The Big Picture

Here’s video from last month's Garden State Craft Brewers Festival. To those who inquired more than once about its completion date, sorry for the delay. And to those who paused from their sampling or pouring to do an interview, many thanks.

If you went to the festival, you know the weather pretty much sucked. But thankfully the rain, while poncho-worthy, was intermittent. The guild puts the festival attendance at 630, and the event marked the New Jersey debut of Iron Hill Brewery. (IH co-founder Mark Edelson and head brewer Chris Lapierre took time do interviews for the video.)

A word about the guild fests
We’ll take this moment to repeat an oft-said point (on this blog, at least): Having the festival in Camden, or South Jersey if you want to track it regionally, is fine if there will be at least a second festival, specifically in North Jersey. You could toss in a third for the middle part of the state, since New Jersey is actually and distinctly of three regions, as far as its cultural stylings go.

A single festival in South Jersey becomes forgettable in the long run, and North Jersey folks can be hard-pressed to drum up the desire to travel the distance (a shout-out to Tom Eagan of the Destination Beer blog, who did come down from Jersey City on the 20th and made an admirable daytrip of things). And for argument’s sake, if there were but a single festival in North Jersey, the shoe of disdain would be on South Jersey’s foot.

So two festivals becomes important. At some point, it's about branding, and brand awareness. And by branding, we mean broadly speaking the New Jersey brand, the big picture, collectively the great beers made by the pub and craft brewers inside the state’s borders.

Since the guild’s festival is the only one that’s granted the dispensation to have the beer poured by the people who made it (therefore brewers can really talk to the consumers), it becomes important again to capitalize on that opportunity for face time with the beer-consuming public and remind those folks not just about your beer, but your very existence (you can’t do tastings at the package stores in this state). Because there’s a flood of beer on the store shelves from across the country and around the world, almost too much to choose from, sort of Alvin Toffler-ish/Future Shock-like, when you consider that back in the 1980s, the choices were dramatically narrower. The home team is in peril of being overshadowed by the plethora of labels now. (Yet once upon a time, Jersey had a plethora of labels brewed within its borders.)

It’s good for the consumer, the veritable panorama of choices, but not so hot for the concept of buying local being the new organic.

And that, in the end, is the big picture.

Iron Hill opening on 7/20

Iron Hill is set to open the doors of its New Jersey brewpub to the beer-enjoying public on Monday at 5 p.m., preceded by a ceremonial first pour with the media at 4 p.m.

We'd like to think of IH's opening as a small step for an established and respected brewpub brand that has eight locations spread among Delaware, Pennsylvania and now New Jersey. But you could say it's really a giant leap for the Garden State, which hasn't seen a new brewery/brewpub open in 10 years.

The folks behind Iron Hill – Kevin Finn, Kevin Davies and Mark Edelson – are from New Jersey and have long wanted to return to their home state with the brewpub model they found success with in the First State and the Keystone State. But the big ball of red tape that is New Jersey makes opening a new business, like a brewery, a daunting challenge. (Too much control is ceded to municipalities, and state government does little to encourage business development.)

But Iron Hill is here. Happily.

Cheers.

Fall through

This is a little disappointing, especially if you live in the northern part of the state. But there is some hope on the distant horizon.

The Garden State Craft Brewers Guild won’t be staging a second festival this year, like the one last fall at the Newark Bears minor league baseball stadium. Guild folks say a deal for a venue can’t be nailed down in time to sufficiently advertise a date for this fall to draw a good-size crowd.

That said, guild folks are scouting around for a place to hold an early- or mid-spring 2010 festival in addition to the annual summer festival that has moored itself to the decks of the USS New Jersey. Stadiums at Montclair State University and Somerville (the Somerset Patriots field) are being eyed for a spring festival.

The disappointment here is, obviously, that if you didn’t make it to the battleship this year, you missed the boat as far guild brew fests for 2009 go. It’s perhaps harder on the folks in North Jersey, who have had to travel to Camden for the past five years to sample the brews of guild members in one sitting.

