FU Sandy, and the storm you rode in on

Flying Fish has released it's fundraiser beer, FU Sandy.

To find the hybrid wheat-pale ale that's intended to raise money for people affected by the Oct. 29 superstorm, check here.

The beer was a limited run in draft only, so hurry. Also, each bar that got a keg will have a case of FU Sandy glassware to distribute.

Seriously, Cape May ain't so little anymore

New brewhouse. Next up wiring and plumbing

The previous brewhouse is now in Michigan, its stay in New Jersey quite brief.

The original brewing set-up is in pieces, its frame and other bits converted into a keg washer, while another more recent component sits on an overhead ledge, looking like a giant, unlabeled soup can on a shelf.

Cape May Brewing Company is growing – again.

Cape May's 2nd kettle

New Jersey's southern-most brewery has begun yet another expansion, taking delivery of a 15-barrel brewhouse from G.W. Kent of Michigan, on Friday morning, promptly proceeding with an initial installation that saw the mash tun, kettle, heat exchanger and brewhouse scaffold freed from their packing and, by early afternoon, standing in place along a freshly cut drain trench.

Now, the spanking-new brewhouse is just days away from striking a mash for Cape May IPA, followed by a honey porter, both in the biggest batch sizes ever for the 19-month-old brewery. 

Righting the kettle

On Thursday, a crew from Rare Bird Brewery and Taproom in Traverse City, Mich., came for the 4-barrel brewhouse Cape May had used since late last summer, a brewing system the folks at Cape May had hoped would help them keep pace.

That it didn't is a success story framed in a problem many breweries wouldn't mind having, meaning steady demand for the beers.

The new brewhouse is a familiar brewpub-style arrangement of a mash/lautern tun atop a hot liquor tank, with the kettle situated to the right of the scaffold. The brewery will add a pair each of 15- and 30-barrel fermenters, expected to arrive in a month. Rectangular wine fermenters the brewery has been using, in what became an intermezzo basis (to borrow a music term), are being sold. The wine tanks were being used in addition to some conicals, by the way.

Danny Otero clears some rough edges

Cape May decided to triple its brewing capacity when it became clear that the demands of their draft accounts and tasting-room retail sales after tours would seriously stress their output by this summer, if not by spring. 

The order for the new system was placed in December. Delivery in early February represents a fast turnaround, given the number of brewery start-ups in the U.S. these days has translated into a seven-month waits for new equipment orders. (Meanwhile, prices on the used market make new equipment, minus the wait time, attractive for start-ups and capacity upgrades.)

Mash tun and kettle after delivery

Original brew stand now keg washer

"It was perfect timing," says co-founder Ryan Krill. "They (Kent) already had one in the process, and it was one that we wanted. In this small space, this combi system works really well for us."

The new equipment marks the second major – but by far the biggest – step-up in size for the brewery in Lower Township, beside Cape May County Airport.

Besides keeping up with a growing demand, the upgrade likely will enable Cape May to make a move toward widening its distribution reach farther north and west. (The brewery self-distributes.)

"This is going really to take us to a whole new level," Ryan says. "This is probably what we should have started with."

That Cape May Brewing didn't brew 30-barrel batches when it started putting its beers into the market on Independence Day 2011 probably spoke more to the business need for caution while becoming a beer producer at the Jersey shore.

Compared to the west side of the state, and the northern end for that matter, the shore region, especially in South Jersey, has embraced craft beer at a much slower pace in the near 20 years since better beers have been available in the Garden State. 

Mark McPherson at the 4-barrel system

Shore-area brewpubs Basil T's (Red Bank), Artisans (Toms River) and the Tun Tavern (Atlantic City), plus a few beer bars, were oases in a region where Coors Light long held sway (and still does in some stubborn pockets) until two or three years ago.  

But Cape May, like Monmouth County beer-makers Kane Brewing (Ocean Township) and Carton Brewing (Atlantic Highlands), have been marketplace reinforcement for the established home-grown craft brands that knocked on the shore's door a decade before. (It wasn't until last year – its seventh – that the Atlantic City beer festival did a Jersey-themed beers section. Incidentally, Carton, Cape May and Kane all launched around the same time in 2011.)

