After hop-picking

It was apples that Robert Frost contemplated in verse, turning the seasonal experience of picking them into a window on life lived and mistakes and regrets.

The guy seriously needed a beer, some hops. That's what he could have done after apple-picking.

But anyway, we know what comes after hop-picking. Or we'll find out this weekend.

On Tuesday, we spoke to Dan Weirback, who noted that he and wife Sue will harvest their Nugget and Cascade hops throughout Saturday.

Make that the rest of their hop crop.

They harvested about 60 pounds earlier this month, most of them Cascades, spending about nine hours plucking the cones from bines they cut down. Those hops are already beer: They went into the hopback to infuse some great aroma into an IPA Weyerbacher brewed last week.

Now the task at hand is to bring in the remainder of the crop, with the help of about eight friends who'll party while they work. (Dan says the plan is to systematically cut bines and hand them off to a table of pickers who'll strip off cones.) In the rolling hills of Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, this will probably be the beer equivalent of a barn-raising.

Pound for pound
It looks like the yield will fall short of Dan’s forecasts. No big deal. It takes a lot of hops to make a pound, and there’s really no sure way of knowing until you put what you got on a scale and see what it totals.

But remember, these are first-season bines, and for much of that time, the plants expend more energy claiming their turf, establishing a root system that will serve them well in the future, than bearing fruit.

So, in the meantime, crack open a Hops Infusion or Double Simcoe IPA and check out Dan and Sue’s saga in moving pictures and sound on tape. (FYI: We may repost this; we're going to see if we can process the audio a little better.)

About the video
We shot the interviews with Dan and Sue in late June, rounding those out with on-cameras from others in the beer or farming business a month later to hopefully bring some background or perspective to things. So some acknowledgments are in order for those who spared time from their busy schedules ...

A big thanks to John Grande and Ed Dager from Rutgers’ 390-acre Snyder Research and Extension Farm in scenic Hunterdon County. (John is the farm director; Ed is farm manager.) Snyder’s mission is sustainable agriculture, exploring potential new crops for Garden State farmers. That’s how hops ended up on the farm's radar in the 1990s, just after craft brewing took off in New Jersey, and it's how Dan and Sue came to reap the benefits of fresh, regional research.

When Lew Bryson isn’t speaking about beer or writing about beer, he’s probably just drinking beer (but we’ve seen him do both – speak and drink – at the same time, ha!). Or maybe he’s got a great bourbon or scotch whisky in the glass, one of his other areas of expertise (he’s managing editor of Malt Advocate magazine). Lew has staked out the mid-Atlantic states as a beer coverage area, with guide books on the breweries of Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and most recently New Jersey. In what's surely a sign of modern times, Lew also has an bio in Wikipedia (albeit a brief one, but one there nonetheless.)

Greg Zaccardi of High Point Brewing helped us out last year with an Oktoberfest-themed video, and since he often travels to Europe, he was a logical choice to size up the business culture of US brewers vs. their counterparts across the pond. And as the owner a craft brewery, Greg, like his industry colleagues, had to face the bitter truth of the hop shortage and subsequent price spike.

And of course, there’s Dan and Sue, the hop farmers. Thanks.

Back to school

Rutgers’ fall semester starts Sept. 2nd, and for Harvest Moon, that means more people stepping off the sidewalks of George Street to settle in for a pint or two at the New Brunswick brewery café.

We stopped by midweek last week (yep, more Jersey beer traveling, with more to come) and talked to head brewer Matt McCord to see what’ll be coming on tap when the Moon gets full with larger crowds.

Think of it as a fall schedule, what glasses you can take. (OK, we’ll leave the bad puns and word play to the would-be Ogden Nashes of the world.)

We’re talking fall here, so naturally Oktoberfest is in the mix, a traditional take on the fest lager with some dark Munich malt and some Vienna. Look for it in late September. It’s worth mentioning that Harvest Moon does go lager with their Oktoberfest. Not all breweries or brewpubs do, since it can mean tying up tank space they just don’t have to let the beer sit and chill for those lager durations. Ones that don't go alt instead.

Pumpkin pie
Also this fall, look for two versions of Harvest Moon's pumpkin ale, with allspice, cinnamon and brown sugar (among other flavorings). Matt says he and backup brewer Kyle McDonald (pictured below) will do two regular takes on the seasonal, plus a high-gravity version.

Last year, the Moon’s imperial pumpkin ale had vanilla beans in it to create a graham cracker crust signature. All three will have the vanilla this year, Matt says.

Deeper into the fall term, Matt has plans for a winter imperial stout and winter warmer. Too bad winter isn't now. Matt also says the schwarzbier, a personal favorite for us, should be coming back around, too. He didn't brew it this past spring, just didn't get it into the mix. So there's something to look forward to.

And speaking of Kyle, the new (but not so new by now) guy on the block, he worked at a brewery in his home state of Iowa before pulling up stakes for New Jersey around the start of 2008, after his girlfriend took a job in the Garden State. Kyle may be the backup, but Matt refers to him as one of Harvest Moon’s brewers, like himself.

Matt brewed solo for about half the six years he’s been at Harvest Moon, and he lives in South Jersey, a fair distance to travel to work. So naturally, he’s glad for the extra hands.

Matt's a guy who respects beer and likes to talk beer – take a look at his extensive beer list on the Moon's Web site; it's pretty impressive, no question. He knows the kind of hard work it takes to always have six to eight house beers flowing (featuring Belgian and wheat brews in that mix) when there's just you and one extra person, plus not a whole lot of floor space available for your brewery. (HM’s brewhouse sits in an elevated spot to the right just as you walk in the entrance from George Street; the fermenters and serving tanks are downstairs; some of the equipment is kinda shoehorned it, but not all. Still, it's not exactly a wide open arrangement.)

Campus life
And what of the Rutgers crowd (notice the big red R on the doors)? Matt says they tend to favor bigger beers. It’s a study of economics, since money can be tight for the college crowd. The equation kinda works out as 1 pint of a bigger beer at $4.50 = satisfaction and savings vs. 2 pints of a lighter style for the same per-pint price. Pretty simple math.

