annual Oktoberfest was symbolic of.

Five years ago in August, River Horse gained new owners, a changing of the guard that not only rescued a troubled brewery but set it on a steady course that has delivered Garden State craft beer enthusiasts not only a more diverse and quality beer lineup but some really creative beers in the mix as well.

Oh, and the hippos on the six-pack packaging got a makeover, too.

But it was at the 2007 Oktoberfest, then a two-day affair at the brewery (it's now a more manageable single afternoon), that Glenn Bernabeo and Chris Walsh got to really mix with those beer drinkers who remained faithful to the brand and let them know that the new owners were a couple of guys who really appreciate beer and were dedicated to rebuilding the brand.

Back in 2007, River Horse, the about 10 years in business, had fallen into inconsistency with its product quaslity, and among package store beer managers, the name was one that many were beginning to skip.

"A lot of folks thought we were out of business when we had that one and were a little surprised when they heard that things were not good," Glenn says, recalling that 2007 Oktoberfest. "That wasn't the case, obviously."

The turnaround, for a lack of a better term, involved restoring quality, shaking up River Horse's lineup that included a clutch of Belgian styles, some 1990s craft beer standards like amber and hoppy ales, and a lager. It also meant refocusing the River Horse market, ditching some distribution areas that one could easily argue had overextended the brewery.

"What we've done since we've taken over is pull the footprint in to be way more local," Glenn says. "When we started we were in Virginia; we were in D.C.; we were in Delaware; we were in Maryland; we were in Rhode Island; we were in Boston; we were in upstate New York ... We've pulled those territories in, and right now, though production-wise we're much higher volume (but), it's concentrated in a much smaller area.

"We've become focused on being a local brewery. We're predominantly in New Jersey; we're in Philadelphia/five county; we're in Lehigh Valley, out to Lancaster a little bit, Manhattan, Brooklyn, southern Connecticut ... and that's it. That's been working for us."

Something else that has worked is sharpening the brewery's business approach. It didn't hurt the brewery added tank capacity, but Glenn says production efficiencies paid off as well.

"We have added physical capacity with respect to tank space. We've also done a lot of work around our yields; we've done a lot of work around our production timing and the production flow," he says. "At the time we weren't even getting the most out of the capacity we had. So we've grown volume even more than we've actually added tanks because we've gotten a little bit sharper at how we operate the business.

"Now we're very, very regimented in terms of what our brew schedule is, how our product is launched, our packaging schedule ... We have scheduled down days just for maintenance (and) quality control. We always had the mentality that if we get the product right first, then all of the other things are going to fall in line. So far, that's been true."

So what's next for River Horse?

"We're always experimenting. We've got a Scotch ale on the horizon, some smoked beers on the horizon," Glenn says. "We're going to continue to expand our product line and try to keep things interesting and fresh."

Talking to Trap Rock brewer Charlie Schroeder

The recently enacted law that gives a boost to New Jersey's 25 craft brewers probably helps the dozen-plus brewpubs across the state the most, allowing those breweries to get their names out before the public like never before.

Unlike production brewers that could put their beers in bars and on store shelves, brewpubs in New Jersey had been relegated to selling beer from the place they made it. That restriction limited exposure for the pub breweries' beers and left a drinking public somewhat bewildered at the idea of being unable to get those beers at packaged goods stores. After all, Sly Fox, for example, had a couple of restaurant-breweries in Pennsylvania, yet it's beers were on store shelves.

The new law changes that in New Jersey. Brewpubs, like their production brewer colleagues, can now sign up with beer wholesalers for distribution, giving the pubs a much wider reach than the foot-traffic into their establishments ever allowed.

But imagining that happening is easier to do than making it happen, given the expense of taking on expansion to serve not only the pubs' patrons, but carving out a niche in the crowded and competitive craft beer markets. (Brewpub owners can also own up to 10 locations.)

Still, that idea of a wider reach was fast on the minds of the folks at Harvest Restaurants, which operates nine establishments in upscale areas of Union, Somerset and Morris counties and counts Trap Rock brewpub in that mix.

Harvest is uniquely situated to quickly take advantage of the new regulatory changes and has envisioned putting the beers made at Trap Rock in Berkeley Heights on tap at its other restaurants. It's Hathor Red and Ghost Pony lagers are have been contract-brewed at High Point (Ramstein) for the other Harvest establishments for a while now.

But with a major change in the rules – a change that, in effect, hits the reset button for the state's craft beer industry – it makes sense for a restaurant company that has a brewpub under its ownership to bring things in house.

From that vantage point, Trap Rock brewer Charlie Schroeder took time out from a busy end of the week brew day to discuss such growth and what it would entail.