Camden’s not exactly the idea of a dream destination for those folks, and if you talk to some longtime fans of Jersey-made beers who live above I-195, they will invariably bring up the halcyon days of the late 1990s, when the guild festival was held at Waterloo Village. But those days are long gone, and the festival eventually dropped anchor in Camden, to the satisfaction of South Jersey.

Cross your fingers that 2010 will indeed yield two festivals and be the dawn of an era in which the guild keeps a light on in both halves of the state.

Meanwhile, the version 3 of the Central Jersey Beer Festival is set for Sept. 19 in Woodbridge. And, Pizzeria Uno down the road in Metuchen is likely to repeat their cask ale festival yet again during the fall. Stay tuned.

Video
Speaking of festivals, the video we shot last month aboard the battleship in Camden will be up toward the end of this week. Some people have asked about when they could see it, and we expected it to be up by today. But the computer and a linked pair of external hard drives aren't playing nice with one another. The technical trouble should be resolved very soon.

Cheers.

Time to exit this

MADD strikes a more moderate tone in the Courier-Post of Cherry Hill regarding Flying Fish's Exit Series beers.

Two months of running in place on the same topic ... Now's a good time to shift things out of neutral, move forward and exit this debate, or at least adapt it to the times (see here, and here, page 3 of the table).

Exit to ale ... and so it goes

There's an AP story on the wires and Internet in which MADD gets annoyed at Flying Fish's Exit Series.

Nothing truly new in this, unless you're looking for a release date for the hoppy American wheat ale that will be Exit 11 (it's July 15th, and alas a media event to kick things off is being held in Philadelphia that day, not New Jersey. Sort of flies in the face of the talked-up homage to Jerseyana. But then, Philadelphia is, was and probably always will be a top market for Flying Fish, so there's that to consider). And when we say "nothing new," we mean the very same argument/gripe trotted out in June is being recycled a mere month later. Who cares if it's coming from a different mouth this time?

If you read The Associated Press story, you get the impression that Mothers Against Drunk Driving was contacted for comment (a completely logical thing to do as far as news reporting goes; and honestly, where was MADD a month ago when the chance to grouse about this was on the front burner?), as opposed to MADD getting out its long knives to fillet the Fish with a protest, à la a news conference at the start of a major travel holiday (such as last week's Fourth of July celebrations), something the organization is known to do. Not that we're advocating MADD tee off on a brewery; hardly, since we think MADD, nationally, has become a temperance league – as in all beer, liquor and wine are bad or lead to trouble – and especially since we thought the New Jersey Turnpike Authority needed to lighten up when it was getting fussy last month over this. But it is curious that the freshest news release on the Web site for the New Jersey chapter of MADD is dated 2006. The Exit Series gripe isn't even mentioned on MADD-NJ.

And, if you ask us, The Star-Ledger's headline on the story sort of oversells things. MADD gets second fiddle following some more of the Turnpike Authority frowning and resignation at Flying Fish's First Amendment rights (which the Exit Series wholly is). The balance of the story, aside from more rebuttal from FF, is about the beer series, not about how MADD intends to get madder over this. A mild slam, it would seem.

This item made WCBS radio in New York this afternoon, with audio comment from MADD folks (in which they did indeed slam FF, saying they were "appalled") coupled with some renewed deflection from Gene Muller at Flying Fish in Cherry Hill (he has proffered once before that drinking and driving are an unthinkable combination, something anyone could guess). But oddly enough, WCBS did this same story three weeks ago – after Channel 4 in New York did a take on the Turnpike folks having a conniption, after the TollroadsNews Web site broke the story (if you want to call it that). In CBS' report back then, the station spoke to Gene, but never went after the MADD angle. Hmmm.

And now a news day in the slow lane once again today.

And so it goes ...

PS: One thing about the Exit Series that does come to mind these seven months into FF's program for 2009 and as far as keeping beer denizens far and wide interested: 18 exits, 3 beers a year = 6 years of taking exits. The turnpike's a long road, indeed. Maybe the US Mint has some tips after 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, 52 quarters and 10 years.