That formula makes Hops2 Double IPA, one of Harvest Moon’s signature beers, in demand with the Rutgers crowd, but it's also popular among women beer drinkers. Hops2 (that’s 2 as in squared) gives you a lesson on hops and bigger beers, but it also mellows somewhat toward the bottom of the glass, and calls on you to answer the question, “Having another?”

It was one of our growler beers – we also took home their kölschbier – so why not? And the kölsch, well it's taken over for the MoonLight Ale on the beer board, to satisfy the session beer end of the scale and lighten the mood. It also fits in with Matt's taste for kölsch beers.

Lastly, also, a quick shout-out to the guys having a school reunion at the bar ... St. John's Prep, was it? Hope the fourth you were expecting in your party made it.

Dates of note
Sept. 1: Rutgers takes on Fresno State in its home opener (4 p.m). The Moon sounds good for pregame or post-game wrap-up, if you ask us.
Sept. 9: The New Jersey Young Professionals group holds a brewery tour and tasting at Harvest Moon. Details here ... tickets here.

Piece of the Rock

One of the things about craft beer and New Jersey – more specifically South Jersey – is that if you want to try all of what the Garden State brews, you must travel.

What’s brewed in North Jersey – Climax, Cricket Hill and Ramstein (High Point) – isn’t widely (or readily) available to South Jersey. It’s a distributor/liquor store thing, certainly not something the breweries are doing wrong. (Yes, we know Climax self-distributes; South Jersey's a long haul from Roselle Park.)

Meanwhile, NJ’s brewpubs, stationed at all points of the compass, are locked into selling only on premise: filling pint glasses, growlers and offering kegs, unlike their counterparts in, for example, Pennsylvania, where beer makers (like Sly Fox, Stoudt's and Victory) enjoy the best of both worlds – production brewing and serving retail on premise. (Conversely, as most of us know, production brewers in Jersey can’t serve/sell you a pint on premise. More on this a bit.)

So if you want what the Garden State’s pubs brew, yes you must go to the mountain. In our case, Berkeley Heights, home of tree-lined streets and Trap Rock Restaurant & Brewery.

We hit TR last week on a return trip from a High Point open house, capitalizing on the fact it’s only about a half hour south of Butler, High Point’s home base.

Our only gripe about Trap Rock: we wish it were closer. There’s good beer all around at the pub; ditto for the food.

Ample sample
If you are doing the beer traveler thing and fear you may not get back soon, make your first round the sampler – six 5-ounce servings of three lagers, a raspberry-cherry wheat (that’s quite good, not overdone with the fruits), an IPA and an oatmeal stout. We usually pass on samplers and just order a pint from the beer board (so we can enjoy the range of that beer’s flavors, from the first sip to the bottom of the glass). But in this case we made an exception before settling into a couple of pints of TR’s William Tell, a session ale (4.7% ABV) on the hand pump; it’s hard to pass on real ale hopped with Kent Goldings. It’s hard to pass on the serene pleasures of real ale, period.

Our top picks: Raptor Trust IPA (7% ABV and brimming with hops); the Czech-German hybrid JP Pilsner (and it’s worth pointing out, as Tom E from the blog Destination Beer does, TR always has a lager on tap).

Our take-home beer: a roasty, chocolatey Capt. Carl’s Oatmeal Stout that was a silky, solid companion to some home-made pumped-up, shredded chicken nachos (plenty of jalapeños, diced tomatoes, pinto beans and chicken simmered in Sly Fox Pikeland Pils, topped with some organic pepper jack, gruyère and mahon reserva cheeses; more about our culinary prowess and beer soon).


Futurama
But there’s no sense in taking up any more space on what we had. Here’s what you can look forward to at Trap Rock. Brewer Charlie Schroeder has a smoky, caramelly Scotch ale (8% ABV) coming up toward the end of September. But don’t forget, Oktoberfest is the fast-approaching season, and TR has one (5-plus percent on the ABV, with Hallertau hops) due around the first week of September. Look for that same beer to lead a beer dinner around the end of next month; there’s another beer dinner to take place before Thanksgiving time.

Cha-cha-cha-changes
Now about those Jersey-brewing restrictions …

Charlie says Trap Rock’s beers are enjoying a good run, so much so, it’s all he can do to keep up. What does that mean for beer drinkers? Well, the up side is fresh beer’s always on tap; the down side is, it’s hard for Charlie to slip in a different style without coming at the expense of his mainstays. It also means TR’s keg availability is pretty tight right now.

But if New Jersey allowed brewpubs to also hold production licenses (or production brewers to have pubs) – bottle their beers and sell them retail – it opens the door to more styles and boosts the brand, not to mention creating another revenue stream for the brewpubs/restaurants, which have fairly high overhead and could use the financial backstop.

Charlie, who did a six-month stint at Victory Brewing in Pennsylvania, would love for Jersey’s restrictions to be relaxed, and says Trap Rock would look for the brewing space if things were changed.

The idea – one that’s not lost on others in the industry, nor beer enthusiasts – makes a world of sense. And after a decade-plus of craft brewing in New Jersey, it’s way past time to modernize the state’s brewing regulations.

What’s more, for a state that’s hopelessly in debt, can’t put together a budget without scrounging for cash and choking off money to schools and towns, and has resorted to talk about raising tolls or hocking its toll roads, you’d think that revenue-needy Trenton lawmakers would find ways to improve the business climate for those industries it collects excise and other taxes from. Like brewers.

A rising tide floats all boats. Whaddya say Jon, Dick and Joe?

Horse of a different color

A quick post off what tumbled into the mailbox today.

Look for River Horse's draft-only Oktoberfest beer next month. The brew's in the tanks now, says co-owner Glenn Bernabeo.

RH is skewing more toward dunkel with the style, and who can't help but high-five the name: Dunkel Fester (the moniker is the brainchild of Chris Walsh, the other co-owner). The liner notes point to toffee and chocolate.