So in deepest South Jersey, the otherwise traditionally seasonal market that is Cape May, it's no surprise that Cape May Brewing would start with batches the size of a 15-gallon keg – what a dedicated homebrewer would likely brew. 

Righting the mash tun

What followed was some baby-stepping up to a barrel and a half more than a year ago, and 4-barrels in late summer 2012, after acquiring a brewhouse from a Maryland brewpub.

What also followed has been the fortunate surprise of a market that met having a local brewery like a gold rush. Weekend tour crowds have continued to be heavy. In fact, as the new brewhouse was being moved into place in early afternoon, people braved a nasty cold rain outside to show up for tours and samples in the tasting room.

Setting the scaffold

"We were shocked," Ryan says. "Even this time of year, it's been so busy – the taproom and the accounts. We needed this just to be able to keep up with what we (expect) from this coming summer. Cape May County has been so supportive of us. All the folks around just really seem to embrace having us, having us in their backyard."

Brewers and roasters, the quest for flavor

Kane's tasting room board

A couple of draft-only coffee brews emerged on the New Jersey craft beer landscape in January.

Aside from being well worth your glass, they train a spotlight on a couple of New Jersey coffee roasters and underscore how the pursuit of great coffee mirrors the quest for good beer.

Rojo's Roastery, a must-stop for any flavor-seeker visiting Lambertville, lent its expertise to River Horse Brewing for a coffee turn on the brewery's oatmeal milk stout seasonal. The roaster worked with River Horse to select the right variety of coffee bean to give the the 6.7% ABV stout some added bounce. (See Rojo's coffees here.)

Likewise, Rook Coffee Roasters teamed with their neighbor, Kane Brewing in Ocean Township in Monmouth County, for a velvety infusion of cold-brewed Sumatra in an imperial porter, called Morning Bell, that rings the bell at 9.2% ABV. 

Jamie Arnold and David Waldman

Taphandle says it 

Rook, located about a half-mile from Kane, has the added distinction of plying the coffee craft in the building where Heavyweight Brewing produced artisanal beers before exiting New Jersey in 2006 to re-emerge as a brewpub under a new identity in Philadelphia.

"They're like-minded people," says Michael Kane, whose eponymous brewery took last year's St. Patrick's Day collaboration with Rook to the next level with Morning Bell. "What's important to them about their coffee is as important to us about our beer business here."

Such is the bond among artisans, says David Waldman, who opened Rojo's in a north-end neighborhood in Lambertville in 2006. "There's a mutual respect for the respective crafts we practice," he says.

Rojo's coffees are prepared from organic, fair trade beans with a 1956 Probat roaster, a machine that echoes a golden era of coffee bars (think Beat Generation and Jack Kerouac), a roaster that David can trace back to its only other owner in Lille, France. He lovingly rebuilt it for his shop and has declined requests from the manufacturer to buy it back for their museum. "This is what we do. We don't put them in a museum," David says. "We put them to work, as they're intended."

Holly and Shawn

Founded by Shawn Kingsley and Holly Migliaccio, Rook opened three years ago with a small roaster in the Oakhurst community of Ocean Township. Another shop in Long Branch, a quick trip north, was added a little over a year later, as was the location near Kane, where the company's roasting of organic, fair trade coffees is done (on a new larger roaster) and their cold-brewed Sumatra coffee is made (Cornie-kegged and bottled) for their retail shops, including a new one in Little Silver. (Check out their coffees here.)

"Holly and I have an appreciation for anything craft. We love wines and beer and coffee," says Shawn. Collaborating with Kane "has been a great opportunity. They're in line with what we're focused on, which is craft, quality, service ..."

Says Holly: "It was such a great experience; our eyes were opened to the world of brewing beer. Then we found out that this particular location used to be a brewery."