River Horse update

There's a brewer change at River Horse to report.

Head brewer Christian Ryan is off to London, where his wife was transferred by her employer. Replacing Christian is Greg Papp, an alumus of Victory Brewing and Shipyard Brewing, and most recently the BJ's Restaurant & Brewery chain.

More to come soon.

Happy Independence Day*

Celebrating the 4th and continued independence from crappy, dumbed-down beer … Budweiser the king of beers? Nay, the beer equivalent of George III, our improvident former overlord who was overthrown.

Now is also a good time to renew a shout-out to Rick Reed’s Campaign for New Jersey Beer, his call to muster pride and support for Jersey-brewed beer.

From Rick: "New Jersey breweries make some of the finest beers on earth and if you are a New Jersey bar then you should serve at least one New Jersey beer. Have some pride in our state, it doesn't matter which brewery from NJ but have at least one!!!"

Small-batch beer is a thread that runs through the origins of this country. Everyone who’s really into beer knows that Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, turned to brewing in retirement from public life. (TRIVIA: Jefferson is among three US presidents who checked out on July 4th, the other two being his rival, John Adams, and James Monroe.)

Jefferson, of course, wasn't alone as a homebrewer. As prominent people of their day, the Founding Fathers were of the means to maintain personal breweries at their estates. If you’re a homebrewer, celebrate your connection to them. It's all about freedom and independence.

*Fireworks display shot July 4, 2009, at Lake Pohatcong in Tuckerton, NJ.

Hops slideshow

These Centennials are almost ready to pick. The bines are producing in waves, so by early to mid-August another harvest will be likely.

Tankard time

OK, so they’re not really tankards here, but Basil T’s in Toms River does a commendable job with its mug club dinner, that occasion when you can renew your membership for the year or sign up to become a member. This year's is set for 6:30 on Friday evening (find details here; look under menus on the left column; the dinner link is at the bottom).

(FYI: If you actually are looking for tankards, need the feel of pewter in your hands, The Ship Inn in Milford uses them in its club.)

If you’re a beer fan in the Toms River area, then you probably already keep a seat at Basil’s warm and a pint of Dave Hoffmann’s pub-brewed beer in front of you. (Dave, as many folks know, is also the owner of Climax Brewing in Roselle Park; being the brewer at Basil’s affords him a beer alter-ego.) But if you’re a beer trekker and the brewpub is a travel destination, then it helps to know this event is one of two with beer as the centerpiece that Basil’s pulls out the all the stops for. The other is their Oktoberfest, and both are worth putting on your calendar.

Cheers. See you there.

Draft Magazine swings and misses

Not to beat up on them, but Draft Magazine completely zoned out with this. How they followed this item and came up with New Jersey as the culprit is anyone's guess.

The NewJerseyNewsroom.com story is merely localizing a national story, and in this case, how a federal excise tax increase would hurt Garden State microbreweries, like other brewers nationwide. Sen. Bob Menendez was contacted for comment to further localize the issue and even said nothing is set in stone. Even a skim of the story would guide you to the conclusion of a national issue being localized.

Anyway this is our posted response to what Draft Magazine's Web editor wrote (FYI: We did minor style editing and fixes to our hasty writing on Draft's site):

Although we’re reluctant to defend politicians, we do have to take exception to this brief about the excise tax and reasons to avoid New Jersey.

Not to seem obnoxious correcting you, but it is the federal excise tax you are referring to. And while Sen. Bob Menendez of NJ is on the US Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus of Montana is the chairman. And so far it is only talk of raising excise taxes. Also, as an FYI, the soft drink industry could be asked to pony up, too. This is all connected to Congress’ plans to overhaul the US healthcare system, so it’s improbable that a single state would be behind it.

The folks at the Brewers Association put out an action alert on this.

But meanwhile, there is another bill that proposes halving the federal excise taxes on beer. You’ll find information about that on the Brewers Association site, too.