We're all about Oktoberfest – some of our favorite beers – so we're naturally looking forward to this. RH's two-day O-fest event is Oct. 11-12 at the brewery in Lambertville. We went last year: plenty of occasion-themed food and lots of beer, of course. Plus, the bands RH lines up are really good.

Cherries jubilee
We have a sixpack of Batch #002, the Imperial Cherry Amber, the second of RH Brewer’s Reserve limited edition series. It goes into the pint glass lineup this weekend.

We've been trying to concentrate on the brewpubs lately – we've hit J.J. Bittings, The Ship Inn, Trap Rock and Pizzeria Uno in the past two weeks, with Harvest Moon up next – and have some of Trap Rock's oatmeal stout ready for the glass. Hence, the RH cherries have been on deck for a while.

We did speak to Chris and Glenn about the second installment of the Brewer's Reserve around the end of July. With this brew, don't look for a bowl of cherries. It's an aroma thing that subtly emerges as a flavor. As Chris said, they didn't want it to end up a Jolly Rancher.

Meanwhile
As we noted, we've been hitting the brewpubs, and we've got a post coming on Trap Rock, which is certainly a place that has us wishing it were closer to home base. But for now, we'll say TR has a kickin' IPA (which we'll be back for), and some fine ale on the handpump.

Winter on their minds

Say you have some left over beer and you don’t even want to think about it going to waste … what do you do?

You invite some friends over to help you make good cheer of it, right?

That’s what High Point Brewing (Butler) did with a leftover keg of their 2007 Ramstein Winter Wheat, a doppelbock that has a quite a fan base and has earned a measure of critical acclaim.

The open house on Saturday drew a crowd of about 100 or so beerheads armed with their growlers to the brewery, where they snapped up the doppelbock faster than you can say ice bock (or more aptly, eisbock), which is what it became after the brewery staff froze it, drew off the ice, and split it into sixtels, adding another dimension to a beer that's great to start with.

Clocking in around 12% ABV (the strongest offering from the brewery's lineup), the winter wheat/eisbock was definitely rich, deep, dark and inviting – even in the dog days of August, when you'd wonder if it was going to seem like the beer equivalent of a parka in summer.

But it was a really tasty offseason headliner, a pleasant surprise to the loyal Ramsteiners, accompanied, of course, by Ramstein's Classic Blonde and a pilsner and golden lager (which was our take-home beer; the bock ran out before we could think about getting a growler filled. Alas.)

If you missed the winter wheat, be patient. It’s the brewery’s November-release seasonal. It’ll be back around (and maybe the eis, too).

Meanwhile, we got an early taste of the 2008 Ramstein Oktoberfest ...

It’s still a little young and yeasty, with some hop presence that will fade and take its proper place behind the malt flavors by the time it’s ready for September release.

Speaking of debuts, circle Sept. 13 on your calendar. That’s when the brewery kicks off Oktoberfest with an oak barrel tapping.

Bring your growlers that day, too.

FOOTNOTE:
High Point will be pouring at the Stoudt’s Microfest Aug. 23 in Adamstown, Pa.

Walking point

Curious about the Budweiser foray into ale? Don "Joe Sixpack" Russell can give you the lowdown on this beer due to get pushed in September by bartenders whose employers went out on a limb and put it on tap.

After some searing commentary regarding the brew's liner notes, Don's blog entry gets down to brass tacks and tells you how it tastes. (We won't spoil it, just read it for yourself.)

But our prediction: Budweiser American Ale will be DOA. Why? Just based on a comment made to us at a party over the weekend when we offered some Climax ESB for tasting: "No thanks, I don't do dark beers."

Neither do Bud and Coors drinkers, nor fans of skunky Heineken. They're like Tareyton smokers (would rather fight than switch). And people already drinking craft beer, who may be slightly curious about the new kid, aren't switching, either. They've got far richer landscapes to explore from sources far more reliable than one they've been looking at with disdain for better than a decade now.

Plus in the modern business world, new owners who financed a $50 billion acquisition are probably going to really trim the bottom line and clean up the balance sheet by concentrating on core brands and quickly kill the marginal performers in the portfolio. Budweiser American Ale has that sword hanging over its foamy head, we suspect.

Sunny side up

Denny’s and IHOP may think they have a lock on breakfast, but here’s an angle the two chain (blecccchh) eateries didn’t think of: a breakfast beer for the shorts and tank top months.

But Cricket Hill did: Jersey Summer Breakfast Ale. (And yes we know it's getting into late summer, late for talking about hot-weather seasonals, what with Oktoberfest just around the bend. But we had to track this brew down, and it took a little bit of time.)

To be sure, part of the charm is the name, but as a bottle-conditioned Belgian summer beer that’s aimed as a full-bodied first step for some folks not quite into the full-bore saisons yet, this is a quite-drinkable brew. And as far as sales go, it’s also pulling some oars this summer for the Cricket (Fairfield in Essex County), outdoing its inaugural year (2007) when it was a draft-only beer.

Like a lot folks at the Garden State Craft Brewers Festival back in June, we ordered breakfast – JSBA was the first keg at the festival to kick – a few times over. Then we set out to find it the bottle, in the 12-packs that CH uses to market its seasonals (maibock and porter are two others).

It took a while, since CH doesn’t have much distribution in South Jersey. But we finally got our hands on it by heading up to Spirits Unlimited in Red Bank (Newman Springs Road & Route 35). We’ve been enjoying it with some revved up summer foods, tangy ones and practically anything you can put jalapeños on.

Try it with our very own burger recipe: douse a lean ground beef patty with some Caribbean jerk seasoning, grill a pineapple slice on both sides (sear it so the sugars caramelize), top the burger with the grilled pineapple, then top both with a slice of melted pepper jack cheese.

Like a good Jersey diner, Cricket Hill’s got breakfast whenever you want it.

On the horizon

Owner Rick Reed says CH is gearing up for version 2.0 of their bourbon-barrel brew. This year's is a small batch of naturally carbonated ESB, with some twists, that’ll stay parked in Jack Daniels oak (last year’s was aged in George Dickel barrels) until it’s time to be racked into four or five firkins (we did say small batch, didn’t we?) and maybe into some growlers for faithful followers.