BSL: Talk about how busy Trap Rock has become. Craft beer has been in New Jersey since 1995, but has really grown hot with the national trend for about four years now.
CS: I'm selling more beer this year than I did last year, and last year was a very big year for me. I finally did over 500 barrels, and I'm beating that this year. Keeping up with demand, even with the new fermenter, isn't easy. I could probably use another fermenter. I'm trying to sell more kegs, but I don't have enough room to store kegs, and I run into the issue of running out of beer, especially the Oktoberfest. This is the first year I'll make three batches of that.

I don't sell a lot of kegs, but it's an important part of the business because people will drink it at their house. (Their guests) will want to know what it is, then they'll be interested and then they'll want to come here and purchase a growler or have a pint here. So it's really about getting the name out there. That's really the only way we can get the beer out there to market, is for customers to buy it and take it home.

BSL: The recently signed craft brewing legislation liberates brewpubs, lets them sell through wholesalers. Because Harvest Restaurants has a number of establishments, the bill signing could conceivably make Trap Rock the supplier of house brands. What's the process of moving forward?
CS: It may mean we find a bigger location or keep the current location and expand possibly next door, or find a bigger building ... I'm not sure yet. We haven't sat down and talked about it because it (the bill signing) just happened a couple weeks ago.

BSL: But this is definitely something that's out there?
CS: There have been conversations (in the past). It's just a matter of sitting down and strategizing, figuring out what's going to work. This legislation is something I have been waiting for for the last five years. The owner has always wanted to do something. Back in 2000, 2001, that's when we first started contract-brewing the Ghost Pony and the Hathor Red at Ramstein.

What we want to be able to do is have my India pale ale on draft, a wheat beer, a dark beer, Belgian beers, and put them in bottles, too. That is something they want to do, and this gives us that opportunity now to do that.

BSL: With some necessary changes.
CS: Now there's a need to expand. Before, when you're just selling within your own walls here, there's no way can expand because you're just selling to who comes in through the door. And you're hoping that you're getting more and more people each year, then you run out of room in the brewery to make more beer.

BSL: In terms of branding, it's important to be able to bring all of the beers here to the other Harvest restaurant locations?
CS: Absolutely. (Patrons) ask all the time 'Why can't I get the beers you make here at those locations?'

BSL: So in effect, the law change and letting you work with a wholesaler could make Trap Rock a focal point of Harvest Restaurants identity.
CS: Oh yeah. It ties it all together.

BSL: So what kind of timeframe are we looking at, in the best-case scenario, of being able to site something and everything comes in at reasonable expense for brewing equipment?
CS: I think it's going to take six months to a year to really get it where it needs to be. I don't think it's going to happen any sooner than that. There are other restaurant projects (the owners) are working on; I don't know where I fit into that. They could decide they want to do it now, and it could be three months, or they need to wait to get certain locations lined up, and then we would do it.

BSL: Have you talked to any distributors yet? They were watching the legislation's progress.
CS: I've been approached ... I have one that wants to talk to us, and another one I can talk to ... There's three, three of them. But I don't negotiate that. That's up to the ownership.

BSL: When the craft brewing bill was working its way through the Legislature, one of the talking points focused on job creation. What's a conservative forecast for jobs that could come from a bigger Trap Rock operation?
CS: I have two people now that are working with me. There's a strong possibility of a third depending on how big of an operation I get into next year ... So I have two guys right now that would come on, and a third person with experience, depending on what size brewery or how busy we're going to be. And that I can't predict yet.

BSL: As far as brewery size goes, the objective is to get Trap Rock beers into the other Harvest restaurants?
CS: Yeah. I would say for me it's knowing what size brewery I can get, what space am I going to be able to get. And from there, I'll know how far I can expand out, beyond the restaurants. But the restaurants aren't going to pay the bills. They're going to help. But it's going to take more than that to pay the bills to make the amount of barrels we need to. It's not going to be 1,000 barrels ... I'm looking at 3,000 barrels within the first two years. I don't see why not.

BSL: What about bottling?
CS: My customers want bottles. There are still diehard growler fans that will always buy growlers. But I have customers that want bottles. It moves in that direction. If you're a brewery opening up, you do draft and then people want to take it home – it's the same thing here – and drink it when they feel like it. They don't want to have to feel that they have to drink a whole growler in a day or two.

BSL: So the smaller size becomes important ...
CS: They want a smaller size; they want a 12-ounce bottle.

BSL: But you're not looking at a bottling line?
CS: That depends on the size of the brewery. We can bottle here. So there's strong possibility of me bottling here for the other restaurants, certain beers.

BSL: The higher-gravity beers?
CS: I'm not sure yet. We're working on different labels. We haven't really talked about exactly what's going to the different restaurants. But we have the flexibility here to bottle anything we want. For me, this is a good place to start from. You can bottle 10 cases and send it out and see how it does.