Two worlds, single-minded passions

Coffee people move in a world that parallels their beer bretheren: Producers and aficionados are both drawn to exploring the global regions that are home to fine beers (Belgium, for instance) and beans (Costa Rica). And, among people who have experienced the rest, then became compelled to find – and/or make – the best, some overlap is inevitable.

Like coffee beer. 

Coffee beans for roasting

But that said, coffee in beer is hardly new. For that matter, neither is prevailing on local roasters to provide the beans. Yet, as a go-to beverage, coffee always suggests a new day, revisiting an old friend  – or idea. Thus, the coffee-beer combination enjoys healthy representation among stouts and porters, even Irish reds. Plug the word "coffee" into BeerAdvocate's search engine, and you'll get nearly 300 beer-name hits, nearly 50 for "java". (That doesn't even count brews like Flying Dog's Cujo, which opt for less-linear names, like Morning Bell.)

Jersey brewers are wont to give their brews espresso expression, too. The list of Garden State coffee beers includes both brewpubs (Basil T's, Triumph, Long Valley, Iron Hill, and Tun Tavern) and production brewers (Tuckahoe's New Brighton Coffee Stout and Flying Fish's Imperial Coffee Porter, both using beans from roasters local to the breweries). 

Barley and beans

At River Horse, jazzing up the oatmeal milk stout the brewery has been turning out since 2008 meant an opportunity to share some flavors the brewery staff appreciates at Rojo's in a one-off beer. (The stout is out now; check River Horse's Facebook page for availability. But hurry; it's a limited brew: Only about 60 barrels were produced.)

"It's phenomenal coffee. It's where we get our coffee from," says head brewer Chris Rakow. 

Chris teamed with Jamie Arnold, a roaster at Rojo's, to get the surest coffee flavor from the most complementary variety of bean. They chose a Guatemalan bean (Huehuetenango growing region) over Brazilian and Cost Rican, favoring its more harmonious tones and lower acidity; they opted for whole bean over a grind to minimize oxidation of the coffee and control how much coffee was imparted into the stout. They also decided to let the beer itself do some of the work post-fermentation.

"The majority (of brewers), what they will do is cold-brew and add the coffee," Chris says. "What our idea was, instead of cold-brewing it with water and adding it in, we would age the coffee on the beans. Essentially, you're doing a cold-brew with the beer and not water."

The beans were roasted on a Monday, then added two days later to the beer in a conditioning tank, a proportion of 20 pounds per 40 barrels of beer. 

"That also lends clarity to the finished product," Jamie says, "and this way, your window is a lot bigger, like when you're going to get the right amount of flavor added. The difference is in days."

Adding the cold-brewed coffee to the beer, though effective, wouldn't, for their palates, allow for the nuance they were seeking, Jamie says. "You're deciding right there how much coffee flavor is going in, and once it's in, it's in," he says.

The result of their efforts is a layered stout that unfolds with inviting coffee aroma and a friendly coffee flavor that doesn't overwhelm the beer, but rather, gently wakes it up. 

"Next year I'd like to do a specific coffee beer with them. This was just real quick," Chris says. "We just decided to take one of our beers and age it on coffee. Next year, we might try to do a separate recipe for a coffee beer."

Next year is this year for the folks at Kane Brewing. 

The question there was, how to revisit the success of last year's additions of Rook coffees, including their Sumatra, to create variations of their 6.2% ABV Port Omna Stout, done for a St. Patrick's Day tasting room event, without just repeating themselves (not that the brewery's fans would mind much). 

The answer was go back to the drawing board. Michael explains the Kane-Rook collaboration's second act: 

"People wanted us to do a coffee stout, or make more of that coffee stout. I really liked the way it came out, but I thought if we brewed a beer specifically with that coffee in mind, we could make it a little better than just adding coffee to the stout we'd already made.

"What I wanted to do was to make it a little bit different, make it a bigger beer, something that would stand up well to their Sumatra roast – the dark roast. We wanted to make it a porter base style to back off on the roasty malts that would have been in a stout, the roasted barley, the black patent – the darker roasts – and not have so much of that in the base beer.