Meanwhile, CH also has a Festivus for the best of us. OK, rest of us. We just didn’t want to be so linear with the Seinfeld reference. But yes, CH’s Fall Festivus amber ale is also on deck. Rick says it “tastes like the colors of fall.”

And yes, the name is borrowed from Frank Costanza’s contra-Christmas holiday. You’ll probably have to supply your own pole though.

Two steps closer to beer

Our hops have taken two steps closer to becoming beer.

We picked them on Sunday, and friend of the blog/South Jersey homebrewer Julian Mason has set them out to dry in a screen frame he made.

Julian (who took the pics here) will brew with ours, plus some Cascades and other varieties he and his co-worker Gerry Mann have been growing since May (we planted ours at the end of March, hence our picking them now). That's a beer to looking forward to.

Our Centennials have a nice piney aroma to 'em and should go well with the Cascades. Makes you think of SlyFox's Phoenix Pale Ale (a Pennsylvania beer that's won permanent shelf space in our main fridge; yeah, this is a Jersey beer blog, but there's room for some outside influence).

For the record, we picked just under a half pound, basically off two first-year plants. We may get another 4 ounces of the remaining two plants we have in the ground that lagged behind. They've got cones beginning to mature on 'em, and one is still throwing burs that will bud up into cones soon.

That may seem like a small yield, but these, as we noted, are first-year plants, which expend a lot of their energy getting their roots established, as well as flowering. Plus, it takes a lot of hop cones to make a pound.

Still, they were hardy this season. Will be next year, too.

See, beer enjoys a rich, comedic heritage

It's all about the beer (and the book)

Some scenes from the first Garden State book signing Friday evening for New Jersey Breweries. A good time at J.J. Bitting brewpub in the heart of Woodbridge, in the heart of Jersey. Are New Jersey beer drinkers thirsty for some words with their pints? Well, in a word, yes. The book, fresh from Lew Bryson and Mark Haynie, was the must read of the evening. OK, maybe the must browse, read later, drink now ... And it's always a bonus if you can hoist that pint with the authors and talk beer. Cheers!

Published images, imagine that

Check out the new issue of Beeradvocate. Our photos of Dan Weirback run with his first-person account of jumping into hop yarding (pages 32 and 33).

And unlike some publications we know of (we're looking at you Ale Street News – ya did it to us again), Beeradvocate obliged us with a credit for the images. Thanks, Jason and Todd. And nice work, Dan.

It's still fun to see our byline or photo credit, even though we've had plenty of pictures published before and been paid for 'em (all of us here at the blog have spent 20-plus years in the news or advertising business in New Jersey; we supplied the images of Dan's hop yard for free, which is why Ale Street's brain fart kind of annoys us).

Anyway, nice way to start the day with the fresh copy of Beeradvocate in the mailbox. Good mag, Alströms; keep earning that umlaut. The rest of you get back to respecting beer.

PS: A storm last weekend postponed picking our hops. Should happen this Sunday with the help of South Jersey homebrewer Julian Mason, who makes great beer and will use our Centennials in some of his brews when the weather turns cooler.

Reminder

Lew Bryson and Mark Haynie will be at J.J. Bitting brewpub in Woodbridge on Friday for their first Garden State appearance to support their just-released book, New Jersey Breweries. Look for 'em from 5-8 p.m. or so.

If you miss that appearance, they’ll be at the Tun Tavern in Atlantic City 1-4 p.m. on Saturday. The actual kickoff for the book promotion was last Sunday at the Grey Lodge in Philly, a few books sold and some elbows bent in slàinte and salut!

Lew, whose other pursuits are writing for a CondeNast mag, his blog and web site (not to mention his staring contest with the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board) was kind enough to take some time and talk about New Jersey Breweries in an on-camera at The Ship Inn in Milford on Tuesday, a trip that’s not too far – but also not a run to the corner grocery – from his home in Pennsylvania.

If you’ve wondered why just about every corner of the mid-Atlantic region has had its breweries showcased by Stackpole Books except New Jersey – land where the drive-in theater was born, the home of Thomas Edison, heck, the place where George Washington scored a win to make the post season in that armed dispute we call the American Revolution – well Lew has some answers.

Lew's an affable guy with a hearty laugh and an appearance that vaguely resembles James L. Brooks (one of the subversively creative minds that jump-started TV comedy with The Simpsons all those years ago, and who grew up in Hudson County, by the way). Lew and Mark, who's from Somers Point down in Atlantic County, have been on the beer scene in the New Jersey-Philadelphia area (and, for Lew, the rest of Pennsylvania) pretty much since the region caught the craft beer wave. They know their worts-worth.

A word about the brewery books …
They aren’t instant books, done by some trend-sniffing writer who parachutes in, takes a few notes and beats a retreat to his desk to bang out a requisite number of pages to make the publication look viable and sell a boatload of copies, get rich and move to Hawaii.

It’s more like there’s a lot of legwork, some of it inconvenient and not exactly budget friendly; there's time away from family, whether on the road or in that headspace that shoves out all extraneous voices so some serious writing can be done. And the dividends come less from sales, but more from the satisfaction of accomplishment, bragging rights and, if you’re into craft beer, maybe a sense of duty to the movement.

So, support the book, go to a signing, buy a copy and have a beer, or two. You’re also helping to raise the profile of the good beer brewed in the Garden State.

Postscript: A special thanks to The Ship Inn for letting us use their space for the video. (By the by, if you board the Ship any time soon, we do recommend the Black Death stout. Take some home; we did.)

Stirred, not shaken

We're heading to Milford, hometown to New Jersey's first brewpub, The Ship Inn, tomorrow, so this is something we gotta ask about at the bar: a 2.1 magnitude tremor with an epicenter a mile north of town.

Here's the story, courtesy of WPVI-TV in Philly.

Wonder if the barware shook, or if jostled folks put their pint glasses down and thought "enough for today, I'm going home ..."