Putting his stamp on things

Catching up with Chris Sheehan, brewer at J.J. Bitting brewpub ...

In a few days' time Chris will be heading west to the Great American Beer Festival, catching up to the five beers the Woodbridge restaurant-brewery sent to this year's gathering in Denver.

Bitting is one at least four Garden State breweries sending beer to the Oct. 11-13 festival (according to the GABF website, the other three are Flying Fish in Somerdale; Harvest Moon in New Brunswick; and Iron Hill Maple Shade, a bronze medalist last year for Vienna lager).

Bitting selections that Chris sent are Victoria's Golden Ale; Knockout Bock; a dunkelweizen; the hoppy foreign export Onyx Stout; and Bad Boy Oktoberfest, a GABF bronze medalist a dozen years ago. (They're all entered into competition.)

With just over a year under his belt at Bitting, having arrived shortly after Newark's Port 44 Brew Pub closed over the summer of 2011, Chris has spent his time in Woodbridge bringing to tap beers from his own recipe catalogue.

For instance, this year is the second go-round at Bitting for his wet hop Harvest Ale made with home-grown hops. Onyx Stout is a Jersey remake of the well-received Black Hole XXX Stout he turned out at Chelsea Brewing in New York.

The Harvest Ale went on tap a couple of weeks ago, the same day as the Central Jersey Beer Fest, the event Bitting has sponsored at a park near the pub for the past six years.

The 10 pounds of wet hops (of differing – some unknown – varieties) were used mostly for finishing, though some did get a 30-minute kettle addition. They came from upstate New York and Chris' home in Bergenfield, where one of his bines was a big-time producer, providing a fifth of the fresh hops he used.

Chris has also been tweaking some of the Bitting flagships, but he has been rather conservative in that regard with the Oktoberfest.

"I reworked all the recipes, except the Oktoberfest because it's an award winner from years ago. I did have to take sack of grain out of it. I was getting better (mash) extraction from a change in the crush of the grain and just better brewhouse techniques."

Good luck in Denver to Bitting, Iron Hill, Harvest Moon and Flying Fish.  

One more from the pumpkin patch

Staying with the topic of pumpkin beers for a little bit ...

A very big thread that runs through craft beer finds brewers surveying the landscape and looking for ideas they can use to create a beer. (OK, yeah, that's how a lot of life works – drawing upon influences to produce something you call yours.)

Pro brewers do it; so do homebrewers. Call it homage ... call it borrowing. Call it knowing a good idea when you see it.

Sal Emma and Terry Leary, a homebrewing duo from Cape May County, fit all three.

Making a pumpkin beer and adding the usual pie spices to the rim of the glass, like salt on a margarita glass, sounded like a worthwhile technique to Sal, who encountered it when he was served a pint of pumpkin beer at Sweetwater Tavern, a Northern Virginia brewpub, a few years ago.

The idea sounded pretty good to Terry, too, and thus, their fall pumpkin ale was born last year. A couple of weeks ago, the pair went about the business of reprising it for this autumn, brewing it in their 2-barrel setup, using sweet South Jersey pumpkins in their mash and some honey in the boil.

(This past spring, the two won a homebrewer contest sponsored by the Tun Tavern and At The Shore weekly entertainment tabloid published by The Press of Atlantic City newspaper. See the accompanying video below. Terry and Sal followed up their contest-winning robust porter with a killer IPA that could give Tröegs Perpetual IPA a run for its money.)

Some background ...
Sweetwater, a restaurant-brewery in Sterling, Va. (with a couple other restaurant locations), began making the pumpkin ale a year after opening its doors in the mid-1990s.

Brewer Nick Funnell, the guy who's been in charge of Sweetwater's beers since the beginning, mashes with pumpkin and adds a blend of traditional pumpkin pie spices in the brew (the spices come from a merchant local to the brewery).

And for a garnish – the part that stuck in Sal's mind – Nick says the serving glasses are rimmed with roasted pumpkin seeds and more pie spices to, well, spice up the drinking experience.

The glass trick, as you can imagine, lets the drinker control the spice experience, either by constantly rotating the glass for more, or drinking from the same spot for less.

Because everyone's palate is different and personal preferences matter.

That's the part fresh in Terry's mind. His preference is for less spice, as in just pumpkin in the mash. The spices go on the glass.

"We grind up (salted) pumpkin seeds," Terry says, "mix the ground seeds with nutmeg, allspice and cinnamon – create a dry mixture of that – then reduce apple cider to a semi-thick roux, dip the glass to about quarter inch in, then dip it in the seeds and spice."

Notes Sal: "We grind 'em real coarse because you want to be able to chew the pumpkin seeds."