Perhaps you’re confusing the federal measure with the New Jersey Legislature’s increase in the state's tax on liquor and wine. That budget measure excluded beer, and Governor Jon Corzine’s administration, although a bit ham-handedly, stressed that beer was excluded from the increase.

And again, not to seem rude, but your space is better spent calling on beer enthusiasts to write their lawmakers and register their objections to a tax hike, and not singling out a particular state for blame, which, in this case, is completely erroneous.

Again, we're not trying to beat up on Draft Magazine (although they did disparage New Jersey for no discernible reason, other than the apparent cliche of making Jersey the butt of a joke). But their interpretation of things is just so hopelessly flawed, totally mangled.

Craft Brewers Guild Festival on Saturday

The Garden State Craft Brewers Guild 13th Annual Beer Festival, as it's billed on the organization's Web site, is Saturday (1-5 p.m.) in Camden aboard the USS New Jersey. (Note to the guild: Not to be a pain, but it's time to update the festival announcements on the Web site. It proclaims 16 breweries, but there are only 14 members listed under the guild membership tab. Even when you toss in soon-to-open Iron Hill Brewery, which is expected to debut its beers in New Jersey aboard the ship on Saturday, that only makes 15. Plus, Krogh's in Sparta rarely pours at this festival.)

Also, it's a little unfortunate that the guild's site doesn't indicate a festival for the fall. But some guild members say there is the intention to repeat a fall festival, like the one in Newark last October. One of the observations that arose after that festival was attendance suffered because the planning came together late and there wasn't sufficient time to get word out.

Alas.

Hopefully on Saturday (which unfortunately is forecast to be rainy) the guild will have handouts about a fall festival, as was done last year. Still, it would beneficial to have a little buzz about it going on the Web site now, even if the planning has not totally gelled.

Anyway, here's what the 11th and 12th festivals in Camden looked like.

IF YOU GO:

• Tickets are 40 bucks and appear to still be available.
• Parking is available for 10 bucks at the garage across from Adventure Aquarium. Shuttle buses from the garage run regularly to and from the ship.
• Food concessions are on the ship. It's the usual fare, but at the past couple of festivals the vendor has been better than some you'll find at similar events.

Portrait of a Lone Hop in the Rain

Exit to ale, reprise

If you believe Toll Road News, there’s some frowning at the Woodbridge headquarters of the New Jersey Turnpike over Flying Fish and its Exit Series beers. If that’s the case, then the Turnpike Authority should lighten up.

From a chat with Gene Muller, Flying Fish’s president, it seems the fuss is a little overblown, but not without a PR dividend for the brewery. The static comes from fears over the potential for assumptions, albeit erroneous, that the Turnpike is behind the beer.

That’s funny, since Flying Fish doesn’t use the word turnpike on its labels or related Web site. And you can't get an Exit beer at the Molly Pitcher rest stop, nor an Exit 4 T-shirt anywhere but Flying Fish.

Also, the brewery isn't infringing on any trademarks. (You can’t trademark that highway-sign color of green; nor can you trademark the word exit; the shape of the Turnpike’s sign is trademarked, however.)

In the grand scheme of things, this is about the New Jersey Turnpike as iconography and pop culture. The Flying Fish series is an homage to something distinctly New Jersey. And last we checked, the Exit Series celebrates that slice of Jerseyana; it does not mock it, like so many comedians and a recent headline in Draft Magazine.

Still, in the face of all this gear grinding, the brewery’s Web site for the Exit Series now features a disclaimer now (pictured; click to enlarge).

Any authority concerns about drinking and driving were met with the reply that Flying Fish folks don’t condone drinking and driving (they never have; nor does any Jersey micro or pub brewery), and that they drive the same roads as everyone else.