Actually, the quake happened just before lunch, so presumably no imbibing yet. And apparently 2.1 magnitude isn't much of a shaker, just enough to stir a little attention.

Coincidentally enough, we were just in Milford on Thursday for a quick dinner after a pass through Flemington and other Hunterdon County environs.

The ESB is good, but the Black Death stout is to die for.

In the glass

“Pffftttt!!! Honey wheat ... You should put on a nice helles instead.”

– Jay Misson 1962-2008
(Seen on beer board at Triumph, New Hope, Pa.)

If you’re a regular at Triumph (Princeton, New Hope and Philadelphia), you’ve probably noticed a honey wheat on the beer board just about every time you go in.

Pick a location, it’s usually on everywhere they pour. We’ve been at the New Hope location loads of times lately, owing to a video project we’re producing on River Horse Brewing, which is just a bridge stroll away in Lambertville.

When we popped in at Triumph late last week, we saw the wheat was gone. We weren’t exactly looking for it, but rather a Bohemian pilsner that we’d read was on the board. We drained a pint of the pils to great satisfaction and saved the usual take-home order for something else – Munich helles, a 5% ABV charmer that, never mind the great flavor, the aroma alone had you convinced you’re having seconds.

Bartender Dan talked up the helles (he didn’t have to do much convincing) and noted it was on in place of the wheat. Then he pointed out why, an homage to Jay Misson, Triumph's director of brewing and a champion of lager beers who died in June.

What better way to pay tribute to a well-respected lager enthusiast, whose brewing talents served Triumph well, than to take home four pints of a great-tasting, thirst-quenching beer like that helles? So we did, with a return trip in mind.

Oh, and by the way, that Czech pilsner, well let’s say it’s crisp and inviting, and maybe we didn’t take a growler of that home, but we’re glad it was the beer that drew us in this time.

Where have these people been?

The AP reports extreme beers are finding more drinkers. Geez, where has that sweatshop news agency been, in a cave?

The New York Times wrote this story almost three years ago, and a few folks have begun circling back around to session beers and extolling their virtues.

Oh well, you can't spell crap without AP.

Hops Project (Update)

Some progress to note with Weyerbacher Brewing’s hop yard …

Owner Dan Weirback tells us they’ve got plenty of well-formed cones on the bines and he’s estimating a total yield of more than 500 pounds, maybe even double that. (By the way, that's an upwardly revised estimate from a couple of months ago.)

Looks like harvest time for the mix of Nugget and Cascades is around the third week of August. And if you recall, Dan’s plan is to brew an ale themed to the project, using the hops still “wet,” not dried, as is the traditional form. That’ll happen fairly soon after the hops are picked.

A ready-to-go brew speaks to the horticultural question of what do you do when you’re primarily an end user of hops, not a producer, and not set up to process and protectively store the hops so they don’t oxidize and become more worthy of mulch than beer.

We’ve been an enthusiastic supporter of the hop project since we first learned about it from the Rutgers agriculture folks, whose hop-growing research done at the Snyder Farm in Hunterdon County from several years ago was supplied to Dan and his wife, Sue.

So we can’t wait to taste that beer.

Meanwhile, our own Centennial hops (pictured above) will get picked this weekend.

Biergarten beer in the Garden State

In the glass this week, some growler beers we picked up on a jaunt across the north and central parts of the state …

From High Point Brewing, a really great kellerbier (5.5% ABV) and an abbey red (6.5%); from J.J. Bitting brewpub a tasty bitter (5.7%).

High Point’s draft-only keller comes via a request by the folks who bring you Brooklyn’s top-notch beer bar Spuyten Duyvil (Dutch for spitting devil) and BBQ restaurant Fette Sau (auf deutsch for fat pig), two establishments where Ramstein beers claim tap handles and the keller goes by the name Ramstein Fette Sau Pils.

Greg Zaccardi, High Point’s owner, says the Duyvil and Sau’s owners were looking for a brew that was off the beaten path, yet invited you to relax and enjoy another round without feeling six beers plowed.

High Point happily took the challenge and produced this excellent unfiltered pilsner, which is probably the best beer we’ve had all summer. The brewery had a few extra kegs left after filling the Duyvil/Sau order and put ’em tap for tours and growlers. A biergarten beer in the Garden State, as Greg says.

Interestingly enough, the Ramstein keller’s origins echo those of the brewery’s Oktoberfest. That beer also came via special request from a restaurant, and fortunately for everyone, has stuck around. The Oktoberfest brew is now in its seventh season, one of a number of lagers – maibock, amber lager, golden lager – and a pale ale that High Point brews to round out its lineup of wheat beers.

Also while at High Point this week, we grabbed some Project X, a Belgian red brewed for the Harvest Restaurant Group, which has establishments across North Jersey (and owns Trap Rock brewpub in Berkeley Heights.) Think Chimay red with this drinkable brew, produced with yeast from Trap Rock.

Meanwhile, sometimes you have to scratch an itch, and for us that quite often means a Brit ale. J.J. Bitting’s Best Bitter does just that; it happily reminds us of a homebrew we made over and over and over in the ’90s that we dubbed Cross-eyed Mary, a hop-and-malt homage to Jethro Tull’s Aqualung album that won us a few compliments from tailgating friends at Tull shows.

Hey, August, we still have the label we made for Cross-Eyed Mary (we even have one signed by Ian Anderson) in case you want to rename your brew. Ha!

Central Jersey Beer Fest 2.0

We popped up to Woodbridge for a chat with J.J. Bitting Brewing owner Mike Cerami and his brewer, August Lightfoot (pictured below), for a handful of reasons, one being to enjoy a Best Bitter on the handpump (it’s got this creamy, dense head that clings to the sides of the glass, a great beer for English ale fans like us).

But the headline on our mind was an update on plans for a second Central Jersey Beer Fest, the Indian summer answer to the state’s more widely known craft beer event held in June, which seems to be anchored on the decks of the USS New Jersey in Camden, something that’s made a few beer drinkers north of Interstate 195 flinch at the travel distance and say, “Pass.”