"We thought it would be good to maybe pull a little bit from the milk stout category and pull in some of those unfermentable sugars, sweeten it up a little bit. We thought that would balance the roast and bold flavor of the coffee. We thought the higher alcohol, a bigger beer would stand up, because that's a pretty dark roast they use; we used a really concentrated version of that.

The brewery did three or four pilot batches, winding up using 15 gallons of the Sumatra cold brew in the porter. The result is a velvety porter, deep and flavorful. (Morning Bell came out the second week of January; check the brewery's Facebook page for availability and bars.)

That coffee in it, by the way, has a wide following among Rook's fans.

"It has a dark, syrupy tone to it, with chocolate notes," says Shawn. "We characterize it like dark chocolate. When you cold-brew it, it produces this concentrate, which is must less acidic than hot coffee ... When you mix it into something, it holds its flavor. Usually, when you have hot coffee poured over ice, it sometimes gets diluted. This is very smooth, very rich, very flavorful."

Rook and Kane landed on each other's radars via Nip-N-Tuck Bar & Grill in Long Branch. Holly and Shawn are friends of the owner, Bob Burtchaell. The bar's also one of Kane's draft accounts. 

"We we first went to him and started pitching the beer to him, he brought up Rook, that they're really good people, and it's a local product," Michael says. 

The same thing about Kane Brewing was pretty much happening in conversations Holly and Shawn had with Bob. 

For the brewery, one that has sourced locally produced apple cider, hops and even yeast for some of its beers, Rook was another great find. What followed was a mutual appreciation and ultimately a friendship. And opportunities to work together.

"We had tasted their beer locally," Holly says, "and knew it was far superior than other things we'd tried. So we were very excited."

"And humbled," says Shawn.

1-barrel brewpub in the works

The scenic top part of the Garden State is in line to get another brewpub.

Maryann and Dion Harris, owners of Tuscany Brewhouse, a restaurant-bar that already keeps its patrons' glasses filled with craft beers, plan to add a 1-barrel brewery setup to create their own line of house ales. (Nearby brewpubs in the area are Krogh's, nine miles west in Sparta, and Long Valley, about 30 miles south in Washington Township.)

Tuscany Brewhouse filed an application for a restricted brewing license with state regulators a little over two months ago. The application is among at least four pending with the Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control, and one of three for licensing as a brewpub.

The year-old establishment (it celebrated its first anniversary last month) sits along Route 23 in Oak Ridge, a community that straddles West Milford in Passaic County and Jefferson Township in Morris County. The area is New Jersey's black bear country, hilly and picturesque with lakes and streams.

Tuscany Brewhouse is a place were you can find Jersey-made beers, such as High Point's Ramstein Winter Wheat doppelbock, plus regional brews like Victory's Hop Devil to go along with a surf-and-turf dinner or burger. 

"We have 16 beers on tap ... Ramstein, everyone loves Ramstein; Ithaca IPA, we sell a lot of that ... Cricket Hill over in Fairfield, beers from Vermont ... We try to put on a lot of local or regional beers," says bartender Tom Gilroy, whose mother owns the restaurant and is a longtime restaurateur. 

The idea to add a small brewing system in the restaurant basement is part business, part beer enthusiasm. It evolved, Tom says, from positive feedback on the homebrews (some IPAs and pale ales) he made and shared with family and friends. 

"It started off with the love of good beer and brewing your own beer," says Tom. "It didn't start off with the idea of making money." 

Keith Jennings, another Tuscany Brewhouse bartender, will share brewing duties with Tom. Production is targeted to be about 4 barrels a week. The restaurant is looking at equipment (including bright tanks) from Stout Tanks and Kettles.

Catching up on Iron Hill-Voorhees

Architect rendering of IH Voorhees facade

If you've been keeping score on Iron Hill brewpub, then you've noticed their second location in New Jersey – their 10th overall – hasn't open in Voorhees yet.