(The dim view of roads and beer or wine or liquor mentioned in the same breath is a knee-jerk association to DUI, a propensity to see a dark side. The thinking person knows better, knows it's not fait accompli. It's unfortunate and makes you wonder when you consider this: Five years ago, Buena Vista Township in Atlantic County temporarily changed the name of its mint-growing section of Richland to Mojito. Why? Because Bacardi gave the town 5 grand for the promotion, and got a mojito sign along Route 40, the main highway through town. Last we checked, a mojito was made not with just mint, but rum, too. And this event went over with not a hubub, but feature stories written about it. Go figure.)

Gene did suggest the Turnpike shouldn’t be spending money on lawyers to swat at a small, taxpaying business. (A lawyer contacted the brewery to press the authority's concerns; there's no cease and desist notice that we know of.) Tolls pay the Turnpike’s bills; who needs a toll hike because the Turnpike Authority took a wrong turn down a legal dead-end?

In the long run, all of this attention proves beneficial for Flying Fish. Exit 11, the second installament of the series, is due out soon. News media from the surrounding region have been working the story. (Update: Channel 4 in New York did a somewhat dour turn on the dispute on the 6 o'clock news. Their written version has a lame headline pun.)

A day in the slow lane for the news outlets perhaps, but a grand avenue of exposure for the beer.

One final word: We’ve dealt with Joe Orlando from the Turnpike Authority, going back to our AP days. And while the Turnpike Authority's concerns are understandable, the tone and disparaging remarks in the Toll Road News story seem out of character. Even on the worst of days, i.e. bad news coming out of the Turnpike, Joe was always helpful and candid, never coarse. Hence, some doubts about Toll Road News.

Catching up

This is something we intended to do a month ago, but we never could find the results of the contest. Until now.

Here's the top winner of the American Homebrewers Association Big Brew 2009 YouTube contest (we won it last year.) Great job, cool animated intro.

Cheers and congrats to all the winners.

Sobering the numbers

If you read this, then you should also read this, and this. The latter should sober up the fear reflex by supplying some perspective.

That research about campus binge drinking, done by an agency that exists to hand-wring about binge drinking, would come back with numbers showing an even greater binge drinking crisis should surprise no one.

If the numbers went down, would the research get a headline? Maybe. But, realistically, in an era in which a little fear goes a long way, lower numbers would probably just sail under the radar. (A little conditioning goes just as far, and we've all been conditioned to accept the viewpoint that crises only get worse, never better, let alone question whether they were ever a crisis to begin with.)

Let's hope those massive (yet encouraging) street protests in Iran over their election continue, so there's truly some significant news to report. Otherwise, this puffed-up piffle will claim unjustified airtime on the 24-hour news channels. It's probably already going to be the next health segment on the local broadcast news stations tonight, given their propensity to pick low-hanging fruit.

Alas.

More hops

It's been a rainy late spring, but the Centennials have held up fine, with cones coming in all over the place. These images are of some of the smaller bines.

Yesterday's gone

OK, time to cop to something.

Yes, calling Guinness a "yesteryear" beer was a dig at the beer. Sort of.

This comes up by way of email from a former co-worker (from our days at the sweatshop AP news bureau in Trenton) who asked if the Campaign for New Jersey Beer post of Thursday took a swipe at Guinness.

Again, yes. Sort of.

Guinness still tastes good (try the 250th anniversary edition; it's rich and tasty). And in those bars that Rick Reed and other Jersey brewers legitimately complain about, Guinness is a good buy when all the other options are Coors Light, Bud, Michelob Ultra (as in ultra bland) ... The list goes on.

Samuel Adams falls into the same cateogry, a good pint when the rest of the taps aren't worth wasting the calories on. (Jim Koch and Boston Beer, however, deserve a pass. The Samuel Adams brand clearcut the forest to make the road toward better beers, if not proving that you can become the next era of brewing in markets homogenized by Bud, Coors and Miller.)

So why, then, is Guinness yesteryear?

It's a generational thing. Guinness had cult-like status in the late 1980s, early 1990s in several parts of New Jersey. At that time, few bars went to the trouble to deal with that nitrogen-dispensed draft system that allowed Guinness its dense, creamy head and smooth texture. Why bother if you could count your Guinness customers on one hand?