The folks at J.J. Bitting got the Central Jersey festival rolling last year with the blessing of Woodbridge town hall, attracting two other brewpubs (Atlantic City’s Tun Tavern and Pizzeria Uno in nearby Metuchen) and production brewer Climax Brewing (Roselle Park) to pour with them at the event. Turnout at Parker Press Park was great (see video from last year here), and those in the crowd were quite appreciative to have a festival not too far away.

Version 2.0 of the festival is set for Sept. 20 at the park, which is within walking distance of the NJ Transit train stop. The lineup right now looks like Climax, Cricket Hill, River Horse and Pennsylvania brewer Weyerbacher, as well as J.J. Bitting. Mike says he’s still doing some follow-up on invitations to other brewers, so hopefully more will follow suit.

Note: The festival on the battleship is sponsored by the Garden State Craft Brewers Guild, while the Woodbridge soiree is organized independently of that group (although J.J. Bitting is a guild member). Still, the Central Jersey fest has a lot of promise as a craft beer event (the town itself worked the festival into its lineup of Main Street happenings) and is worth the trip. And yes we know the guild has an October festival planned for Newark. We're saving that for a future post.

Jersey Date
While we’re talking about J.J. Bitting, Lew Bryson and Mark Haynie will hold their first Garden State signing party for their just-released New Jersey Breweries book on Aug. 1, from 5-8 p.m. (the kickoff is July 27th in Philadelphia), right around happy hour. Salut!

New! Jersey's breweries get book treatment

Fourteen years in the making ... 1994, that's the headwaters of the Garden State's era of microbrewing, with the founding of Climax Brewing in Union County and High Point Brewing in Morris County.

The taps were opened, and more would flow, whether pub or production brewery. And they're all in Lew Bryson and Mark Haynie's freshly poured book, New Jersey Breweries (148 pages).

We got our hands on a copy a little sooner than the July 27th kickoff at the Grey Lodge (thanks, Mark). We've read it once and are taking another spin through it.

It's a fun read and makes you wish brewing in the Garden State were more vibrant, especially when you tally up the brewery attempts that turned bitter and toast the successes that make you say "I'll have another."

But more than anything, it guides you through what New Jersey brews, from North Jersey, across to the Skylands, down the Shore and back to the Delaware, as it says, "New Jersey and beer, perfect together."

Put that in your pint glass and drink it, Tom Kean.

Cheers!

InHeuser-Bevusch

This just in: Reuters and the New York Times report Anheuser-Busch has relented and agreed to a takeover by InBev, to the tune of $50 billion big ones. Cash.

The new name of the company? Anheuser-Busch InBev, the mother of all brewers on planet Earth.

Honestly, we like our name idea better.

Bine of the times

More pictures (shot July 13th) ... Not much to add on the homegrown hops front but to quote fellow hobby-grower Ray Gourley of South Jersey: "They are fun to watch grow."

Useless trivia/botany lesson:
Hops grow on bines (with a B, not V), if you want to know the technical word for their long flexible stems with tiny bristles that let 'em latch on to things and climb. When you see the word in writing, it always looks like a typo, given that V and B keys are side by side on the keyboard.

RH factor

Calendar note:
River Horse rolls out a second offering in its Brewers Reserve series, this time an imperial cherry amber ale, at the High Street Grill in Mount Holly on Tuesday (July 15th; check the restaurant’s web site for the time).

We got an advance bottle of this a month or so ago. Seemed like it could use a little more cherry, but we were enjoying some spicy Thai food when we tried it, so some beer flavors may gotten dwarfed by the food. Plus, our bottle came from a pilot batch, so we’re betting the finer points have been worked out since then.

You may recall, RH’s Brewers Reserve series began with a well-received Belgian Double White back in March. Owners Glenn Bernabeo and Chris Walsh say there’s more in the brewers reserve to come down the road.

The High Street has earned a reputation as a restaurant that puts a lot thought and care into how beer and food complement one another. If you go early, pop in over at Red White and Brew, a great packaged goods place that specializes in craft beers (including some Jersey-brewed craft beers from the state's northern half that a frustratingly hard to get in South Jersey). RWB is a no-sweat stroll from the restaurant.

Meanwhile, followers of Bucks County Brewing’s PennBrook Lager, a River Horse brew marketed under a Pennsylvania moniker, may be interested to know RH has taken steps to ensure the amber brew’s availability in New Jersey and Pennsylvania where RH distributes.

River Horse struck a deal with Lion Brewery in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., to contract brew PennBrook, a beer geared more for people looking to step up from Bud or Coors to something fuller-bodied, yet not exotic, imperial or hop-heavy. (FYI: Lion currently contract-brews Yards, while their new Philly brewery is under construction.)

For RH, PennBrook was sort of an on-again, off-again brew, based on production capacity, and that sometimes kept it out of the hands of those who were looking for it. And although it’s not the magnetic type of beer that mesmerizes the beer geeks, Glenn and Chris thought it was an important enough brew in the RH lineup to give it the boost that a deal with Lion could provide.

Centennial celebration

OK, that headline is definitely the cart before the horse, because our Centennial hop bines still have burs coming in all over the place. But so are the cones from those first burs that came in a month ago. That means more pictures (FYI: The photos open huge.)

These are first-year bines that are producing quite well, so it makes us wonder if this year has been a favorable growing season. Maybe it's just beginner's luck.













Meanwhile, in the glass:
Backyard sources for beer this week – Flying Fish Farmhouse Summer Ale and a growler of Tun Tavern's Tun Dark. We're going north next week and scouting for Cricket Hill's Jersey Summer Breakfast Ale, among other prospects.

Battlefield Earth

Who to cheer for in this one? The one who makes forgettable beer but clever Super Bowl commercials, or the other behemoth who yells "Stella! Stella!"? (Here's a fresh dose of news from the front.)

We drink none of Anheuser-Busch's line, and only a clutch of InBev's (like Bass, when we're consigned to those bars that the thought "Well at least they have Guinness/Sam Adams/Bass ..." comes to mind. But Bass just doesn't taste the same anymore).