For their 2-barrel batch, they started with about 160 pounds of grain – Briess 2 Row, some biscuit malt (you want that pie crust notion), some caramel malt and special roast. To that mash, they added 30 pounds of pumpkins bought from a Cumberland County farmstand. (Last year, they used Libby's canned pumpkin.)

"The pumpkin variety is Long Island Cheese, also know as Cheese Wheel, an heirloom known for its sweetness," Sal says. "They were grown by the Bertuzzi family in Vineland. The seeds from those pumpkins will be in the glass-rimming treatment. Even the seeds are sweet."

The pumpkin adds a some color to the beer, Sal says, "a little bit of essence of pumpkin. It's not a real pumpkiny beer. Terry thinks it's more an aroma kind of thing."

In the boil, they added 15 pounds of honey (hops included Chinook, Willamette and Centennial, with a dash of homegrown Cascade at the very end for aroma) for a beer (around 6% ABV) that is shaping up fine, with that pumpkin essence in the nose.

"(The) beer smelled and tasted great at racking," Sal says, "very malty, not over the top
in hop bitterness but a nice, long hop finish."

Halloween's not far off; neither is their beer.

Gourd in beers: who's drinkin' 'em?

Iron Hill's Chris LaPierre with bourbon pumpkin ale

Talk pumpkin ales and you can quickly divide craft beer enthusiasts into two camps: those who annually look forward to the brews that have become the dominant fall seasonal these days, and the one-and-done folks who are happy to move on after drinking a single pint.

But there's a third group that falls into the mix: the cocktail and chardonnay crowd who look forward to pumpkin ales as their moment for crossing over in to the beer world.

"I definitely think there are people out there that the only beer they'll drink this year is pumpkin beer," says Iron Hill's brewer Chris LaPierre. "This is a kind of beer that wine drinkers, martini drinkers, people that say they don't drink beer ... you know, don't like beer ... (they) will drink pumpkin beer."

Iron Hill taps its flight of pumpkin ales this Saturday, and that third group drinkers are very much represented in the crowd that has made IH's Welcome, Great Pumpkin event the chart-topper as far as the brewpub's lineup of events through the year goes. In fact, in terms of sales, the Great Pumpkin event has eclipsed IH's  Belgium Comes to West Chester Belgian beer fest held at the nine-pub chain's West Chester, Pa., location each January. (Featured beers include The Great Imperial Pumpkin Ale, Pumpkin Ale and Bourbon Imperial Pumpkin Ale. For the record, IH's West Chester location does a Gathering of the Gourds pumpkin beer salute.)

It helps that South Jersey's reception of IH in 2009 turned the company's Maple Shade location its busiest. But for all of the factions that surround pumpkin beer, there is definitely something about the style that people find alluring.

"Just look at how crazy people are about it," Chris says. "Look at the coffee shops, everyone's got a pumpkin latte. I'm sure all the fast-food places probably have a pumpkin milkshake, or whatever. People just go nuts for it.

"Outside of brewpubs, look at how much earlier pumpkin beers are coming out. Every year they're out two or three weeks earlier. Everybody's trying to get theirs out early, trying to get it out before the competition. There's just something about that style."

Pumpkin beer is a balancing act for IH Maple Shade. It's appearance on the taps collides with Oktoberfest. The märzen is still a hot ticket, because Oktoberfest hews to tradition, as far as style goes. It's almost always a copper-colored strong lager, with its sweetness held in check by a dose of noble hops.

Pumpkin beers, on the other hand, get to spread out.

"I used to say that Oktoberfest is our fastest-selling seasonal. In a way, it still is because it's not cannibalized the way pumpkin is – imperial pumpkin, Belgian pumpkin," Chris says. "They're all going to steal from each other a little bit, whereas Oktoberfest is just one style. It makes my life pretty difficult for the fact that those are by far our two fastest-selling seasonals, and they both happen to be out at the same time."

That said, Chris does try to ensure Maple Shade's pumpkin ale makes a reprise deep into the fall, after Halloween. Call it pumpkin management.

"We used to have our pumpkin beer on just before Halloween, to just after Thanksgiving. It's popularity has made that difficult to do. I have trouble keeping up with it," he says. "So what I do now is put one on just before Halloween. Then there's usually a little bit of a gap, then we try to get another batch in and bring it back for Thanksgiving time."

Spice vs. pumpkin flavor
A debate that involves pumpkin beer is whether the beer flavors are enhanced by the pumpkin, the spices (i.e. clove, nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon) or both. Chris' take is: If a brewer indeed uses pumpkin in the mash (not all do, some go the spices alone), that flavor will come through. (However, he concedes he's never put it to a blind taste test. And for the record, Chris uses about 300 pounds of pie pumpkins, that after processing for brewing purposes end up as about 80 pounds in the mash for a 12-barrel batch.)