Last summer's announced date of winter 2013 was, of course, a projection, subject to how quickly the business could speed through any needed approvals, get the necessary renovations done and the doors open. 

It's a process. And, alas, things don't always follow the forecast.

But despite the delay, there is a bright spot: The folks at Iron Hill have started renovation work – the underground plumbing – at the site in the Voorhees Town Center (what used to be Echelon Mall) and now forecast to open Monday, July 15.

"We started last week. We're under way. We'd like to have been open by now …" says Mark Edelson, who founded the brewery-restaurant with Kevin Finn and Kevin Davies. 

Once the plumbing work is done and concrete gets poured, construction will shift to putting up walls. The brewhouse installation is expected to happen in May. The system is already built. The company moved forward with their equipment order from Canadian manufacturer Specific Mechanical Systems (Victoria, British Columbia) to avert any delays on that part of the project.

"That's the one thing we didn't hold off on because it's usually late. It's done. It's sitting in storage. It's brand new: It was constructed, made, and it's sitting in a warehouse right now," Mark says.

Iron Hill is a longtime customer of Specific Mechanical. Even the occasions in which Iron Hill has acquired used brewhouses (Maple Shade's equipment came from the shuttered Independence Brew Pub in Philadelphia), they've been ones made by Specific Mechanical.

"We want our brewers all working on the same equipment," Mark says. "We were on a tear for a while, when used equipment was available we were buying it. With the proliferation of breweries right now, the used market has dried up essentially. The price went up, so used equipment costs the same as new."

This month, Iron Hill marked the first anniversary of its ninth location, Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia. That project, from drawing table to opening went comparatively smooth, Mark says, given the location and the fact that the space pretty much needed a complete makeover to convert it from a former clothing store to a restaurant-brewery.

"It was built for light retail, and we're not light retail, and with all the infrastructure for power and gas and sewer that a restaurant takes, it wasn't there." he says.

If you're a craft beer fan, take that as a good sign for Voorhees.

NJ craft beer goes bullish with Bolero Snort

Two brews down, and many more to go. 

But if Bob Olson and Andrew Maiorana had their way, Ragin' Bull and Blackhorn would have been flowing from New Jersey bar taps a year ago, if not earlier. 

As things stand, though, the two lagers are now in fermenters at High Point Brewing Company, the contract-brewer for Bob and Andrew's Bolero Snort Brewery, based in Bergen County. 

After six months of planning and a year of dealing with regulatory paperwork, the developing craft beer enterprise that has been widely followed and anticipated by a lot of beer enthusiasts across North Jersey is beginning to take its place in New Jersey's growing craft beer scene. 

Last week brought the brewing of Ragin' Bull, a sessionable (5% ABV) amber lager that Bob says would beckon the likes of a Bud or Coors Light drinker to something fuller in flavor; the more-assertive Blackhorn (6.5% ABV), an American black lager, was brewed on Tuesday. 

"For the craft beer enthusiast, Blackhorn would be right up their alley from day one," Bob says.

Like a lot commercial beer-makers, Bob and Andrew come to the industry as accomplished homebrewers, with the laurels of finishing in the winner's circle at homebrew contests to boot. Bob, 29, has a day gig as a construction industry consultant. Andrew, 27, is a CPA at JP Morgan Chase.

Bolero Snort (the name is Robert Olson anagrammatized) got off the ground not unlike the Boaks Beer route. Brian Boak founded his beer business through a contract-brewing arrangement with Greg Zaccardi's High Point Brewing in Butler, the makers of the Ramstein lineup of German wheat brews and lager beers, like the top-rated Ramstein Munich Amber Lager (Oktoberfest), a wheat doppelbock that yields the brewery's Icestorm eisbock. 

Like Brian, Bob and Andrew bought a fermenter and had it installed at High Point in December to ensure the brewery had capacity to accommodate their contract brews. (Brian had a tank installed at High Point in April 2009.)