Honestly, the deck – as far as sympathy goes – is stacked against A-B (we heard it called "payback" by one Garden State craft brewer). There are so many things about Bud we've long hated, even before the '90s beer revolution around here, and nearly every one of them has to do with how Bud tastes. Bud may be bland, but there is a taste there, and it's called wretched. (The last Bud we drank was a year ago, and that was at a Tria Fermentation School session, when the presentation was about malt, and the speaker used Bud to illustrate – not perjoratively, however – that Bud's kinda bankrupt when it comes to malt stylings.)

A-B also casts a long shadow in New Jersey with deep pockets, and any cynic in the Garden State can tell you deep pockets paves your way when you want things in New Jersey. A-B's presence in Newark is almost like they breathe all the air so none of the Garden State craft brewers has enough to do anything but turn blue. That's hyperbole, of course. But A-B can spread around a lot of free sports-logo barware, T-shirts and posters and other co-oped advertising, things that would take a big bite out of the craft brewers' budgets.

But let's not rush to make a whipping boy/easy target out of Bud and its sire. Everyone with a homebrew set-up and a refrigerator overloaded with the micro of the week from Joe Canal's has done that, and hurled a few stones at Miller and Coors to boot. (Disclosure: We've done it; still do. And our refrigerators are overloaded with micros, etc.)

Let's look at InBev, without getting too analytical (or even too serious; remember, we endorsed Stephen Colbert for president; still do.) InBev has a sterile-sounding corporate name that looks more like a New York Stock Exchange ticker symbol. So minor points to A-B for corporately relying on the German family moniker and at least putting a human face on things. And InBev right now is the evil corporate raider, the opportunistic aggressor.

If we were jingoistic, we'd note that Belgian-Brazilian InBev is also a foreign invader, but St. Louis-based A-B's ownership bloodline isn't pure, nor its holdings apple pie all-American, so that statement is just dumbing things down. This is the 21st century and global economics, and besides, the Chicago Skyway toll road is owned by an Australian-Spanish corporate mashup.

But really, this A-B/InBev battle, as it carries on, is starting to make us yawn already, and it's still early in the going. It's hard not to think of A-B and InBev as two giants from warring planets sent to Earth to duke it out in a fight to the finish. Only it's two giants duking it out with corporate lawyers on the boardroom-corporate raider battlefield, and probably somewhere down the line some people are going to get screwed out of their jobs (if $4 a gallon gasoline doesn't do it first).

Maybe it's time to go watch (or read) "Barbarians at the Gate." At least that's interesting and entertaining.

Oktober sky

If you’re a fan of Oktoberfest beers … we’ll let’s just say, if you aren’t then you’re missing one of the best beers on Earth.

That’s worth repeating: If you aren’t then you’re missing one of the best beers on Earth. But anyway, the best news for the lazy, hazy days of July is that the Oktober sky is in sight, the Märzens are coming; they're being brewed this month.

And in the Garden State, the go-to Oktoberfest beers come from the brewers with strong connections to Germany: High Point and Climax.

In Butler, the logo on the exterior brickwork may give a nod to the 220-foot obelisk in Montague Township at New Jersey’s highest elevation (1,803 feet), but just off the brewhouse, the thick, Blackletter text, “Ramstein,” above the bottling line says Germany. So does the beer: Malts, hops and yeast from Bavaria. (FYI: High Point's beer brand itself is a nod to the U.S. Ramstein airbase and is symbolic of German-American cultural unity).

Owner Greg Zaccardi says High Point’s brewing of their annual Oktoberfest (alas, it’s available draft only, but well worth the trek to find) commences next week. Release date is Sept. 1, with an annual barrel tapping/open house set for the second Saturday in September.

Greg learned to brew in southern Germany; his wife is German, and as you could imagine, he frequently travels there (in fact, he just got back from a June trip).

Zip across Route 78 to Roselle Park, where Climax Brewing has its Oktoberfest already in the lagering tank. Brewer/owner Dave Hoffmann says he got an early start this year (the beer's available draft and in half-gallon containers) and is targeting it for the beginning of August. He plans another batch on the heels of the initial release.

Dave is of direct German extract. Chat with his dad, Kurt, and you’ll enjoy a rich, German accent, unspoiled by years of living in the U.S.

Oktoberfest is Sept. 20-Oct. 5. So why rave about beers that are a month away from your stein, while we're still in the farming saison? Because these two Oktoberfest beers go fast. Best to keep 'em on the radar.

OF NOTE:
Check out the results from this year’s North American Brewers’ Association competition. The Tun Tavern won a silver medal for brewer Tim Kelly’s Belgian brown ale and a bronze for Tun Dark, a dunkel-like interpretation lagered for a month and a half, with a hint of hop bitterness and maltiness that's not too sweet. Congrats, Tim.

MEANWHILE:
We’ve been getting into the hops horticulture lately, and here we go again, this time with our own Centennial hops. We found the first well-defined cones on one bine on Sunday, and noticed on Monday more cones were taking shape.

Like The Beatles sang, it won't be long. Yeah, it won't be long.

LongShot Addendum

The results are up. Unfortunately, ESB Dave was shut out. Sigh. But that doesn't change the fact that Dave makes great beer.

Here's to your beers, Dave. Salut.

LongShot winners coming up

Quick note: Finalists in the Samuel Adams LongShot homebrew contest are due to be announced this week, a Boston Beer contact tells us. Seems like the folks up in Boston are running a little late this year, compared to last year when finalists were announced mid-June.

But nonetheless, we’re pulling for friend of the blog Dave Pobutkiewicz of Morris County, who entered again this year, after finishing as a runner-up last October, when the winners were announced at the Great American Beer Festival. (Grand prize, aside from the Samuel Adams swag that goes to the finalists, is having your beer brewed for the SA LongShot sixpack.)

Dave got a trip to Denver out of the deal in 2007. But this guy’s such a perfectionist when it comes to beer – the detailed records he keeps on each brew and his methods are impressive – he pretty much decided, right there in the slipstream of coming up short last year, that he would hurl himself against the SA ramparts in 2008. (Dave shared his beers with us and Tun Tavern brewer Tim Kelly back in March in Atlantic City. It’s really, really good.)

