No. 9, No. 9, No. 9

Beatles references aside, the big announcement from the owners of the Iron Hill brewpub chain today is word of a ninth location, this one planned for Chestnut Hill, Pa., toward the end of this year.

But the more interesting news nugget for New Jersey beer drinkers was found toward the bottom of the news release: Iron Hill intends to open a North Jersey location by 2015 as one of five new brewpubs in locations from the Washington, D.C., area to the Garden State's northern half.

Iron Hill's Maple Shade location, which opened in July 2009, was the brewpub chain's eighth and a homecoming for the trio of Jersey guys (Mark Edelson, Kevin Finn and Kevin Davies) who founded the company in Delaware and built it up there and in Pennsylvania before making a go of things on this side of the river.

The Maple Shade site has become wildly popular among South Jersey beer enthusiasts. The tidbit about North Jersey was something of back-channel discussion among Iron Hill faithful and insiders.

Now it's in the news release. So stay tuned for a specific location.

Munich study for Iron Hill's No. 2 brewer

Iron Hill assistant brewer Jeff Ramirez will get to hone his brewing skills in Germany this spring.

Jeff heads to Munich March 26th for a five-week study gig that comes as the back end of his training with the Seibel Institute of Technology.

"This is their 12-week international brewing diploma," says Jeff, who's been with Iron Hill's Maple Shade location since it opened in 2009.

"Basically there's seven weeks in Chicago, different modules (of study). They'll go over the wort production, raw materials, fermentation biology, cellar stuff, packaging, the business of brewing. Then you go out to Germany, in Munich, and work at Doemens, which has the World Brewing Academy. There you do applied techniques."

The training abroad wraps up with a brewery tour of Europe. "You go to Belgium, London ... go to different places like maltsters and different breweries," Jeff says.

Jeff enrolled at Seibel while awaiting word on a job at Iron Hill. The folks who run the show there have supported his endeavors, letting him take time away from work with head brewer Chris LaPierre for the course work in Chicago.

And now Germany.

Before Iron Hill, Jeff worked briefly at Trap Rock brewpub in Berkeley Heights, helping out brewer Charlie Schroeder (in the photo above, that's Jeff on the left, with Charlie). But it was at Kenyon College in Ohio that Jeff decided he wanted to be in the beverage industry.

It was either tea or beer.

"Tea is more research and travel. Beer is more labor and science, hard work," he says.

Fans of Iron Hill's beers, no doubt, are glad Jeff chose beer.

Big brew theory

How do you make a big imperial beer when your business model is dedicated to making accessible beers that invite Bud, Miller and Coors Light drinkers to step up to craft brews, but also promise not to overwhelm?

That's the challenge for Cricket Hill Brewing, as it works to replicate a brew the Fairfield beer-maker crowned the winner in a homebrew contest it sponsored last year. CH has pulled off big-yet-accessible brews in the past with some beers made to celebrate brewery milestones.

Founder Rick Reed (pictured applying an instant Cricket tattoo on festival-goer) says the brewery will do that again with homebrewer Bill Kovach's recipe for a Russian imperial stout. The specialty brew isn't due until January 2012, but test batches are already being produced. Rick took some time at the Philly Craft Beer Festival this past weekend to talk about the stout and how the beer landscape in New Jersey has changed since Cricket Hill opened its doors 10 years ago.

BSL: You've done bourbon barrel and cask beers, a barley wine ... they were higher-alcohol beers.

RR: Only 8 percent, even the barley wine was only 8 percent. We did it as a signature for our 500th brew, and we kept it at 8 percent, low-balled the alcohol because we're trying to do gateway beers.

BSL: So even though you're doing an imperial stout, you're going to keep to your traditional approach?
RR: We going to try to keep the alcohol as low as we can, as long as we get the full flavor. If that means the alcohol goes up, then it has to. The homebrewer (who had) the winning recipe, we've altered it to his satisfaction. We've done two different pilot brews with the modifications – he used some (malt) extract, and we won't do that. We're having some preliminary tastings ... it's very, very good, and it looks like the alcohol is going to be held down.