But unlike Brian, Bob and Andrew intend to takeover production in their own brewery. Siting and construction for that are calendared for next year, barring any planning hiccups.

In the meantime, the agreement with High Point guarantees monthly brews of Ragin' Bull and Blackhorn. The early going will see draft-only brews, but March and April are being targeted for bottling.

Bob and Andrew will self-distribute in North Jersey but plan to tease their beers in South Jersey in April at the Atlantic City beer festival, the state's biggest craft beer festival stage.

Jersey's Finest, and a new age of NJ craft beer

Sen. Norcross draws first pint

Call it a great beer collaboration, if you want.

But Wednesday evening's release event for Flying Fish and Iron Hill's third swing at a Jersey's Finest brew had the hallmarks of a new day dawning, an ushering in of New Jersey Craft Brewing Industry, Version 2.0.

An American IPA dosed with experimental hops was the feature, the vehicle to celebrate the camaraderie of Jersey craft brewing; the industry neighbors that production brewer Flying Fish and brewpub Iron Hill are; and the growth spurt that New Jersey's industry has been experiencing on either side of an overhaul of the state's regulations. 

New Jersey has moved into a new era, thanks to the state Legislature and a bill signed by Gov. Chris Christie last September. Flying Fish president Gene Muller and Iron Hill co-owner Mark Edelson walked point on the legislation, logging a lot of hours talking to lawmakers and attending committee hearings.

Jersey's Finest ice sculpture

Coming at the end of a Garden State Craft Brewers Guild meeting, Wednesday's event was attended by a bevy of Iron Hill-Maple Shade faithfuls, plus new and longtime Jersey craft beer industry faces, and featured a trio of other brews put on tap for the occasion. 

On had for the ceremonial first pour were Michael Kane, founder of Kane Brewing (Ocean Township);  Ryan and Bob Krill, owners of Cape May Brewing (Rio Grande); Becky Pedersen and Ben Battiata, owners of Turtle Stone Brewing (Vineland); and Tim Kelly, brewer at the Tun Tavern brewpub (Atlantic City). 

Michael Kane and Casey Hughes

Kane and Cape May Brewing both celebrated first anniversaries last summer; Turtle Stone's one-year mark is coming up in March.

Flying Fish, as many people know, is up and running in a newer, larger home in Somerdale, while Iron Hill just started work on its second New Jersey location (its 10th overall), targeted to open in Voorhees in mid-summer.

If you looked a little closer in the crowd you would have spied John Companick, whose Spellbound Brewing is on the drawing board.  (Savvy beer folks know of John's association with Heavyweight Brewing, the former Monmouth County brewery that closed up shop in New Jersey in 2006, but morphed into the Earth, Bread + Brewery brewpub in Philadelphia.)

A closer listen to crowd chatter would have cued you to the news that Bolero Snort Brewery just launched and has two beers that will soon be hitting taps in North Jersey.

Such growth, lawmakers say, was the goal when they and the governor updated New Jersey's craft brewing rules. State Sen. Donald Norcross, who took the honor of drawing the first pint of the Jersey's Finest IPA, calls the current quick pace a bonus.

The senator, a Camden County Democrat, was a key sponsor of the legislation that freed New Jersey craft breweries from a regulatory chokehold that made it not just tough to launch a brewery in the Garden State, but to keep one in business. One of the event's brews, a dry-hopped, cask-conditioned blend of Flying Fish Hopfish and Abbey Dubbel, paid tribute to the legislation, taking its name for the Senate bill number, S-641.

"There was an article today (Wednesday) about Pennsylvania," says Sen. Norcross. "They have gone from 10 to over a hundred breweries in the last decade, and that's the type of expansion we're looking for in the state of New Jersey. The design was to try to increase the productivity of our craft brewers in the state. We have the added benefit that this is actually turning out the way we had it planned."

From left: Ryan Krill, Tim Kelly, Casey Hughes

Indeed. 

New Jersey's first craft brewery, Ship Inn, opened in 1995.