"Certainly if you get a pumpkin latte or burn a pumpkin candle, there's not going to be any pumpkin in it. It is all about the spices" he says. "A lot of people don't bother putting pumpkin in their pumpkin beers, because they say all people are looking for is the spice anyway.

"My argument is, if you smell what this restaurant smelled like at 8 o'clock in the morning when they're roasting the pumpkins up in the convection ovens, there's no way that flavor's not carrying over into the beer. I do think there's more substance to it."

Christie signs NJ brewery bill

Gov. Chris Christie on Friday handed New Jersey's 25 craft brewers something they have long sought: a lifting of regulatory burdens that have hemmed in the state's growing craft beer industry since the small-batch brewing took off in the Garden State in the mid-1990s.

And with that, Christie also gave Garden State brewers a reason to celebrate, as they can now begin to look more like their brethren in Delaware, New York and Pennsylvania, where making beer has flourished as the craft beer industry overall has grown.

"This law will have as great an impact on the small-brewing industry in New Jersey as the original law that legalized craft brewers," says Flying Fish founder Gene Muller, who, as an officer of the Garden State Craft Brewers Guild, helped push the bill Christie signed though the Legislature. "It will give us the opportunity to compete – and collaborate – with small brewers in our surrounding states.

"For example, I've been kicking around an idea with (Dogfish Head's) Sam Calgione and other Delaware brewers to host concurrent beer fests on each side of the Delaware Bay. Now we might be able to do that. Now we'll be able to host out-of-state brewers at our guild fest."

Here's what the new law does:

• Allows New Jersey's 13 brewpubs to distribute their beers to liquor stores and restaurants through the wholesale distribution system. Previously, brewpubs could only sell their product in the restaurant immediately adjoining the brewery.
• Increases the current cap on the number of brewpubs a company may open in New Jersey, by raising the limit on plenary retail consumption licenses for brewpubs from two to 10.
• Permits brewpubs to increase their annual production to 10,000 barrels a year, up from 3,000.
• Permits brewpubs to offer samples of their product on site as well as off site with a permit from the Alcohol Beverage Control director, at places such as fairs or charity events.
• Permits the state's 12 production breweries to sell beer brewed at the licensed location for consumption on premises as part of a brewery tour. Also allows those breweries to sell a limited amount of beer for off-site consumption.
• Allows production breweries to offer samples of their beers both on and off the premises, as currently permitted for the state's wineries.

The new law, which takes effect immediately, also holds some added importance for the state's crop of new breweries, as well as any breweries in the planning stages.

"The other great thing about the bill is that startups will be able to do a little bit more retail, giving them the cash flow to get their business up to speed faster," Gene says.

Says Michael Kane, whose eponymous brewery in Ocean Township has built a wide following and celebrated its first year in business this summer: "We want to wait for more clarity (on what's allowed), but obviously we're excited. It's good for everybody."

It's a great day especially for the consumer, says Ryan Krill, one of the founders of Cape May Brewing. Breweries now will be able to accommodate beer enthusiasts who often have been surprised to discover state law limited how much beer could sampled or made available for retail purchase, Ryan says.

"That's all behind us now," he adds.

Now a 6-barrel brewery, Cape May started at a sixth of that size last year and early last month saluted its first anniversary.

Christie put his name to the legislation just days shy of a Monday deadline for signing it, and three months after the bill cleared the state Senate and Assembly with bipartisan support. But more importantly, he signed the bill amid a growth phase for the industry.

Since 2010, seven new breweries have been licensed since; two – Great Blue in Middlesex County and Port 44 Brew Pub in Newark – have gone out of business. Meanwhile, Blackthorn Brewing is in development of a 25-barrel brewery in Toms River. Also, the guild's festival held annually in June saw the most home-state breweries – 19 – pouring in the event's 16-year history this summer.

Until Iron Hill brewpub opened its Maple Shade location in 2009, New Jersey endured a 10-year drought on new breweries opening. Now, Iron Hill is in the process of adding a location in Voorhees. (It's worth noting that, had the measure not been signed, Iron Hill would have maxed out its allowed locations in the home state of the owners of the nine-pub chain.)

"When we were contemplating first building in South Jersey, everyone said we were crazy because South Jersey was a craft beer wasteland. When we opened our Maple Shade location and it quickly rose to become our No. 1 store, we realized that New Jersey was a great and underappreciated craft beer market," says Mark Edelson of Iron Hill, who like Gene Muller, logged a lot of hours and trips to Trenton to shepherd the legislation along.

"As we became more involved in New Jersey, we realized that it was the laws that were holding back craft beer in this state, not the beer drinkers. Today is a great day, where legislators in both parties have really come together to create legislation that will allow New Jersey to have the success in craft beer seen in all of the border states and give New Jersey beer lovers many more New Jersey-produced options. Cheers New Jersey!"