One of the bars in our area, during our Asbury Park Press days, that did go to the trouble was the Drafting Table in Bradley Beach, where you could find Guinness on tap almost 20 years ago. And if memory serves, the Drafting Table occasionally had John Courage Amber on draft, too, a rather inviting British beer at the time.

It doesn't seem like much to sing the praises of either now, given that you can easily get your hands on a fat, heavy bottle of Kasteel Donker, if you're willing to part with 9 bucks. But in 1990, it was a big deal to shift from Heineken to darker beers without having to pass through the doors of a knowledgeable packaged goods store. And it's worth pointing out, too, that at this time, Samuel Adams wasn't a sure thing to find on tap. Or in even bottles behind the bar.

So, indeed, you were hip back then if you even liked Guinness; hipper still if you knew the flavor difference between Guinness on draft and Guinness Extra Stout in the bottle (draft was smoother, thanks to the nitrogen; bottled Extra was a different animal – the fizzy carbonation made the roasted and black patent malts more prickly, almost harsh on the palate). You were a trendsetter if you knew of bars that went the extra mile to carry Guinness on draft.

And Guinness was cool. The John Gilroy advertising illustrations from the 1930s, featuring the menagerie of zoo animals, now played to a new generation in the 1990s on glassware and T-shirts. A former Asbury Park Press co-worker even visited the Guinness brewery in Dublin, returning with gifts for fellow Guinness drinkers, while yet another former co-worker regaled us with tales of pubcrawling in Ireland.

What changed things?

The microbrewing industry finally caught up to New Jersey in the mid-90s. That and Jim Koch challenged you to step up to flavor. And there was portable draft Guinness, the four-pack of cans (those bottles of Guinness draft didn't hit the area market until about 2000-01). Guinness finally found a wider fan base. More taphandles too. Exponentially more compared to 1990. Guinness in the bar and grill these days is as common as salt shakers on the tables, and noticeably absent if it's not on tap. Or at least in cans behind the bar.

Some of that hipness has been lost to time and the increased ranks (see what we mean by generational). And these days, there are plenty of reasons to explore other beers, like that oatmeal cookie stout Triumph occasionally brews – and pours under nitrogen. It's an exceptionally well-done beer.

So is Guinness yesteryear? Respectfully, yes, when the landscape is dotted with so many beer choices, whether from breweries native to the home state (this is a Jersey-centric blog) or the surrounding environs.

But nonetheless, Guinness is still in our fridge. Probably always will be.

Campaign for New Jersey Beer*

Been there, been living it: Think Jersey, drink Jersey.

But this like-minded initiative is all about putting a bug in someone’s ear, namely bar owners.

For six weeks now, Rick Reed has used his Friday night sermons from the mash tun at Cricket Hill Brewery to imbue the tour crowds to be foot soldiers in a rebellion to get New Jersey beers on tap at Jersey bars that find it fashionable to crowd their tap space with crappy Coors Light, yesteryear's Guinness, and that god-awful Bass wannabe, Smithwick's.

Those crowds in Fairfield are running about 130- to 150-people strong each week, and Rick’s arming his legions with cards that bear the name of the cause – Campaign for New Jersey Beer – and are to be left with bars and restaurants' wait staff, bartenders or managers. The accompanying text on the cards explains that Garden State brewers make topnotch beers, and bars in New Jersey should have at least one of those beers on tap. It’s a matter of taking pride in something that's made in the state.

On another level, the cards are the equivalent of a polite boycott, since the person leaving the one intends to not patronize the establishment until a Jersey beer gets tap space.

Of course, Rick’s preference is to see Cricket Hill tap handles grow from this action, and he says his draft accounts have jumped by a half dozen since the campaign started. Whether that’s directly related to his foot soldiers and the 1,000 cards that have been passed out so far is anyone’s guess, he says.

But the six new accounts are welcome business, and the awareness served by the cards is undeniably important: Drink Jersey-made beers. They’re local, they’re fresh, and they can hold their own against anything on the store shelves that pours in from New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, California, Massachusetts, Delaware or Europe.