Until Iron Hill opened its Maple Shade brewery-restaurant in 2009, New Jersey slogged through a 10-year drought of new, home-state beer-makers. Though still not the friendliest of business climates in which to site a brewery, the state licensed five new breweries in 2011, and two last year.  

Right now there are at least four brewery license applications, such as one from Pinelands Brewing in Ocean County and Tuscany Brewhouse in Passaic County, pending with state regulators. Other projects across the state are in various stages of development, like Spellbound Brewing.

"If not for that bill passing, we were seriously thinking about putting our production site in Pennsylvania or New york," says Bob Olson of Bolero Snort Brewery. "The fact that it has will definitely keep us here." 

Gene Muller (right) talks to Ben Battiata

Bolero Snort launched this month with a pair of contract-brewed lagers, Ragin' Bull and Blackhorn. Bob, who spoke by phone Thursday, says the business plan for self-distributing Bolero is to have its own brewing facility, ideally sometime next year. In the interim, High Point Brewing (Butler), makers of the Ramstein wheat and lager beers, will do their brewing, stocking Bolero's warehouse in Bergen County.

Working together

Brewery collaborations continue to be popular. In Garden State, the Jersey's Finest banner owes to a Garden State Craft Brewers Guild initiative from a few of years back. 

Flying Fish and Iron Hill were the first breweries to put their minds together for a Jersey's Finest beer, offering a mashup of stouts (chocolate and coffee versions brewed independently and later blended) in January 2011. The Tun Tavern and Basil T's in Red Bank followed suit with a brace of chocolate-chili pepper beers. 

By that summer Flying Fish and Iron Hill's brewers, Casey Hughes and Chris LaPierre, were working together to produce August 2011's Iron Fish, a black Belgian IPA that, with a tongue-in-cheek nod, employed about every beer trend you could think of back then.

Flying Fish and Iron Hill's latest round of collaboration is much more straight-forward, using some hops from a Washington State farm that also grows apples and berries. 

"It's a nice hoppy IPA, using all experimental hops," Casey says. "I'm really happy with it. I think it turned out really nice: golden, light, dry, crisp, drinkable with a nice hop character, nice bitterness to it. 

"We kind of went by the seat of our pants and just brewed, and played around with the hops as we had them. It's funny. If you look at our recipe, it says 'high alpha hop, low alpha hop, and Roy Farms hops.'"

Fresh momentum for Pinelands Brewing

I

Exterior of industrial park units

 An odyssey of sorts is coming to an end for Pinelands Brewing, a South Jersey brewery project that's been on the drawing board since 2010.

Founder Jason Chapman says the 1-barrel brewery he's planning to launch has the green light to move into a 1,000-square-foot unit in an Ocean County light industrial park, ending a siting process that's taken Jason and his project partner, Luke McCooley, through three or four counties. 

The search has led the two from Egg Harbor City in Atlantic County, to Belleplain in Cape May County, and now to Little Egg Harbor Township, a bayfront town at the southern tip of Ocean County. 

Little Egg Harbor officials have been receptive to the project. Late last year the town's planning board gave its blessing, granting approval for a manufacturing business that the town does not list as a permitted use in its code book. 

Jason weighs some specialty grain

That approval, on top of settling on a location, represents fresh momentum for Pinelands Brewing, whose application to the state Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control for a production brewery license has been pending for for nearly a year. (The application to state regulators is dated April 9, 2012.)

"Though it's taken a long time to get to this point, it's been worth the wait, just dealing with the different towns," Jason says. 

Little Egg Harbor officials seemed the most agreeable to having a brewery in town, he says. 

"We've gotten positive feedback. Our approval was unanimous, and they took a guy to task for a pool and shed project, and a (planning) board member voted against that," Jason says.

So a key hurdle has been jumped. 

Now the task shifts to getting inside the building and turning it into a brewery so it can be inspected by regulators and licensed. "The landlord said we could move in February 15th," Jason says.

In the meantime, he says, a web page is being built, and paperwork with federal and state regulators will be given some new attention.

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.