Reaction from other brewers across the state Friday to the bill's signing was one of relief and gratitude.

"That's fantastic. We actually changed something for the positive," says Greg Zaccardi, owner of High Point Brewing in Butler. "That is awesome. Finally. Let's all raise a glass to this one."

Charlie Schroeder, brewer at Trap Rock brewpub in Berkeley Heights, was a little more ebullient: "It's a hell of a good day. It's time to party with Gov. Christie. We should all get in our cars and drive down (to Trenton) and have some beers with him."

Oktoberfest is alive and well

This time a year ago, you could find some Internet chatter using Oktoberfest as a punching bag. (Find it here and here.)

The gist of those two observations is: The US craft beer market is awash in crappy takes  – poorly executed or just plain wrong – on a hallowed German style that the Germans themselves have essentially forsaken by putting profit over quality and tradition. In that regard, American brewers should heed the call to rescue it, like they've done with some Belgian styles.

Meanwhile, Oktoberfest as an event has become this tourist-trap-hijacked drunkfest of a calendar date, that most of Germany, save Bavaria, ignores. To be a good student of beer you should be savvier and explore what else Deutschland has to offer.

There's some truth to these observations. Oktoberfest beers dispatched from the homeland to this market are disappointing, and a Web search for Oktoberfest will overrun your browser with hits for booking a trip to Munich. (That's been the case for a while, a well-worn lament by now.)

But, in terms of signal to noise, there's plenty of noise in these observations. For one thing, märzen beer is still alive and well – in the US. There may be plenty of dreck out there, but there's also plenty of cream (that's been the case with craft beer for a while now), as American brewers spot an opening and re-create, even re-imagine, a beer.

As for Oktoberfest the event, it is what it is: a seasonal money-maker for it host city. That's the tilt of the Earth these days. No sense in crying over tipped beer.

And, as far as the subset point goes, that Germans make other brews besides fest beers, well duh. In the craft beer world, hardly anyone thinks (or thought) fest beer is all Germany ever brings to the table.

Even in New Jersey and its environs, where down-the-nose looks our way think us a bit behind the curve, brews like rauchbier, gose and snappy Berliners have been in the mugs for some time, either by our brewers or found on packaged goods stores' import shelves. Germany is not in its rookie season in here in the states, and thanks to the Web, beer drinkers here get around without having stray too far from home (read that as exposure, access to styles, style information).

No matter what the Germans brew these days – and to be sure, they have been dumbing down the fest beer for years now – Americans aren't, nor can they be expected, to be keepers of beer flames. American brewers hate rules as much as they respect them.

For US brewers, styles are as much a blueprint or suggestion as they are, well, the actual style. American craft brewers are too inclined to rewrite the rules, deconstruct them and rebuild them in a hybrid, a mash-up, or cover the style by doing a stellar job at it. That's what American craft brewers do well. It's not so much being the keeper of a flame, but rather, picking up where someone else left off and putting your own stamp on it.

"Is it true that the spectrum of Oktoberfests that were available last year really wasn't that exciting? Absolutely. But that's how craft beers have flourished: They've been better than the competition," says Greg Zaccardi, whose High Point Brewing last week released its 2012 incarnation of Ramstein Oktoberfest Lager Beer, the first of 180 barrels of the seasonal planned for this year. "When the competition becomes lame, you have a great opportunity. If what was arriving here was knocking it out of the park, it would be harder for everybody."

High Point Brewing (located in Butler) was founded as a wheat beer brewery in the German tradition and has produced the decoction-mashed fall märzen for 14 of its 16 years in business, the very first batches being made at the request of a now-closed German restaurant in Atlantic Highlands. Ramstein Oktoberfest enjoys high marks from the critics and continues to draw big crowds to the brewery on the second Saturday of September, its annual release date.

"For our concept, for who we are, we've always taken a lead from the traditional style guidelines and put our own thumbprint (and) signature on that by tweaking it in the direction we find to be exciting," Greg says. "That means we have to start with being as good as the benchmark for that style and doing something that makes it a little better."

At Climax Brewing, doppelbocks, märzens, helles and Oktoberfests are genuinely a matter of heritage. Dave Hoffmann, owner of the Roselle Park brewery, is a New Jerseyan, but a German, too, via both parents. Screwing up the style is a sacrilege, and something that flies in face of his beer-drinking experience. Märzens and bocks are among his favorites.

Elsewhere around the state and country, there are able interpretations of the fall style (Left Hand in Colorado and Great Lakes Brewing in Cleveland come to mind), but things get more elaborate than just capitalizing on a seasonal.

For a while now, Tom Stevenson at Triumph Brewing in Princeton has made those goses, rauchbiers, among other Old World styles (including gruit, a style Tim Kelly at Atlantic City's Tun Tavern has made as well). Carton Brewing (Atlantic Highlands) makes a quite-worthy Berliner. At some point, these brews become more than an introduction to beer: They develop a wide following and generate expectations.