This year, Dave entered his helles bock (6.9% ABV), the same beer that made him a finalist in 2007. He also entered a double helles bock (8% ABV) in the specialty category, and his Fuller’s-like ESB (6% ABV), a holy grail for a guy who’s known in his homebrewer club (Defiant Hombrewers) as ESB Dave.

The Hop Project (Update)

Over the weekend we checked in with the folks at Weyerbacher Brewing in Easton, Pa., just over the Delaware River from Phillipsburg.

If you recall, Dan Weirback and his wife, Suzanne, undertook the daunting project of growing hops to perhaps offset some of the cost at the brewery Dan founded in 1995. You may also recall hops on the commercial market now cost about four times as much as they did a year ago.

So back in April, after some cajoling by Sue (the project was her idea, Dan admits to harboring a few reservations), some Web research and some outreach to folks versed in hops, the Weirbacks put 1,500 rhizomes in the ground on an acre surrounded by wheat fields in the rolling hills of Lehigh County, Pa. They hired a fencing company to seat rows of poles 9 feet high, upon which they strung trellises for the hop bines to climb. Along the rows, at the base of the hops, they ran hoses for a drip irrigation system.

The Jersey angle – after all, this is a Jersey beer blog – is that they’ve relied on research Rutgers agronomists conducted on hops in the 1990s at a demonstrator hopyard at the Snyder Research Farm in Hunterdon County. The Weirbacks continue to stay in touch with their Rutgers contact, John Grande.

Cost for their project: $8,000 and a lot of physical labor – weeding, mulching and training the bines to climb, more weeding, more training, checking for pests etc. It’s quite a bit of work for two people who otherwise have plenty to do in the course of running a brewery and, in Sue’s case, her own career.

There are no shortcuts to the work. And there’s a fair amount of having to make do with limited resources, such as the poles supporting the trellis lines. At 9 feet, they could easily be twice that height, since hop bines are prodigious climbers. But 9 feet was the tallest the fence company could handle; plus there’s the need to reach the bines, most likely from the bed of a pickup truck.

The payoff thus far? Part of the hopyard is going strong, while the other portion has some catch-up to do. But the Weirbacks’ mix of Cascade and Nugget plants are starting to bud. Barring calamity of bad weather, Japanese beetles or some other hop-hungry insect, the Weirbacks expect to harvest plenty of cones later this summer.

It's worth mentioning that Dan and Sue are under no illusions with the project. After all they’re living it, and even confess to some moments of doubt about the merits of the endeavor. But as they say, they haven’t had those misgivings at the same time, so they’ve been able to soldier on.

And while they haven’t really talked up the project, the Weirbacks have drawn some curiosity from other Pennsylvania brewers interested in seeing what the couple comes up with at harvest.

From all sides, this is a rather bold experiment, commendable, too, when you consider it’s risky, and the Weirbacks are willing to try to cut a trail in the wilderness, so to speak.

Good luck, see you at harvest time.

In the glass

We're making a conscious effort to drink Jersey-made beers for a while, not exclusively, since good beer is good beer, and we have an ample supply from around the tristate region and a number of imports.

But Jersey's the home team, and we're trying to support the state's brewers by thinking local and drinking local. So with that in mind, here's what's in the glass this week:

Tim’s Peculiar Porter, from the Ship Inn.

We grabbed a to-go box of the Brit-style porter (think church, not odd, as in Old Peculiar with this beer's name). We liked this beer from the ’07 NJ craft brewers festival on the battleship in Camden, and were a bit forlorn when the Ship skipped this year's event (we hear there was a death in the owners’ family, so that may be the reason they passed on it).

When business took us in the Ship's part of the state over the weekend, we made a point to stop by and get some take-home beer after a quick lunch there in Milford (grilled chicken sarny … the Ship is British motif from bow to stern; a sarny’s a sandwhich. We had Jethro Tull’s Thick as a Brick stuck in our head afterward “… queuing for sarnies at the office canteen.”)

Some buying advice on the beer box:

• Don’t plan on same-day consumption if you have to travel far to get home or wherever. The drive can shake it up quite a lot, and it degasses, making that inner plastic bladder swell up like a soccer ball. (If that happens, just leave it in the fridge for a few days. The beer will be fine waiting and will reabsorb the CO2 that was released into the ullage.)

• Do try to keep the beer cold for the trip home. So yeah, a cooler is a smart idea, again especially if the ride is long. Warm beer degasses more than cold. But remember, the outer carton is cardboard – and under pressure from the inner bladder – so make plans to keep that dry somehow if you’re using a bag of ice. (Cover it entirely in a few layers of plastic or something.)

• Discard the box when done, hang on to your white plastic tap for when you …

• … Get another. The Ship makes good ales. Plus the beer box is a pretty cool idea, and at 5 quarts (their smallest size), it’s more than a traditional, half-gallon screw-top growler, and actually takes up less space in your fridge.

Also in our glass …

Hoffmann Hefeweizen, from Climax Brewing.

We ran into Dave Hoffmann at the annual mug club dinner at Basil T’s (Toms River) last week (June 27). Dave, who has a side gig as brewer there, was kind enough to provide a sample of this year’s rendition of his hefe, produced at his home base in Roselle Park.

If you’re familiar with Dave’s Union County operation, then you know his German-style brews are his eponymous beers. His IPAs, brown ales and EBS go under the Climax banner.

Calendar item:
Lew Bryson and Mark Haynie roll out their New Jersey Breweries book on Sunday, July 27th with a brunch affair at the Grey Lodge in Philly. Yeah, the Jersey beer book is getting christened in Pennsylvania, as if Jersey doesn't have enough of an inferiority complex as it is.

But Lew says he and Mark have three Jersey dates planned for the book, and scheduling can pose some issues. Hence the Grey Lodge, which has hosted Lew's book debuts twice in the past.

And, besides, the Grey Lodge is everyone’s all-American when it comes to supporting craft brewers, including ones from the Garden State.