Meanwhile, this thought came to mind after reading about Carrotmobs in a recent issue of Time magazine. In effect, the movement is a reverse boycott: rewarding businesses with patronage in exchange, in the case of Carrotmobs' requests, for going green.

It would seem like there’s potential for applying that technique to Jersey bars, prevailing en masse upon those places to put the locally made beers on tap and rewarding those bars with regular patronage. Granted, it’s easier, and perhaps more noble, to get businesses to change their light bulbs to CFLs, but we think the idea has potential for Jersey beer somehow.

Who knows, Jersey Maltmobs may be the next story in Time.


* FYI: The graphic above is of our making for the purpose of this post.

Roll out the barrel

If you like Ramstein Maibock (we do), then this is something you don't want to miss: Ramstein Maibock, barrel-aged and dry-hopped with fresh Hallertauer hops.

The dry-hopping may break from tradition with a German style beer, but American brewers have been making their mark by rewriting the rules (double IPA, anyone?) and coloring outside the lines. This is one in which High Point Brewing steps in with its expertise and sets the pace.

The tricked-out, limited version of the bock tops the bill for High Point's June open house this Saturday (2-4 p.m.), backed up with the Ramstein flight of Blonde, Dunkel Weiss and Blazing Amber.

And if you're a Ramones, Blondie or Lou Reed fan, the added bonus for Saturday is you can glimpse photos of those performers from their heady days, courtesy of Lower Third Enterprise. The images will be on exhibit and for sale.

You don't need the Reverend Horton Heat to tell you that rock 'n' roll and beer go together like Les and Paul.

Meanwhile, we trekked up to Berkeley Heights in Union County on Wednesday for a chat with Trap Rock brewer Charlie Schroeder (more on that very soon) and to visit a brewpub that's worth the two-hour drive from our southern Ocean County shores. (There's a classy polish to Trap Rock that you quickly come to appreciate once past the entrance. And even with a seven-barrel system, Charlie keeps nine house beers flowing, plus a version of one of those on a handpump.)

Pictured is the lovely and gracious Melissa Hudasko, slightly reprising her New York Times pose from last year.

An egregious miscarriagement of taxitude*

Higher state taxes on spirits and wine? Passed on by restaurants to the consumer? Faint ...

There's been a bit of backlash by consumers with QWERTY access, teeing off on restaurants, posting complaints about the threat to pass on a 25 percent increase in those taxes.

It's pretty much misplaced blame to do that. Here's why:

Restaurants don't stay in business by losing money; nor can they eat every rise in their overhead. Last year, anything made with flour cost more because of stupid government policy skewed toward corn as the raw material for ethanol (more corn planted, less of wheat and barley); delivery charges went up when crude oil prices (futures prices, that is) hit the moon; and the list goes on.

The places you dine at were doing what they could last year to manage those headaches. And their migraine has lingered into this year with a downturn in business that they're struggling to make up. (Consider this: You should support your favorite restaurants if you can. The patrons they stand to lose aren't just someone else; they are you, too, if you're staying away in protest.)

So when New Jersey, meaning the Corzine administration, popped the cork on this tax increase and poured everyone a round of pay-more, well anyone who had just finished a snifter of Courvoisier on March 10th could have envisioned restaurants being stuck with few options.

And if you're a beer drinker, don't think you're getting an automatic pass at the tap just because beer was left off Corzine's tax menu. To keep from scaring away patrons, restaurants and bar owners could spread the pain across the pricing board – pints of beer, entrees, appetizers – and not just jack up the tab for a shot of Applejack. (It makes for good, kneejerk rabble rousing for industry groups to insinuate that prices by the drink will rise in proportion to the tax increase.)

But the point remains: Don't blame the restaurant owners for trying to stay in business. Blame the Legislature and a succession of governors on both sides of the political aisle for missteps and miscues, and a legacy of avoiding doing what's right.



* From The Simpsons, 9th season, episode 20, The Trouble With Trillions