But back to an earlier point ... There are some things that Internet chatter got right. Namely, there is bad märzen out there (try a Leinenkugel's if you don't think so; at venerated Boston Beer Company, the Octoberfest – that's their spelling – grades a B+ at most. But that speaks to their craft-beer bandwidth – above-average, serviceable beers that are accessible to a very wide audience.)

Honestly, though, the observation about bad beers in the marketplace is one that really knows no exclusive style, nor season, meaning it's hardly exclusive to Oktoberfest beers. You can say it about virtually every beer style out there, every seasonal. Alongside the good and the great, there are bad IPAs, bad APAs, bad wits, bad summer seasonals, dubious pumpkin ales, out-of-balance winter warmers, crappy stouts and lame porters. The craft beer market is crowded and getting more crowded. Not everyone hits the mark, and sadly, sometimes it shows.

On the other point, Slob-toberfest ... well, Oktoberfest in the US is very much Cinco de Mayo in lederhosen. But then, Cinco de Mayo is St. Patrick's Day dancing to a mariachi band. And Halloween is a tavern party in a witch's hat, meaning all of those calendar events have devolved into bar promotions of some sort. It's been that way for too long to think about. And the atmosphere surrounding that says, So what? It's business. If you're a brewer, and a bar wants to feature your beer, seasonal or not, you want the tap handle.

Meanwhile, Oktoberfest in Munich is indeed one of the city's paydays, something it can rely on to generate revenues, fill hotels, plow money into the local economy, never mind how it started or what it used to be in the eyes of anyone. It is what it is, and for Munich, it's not unlike New York counting on a lot of people showing up in Times Square on New Year's Eve, or Louisville depending on a Kentucky Derby bounce the first Saturday of every May.

Again, so what? It's commerce.

Just like brewers producing a seasonal, i.e. Oktoberfest ... it's commerce, a business decision. If it plays, it pays. Ask any brewer if having a reliable revenue stream is worth the trouble, the answer is likely to be "yes."

"For us, it's really important to look at celebrating what we strive to do well," Greg says.

Pa. beer rules force Iron Hill to retool Mug Club

A popular brewpub customer rewards program is being forced to end, thanks to beer industry regulators in the Keystone State.

The 11,000 members of Iron Hill's Mug Club got an email on Monday informing them that decisions by alcoholic beverage regulators meant the brewery-restaurant chain would have to end the 10-year-old customer loyalty program at its nine locations.

At issue, among other things, is the awarding of points to club members upon purchases of beer.

That practice is being stopped immediately for beer, but will continue for food. Under the program, those points would accrue, and credits (i.e. 25 bucks off your next Iron Hill tab) were awarded at certain thresholds.

Monday's email, signed by co-owner Kevin Finn, says the mug club is being revised to meet regulators' concerns. Iron Hill is exploring its options and expects to offer a replacement program this fall.

"Whether we agree with these decisions or not, or why after 10 years the Mug Club has become an issue, is not up to us to decide," Kevin says in the email. "What is important is finding a solution quickly and doing what’s best for our most loyal customers. We want to comply with all the laws and regulations in the states we operate, but our primary focus is providing guests handcrafted beer, creative food and attentive service."

Kevin also outlined other key changes being put in place while Iron Hill recasts the program:

    •    We will no longer accept new members during this transition.
    •    Current members due for renewal will have their memberships extended until the new club is active.
    •    Current members will receive 500 points immediately. This is our gift for past loyalty and patience during this transition.
    •    Members can continue to drink from the Mug Club mug, but must pay the same price as non-club members, an additional 50 cents over the current price of a pint. The free 8 ounces of beer that Mug Club members received was another major issue for the regulators.
Customers who signed up for the club paid a fee and were given a dated souvenir 24-ounce ceramic mug to take home and were served their beer orders in the same types of mugs during visits to Iron Hill.

Thankfully, it wasn't a heavy hand from New Jersey regulators that forced the changes. But since Pennsylvania's Liquor Control Board threw the cold water on the party, Iron Hill is checking rules for the Garden State and Delaware, the state where it was founded and has its home office.

"Officially, it is currently the PA LCB, where we received a letter," co-owner Mark Edelson says by email, responding to some questions about the club changes. "Since all states have liquor laws that prohibit some types of 'enticements,' we are verifying what the other states say. But regardless, 70 percent of our Mug Club is in Pennsylvania, and the logistics of running different deals in different states would lead to a nightmare trying to keep things straight, especially as it pertains to awarding points and checking points online."

Mark continues: "Specifically in Pennsylvania, the regs clearly state that you cannot serve a larger portion of beer without a proportional increase in price. Thus, filling the mug at the pint price is specifically illegal.

"Awarding redeemable points for the purchase of alcohol is considered an 'enticement' to purchase alcohol and is therefore illegal. Although redemption of an earned award on alcohol is NOT illegal.

"Charging a fee for joining the club in which you can get discounts not afforded the general public is also considered and "enticement" and is therefore illegal."

Iron Hill has six locations in Pennsylvania, two in Delaware and one here in New Jersey, in Maple Shade. A 10th location is projected to open in Voorhees in Camden County around the end of this year or the start of 2013.

Between a laugh and a beer

A funny thing happened along the way to this Saturday's Brew Ha Ha beer festival and comedy show at Six Flags Great Adventure: What it takes for a brewfest to grab your attention changed.

Or at least, is continuing to change. Evolving.

Stay tuned to see if it's a trend with legs. But in a year that has seen the calendar undeniably crowded with more festivals (some well attended, others not so), it does seem like some of the winds steering consumer traits are actually shifting.

Simply having a lineup of brews and breweries for a given Saturday (backed up with some basic musical entertainment and stadium food), then doing some carnival-barking online, in print and on radio to call the masses, in the long run, isn't going to cut it. Competition is tight and growing tighter for the 45 or 50 bucks that festival-goers pony up for three-plus hours of unlimited sampling.

You gotta offer folks who are the craft-beer drinking public more for their money (especially in a sluggish economy), whether it's a distinct theme (Iron Hill's annual Belgium Comes to West Chester springs to mind) or some attractions to complement the beer.

Which is what's going on with the Brew Ha Ha event at Great Adventure: roller coasters, a food buffet, a comedy show, and of course, beers (50) from top names (30, including Stone ) in craft brewing. It's a mix of recreational fun and summertime foods that embrace beer.

And speaking of the beer, the lineup includes Garden State breweries whose labels are synonymous with the first wave of Jersey craft beer (as in the mid-1990s, i.e. Flying Fish), and the newest members of the brewed-in-Jersey family (Carton, Kane and Tuckahoe).

Festival-goers will get to vote on their favorite Jersey-made beer. Also, the comedy show bill features Floyd Vivino, aka Uncle Floyd, a guy who's no stranger to Jersey craft beer – Uncle Floyd once paid a visit to High Point Brewing in Butler.

Organized by TotalBru's/beerheads.com's, Brew Ha Ha is the company's biggest festival yet to be held in New Jersey and the third, large-scale event it has staged in the region this year.

Chris DePeppe, the guy behind TotalBru, is a seasoned hand when it comes to putting on festivals. He co-promotes the annual Philly Craft Beer Fest with Starfish Junction, and two years ago Chris launched Beer on the Pier in Belmar.

Last March, he helped stage the Beers on the Boards food-and-brew event at Martell's Tiki Bar in Point Pleasant Beach, a festival distinguished by featuring foods prepared with some of the beers served. Aside from the beer, of course, you can take that as one of the dividing lines between an average festival and one worth your time.

"As we move forward, events have to have something else," Chris says. "Having a cool venue is huge, (plus) good music and a buffet."

Chris' latter comment refers to the Brew Ha Ha event. But, as more promoters pack festivals aimed at the masses onto the calendar, it's a point that applies across the board.

Beer festivals have been around for decades. The Great American Beer Festival in Denver was started 30 years ago. (The Great British Beer Festival is even older.) The Garden State Craft Brewers Guild has been holding its annual festival for 16 years now; the Atlantic City beer fest, perhaps the state's largest, has been around for seven. Furthermore, upscale food and beer pairings have been around a while, too (think SAVOR in Washington, D.C., for one.)

In the mid-Atlantic region, back in the 1990s, festivals helped craft brewers, whose industry was new to the region, reach beer drinkers and helped build brands. Fests were much more novel then vs. now, and the formula of a lot of beers (U.S. craft and import), plus live music and food (usually concession fare of some sort) appealed to a wide cross-section of palates.

With the GABF being the big exception, that's not so much the case anymore.

Craft beer is popular on its own these days, and craft brewing, as an industry, has outgrown the need to use festivals for branding. Brewers years ago became choosier about which festivals to attend and send staff (who are on the clock, by the way).

And broadly speaking, these days, festivals (again, the GABF being an exception) are more attractive to newcomers than seasoned beer drinkers. Again, that's a generality, not a hard rule. But Chris says the fresh faces interested in craft beer are indeed the market. But there is, he notes, a need for some balance, to also appeal to seasoned veterans.

"New consumers is what industry needs, but what drives things is beer ambassadors," Chris says, referring to to those veterans, people who know and talk about good and interesting beers and steer others to it.

And that makes having some themes or attractions (beyond just music, multiple bands, by the way) to complement the beer lineup more important these days.