BSL: What kind of range, 8 percent like the barley wine?
RR: Eight percent, yeah. We're also doing some small-batch stuff with the second, third and fourth-place winners. One is an imperial IPA; one's an American pale ale, and the other's a dubbel.

BSL: And again you're dialing it down in that Cricket Hill style of making an accessible beer that still has craft qualities?
RR: We consider it the gateway philosophy. We're trying to get the Coors, Miller and Bud drinkers of New Jersey – and there's still plenty of them, only the lord knows why – to come over to an all-malt without getting scared off. In a perfect world, if you're a beer geek, and somebody says, "I want to try a new style," you say, "Try Cricket Hill first, they'll show you what it can taste like without overwhelming you." And from there, you can go hog wild.

BSL: You guys have been at it for 10 years now. Do you feel like you've carved out a niche?
RR: We're comfortable now. If things continue the way they have over the last year and half, we're going to be very comfortable. New Jersey's accepting craft beer now with open arms. Our (brewery) tours, we're averaging 100-plus people every Friday. Our sales are up over 50 percent from the year before and the last two years.

BSL: What about your volume?
RR: This year we think were going to hit just over 2,000 barrels. For a brewery our size, that's really amazing. We lend ourselves to draft; for a small brewery, 50 percent of our beer is draft, 50 percent is bottles. Usually it's 80-20, bottles to draft.

BSL: Is your East Coast Lager still your top beer?
RR: Yep.

BSL: What's No. 2?
RR: I would bet No. 2 is the IPA (Hopnotic IPA). It's amazing, because no matter where you go and do these shows, they either love IPA or don't drink it. In Pennsylvania, they're IPA freaks, and Stockertown (Beverage, a CH distributor) sells a lot of it for us. We're the official beer of the Philly Roller Girls (roller derby team) and they take the lager and the IPA, until the Summer (Breakfast Ale) comes one, and then they take the Summer. The lager's also in some minor league baseball clubs.

BSL: You've also been a friend, lent support to the newcomers on the Jersey beer scene, New Jersey Beer Company in North Bergen and Port 44 Brew Pub in Newark ...
RR: It's a tight community. The more the merrier.

BSL: Beer in New Jersey is dramatically different than it was, even just four years ago. Talk about that.
RR: When I first got in this business, New Jersey really had nothing. It had microbreweries that were selling their beer anywhere but New Jersey. Flying Fish was selling their beers in Philadelphia; you had River Horse selling in Pennsylvania and New York; you had Ramstein selling in upstate New York, because New Jersey's a fickle marketplace.

We've been banging our heads against the wall, all of us breweries, and now New Jersey is coming around. New Jersey is a very hot marketplace; you can tell because all the little breweries from across the country are trying to get into New Jersey because they see it perking up and coming alive.

Beer fests, figuratively speaking

Atlantic City's annual beer festival is less than a month off, and this past week, the Garden State Craft Brewers Guild announced the date for its annual June gathering aboard the USS New Jersey battleship museum at the Camden waterfront.

Beer festivals have become ubiquitous across New Jersey, one for almost every weekend of the year, it seems.

Chris Walsh from River Horse Brewing may have said it best when he joked awhile back, "They're happening on the half hour now."

But whatever the case, festivals are something of a numbers game, especially the behind-the-scene kind that support the attendance figures. (Yeah, yeah, the most important number is the net sum from ticket sales, plus whatever spinoff dollars that make their way into the local economies, i.e. site rental, parking, hired security and concessions.)

So while at the fifth annual Philly Craft Beer Festival on Saturday we asked its promoter, Andy Calimano of Starfish Junction Productions (that's Andy in the orange shirt in the photo at above left), to run through some of those figures.

Here are some numbers:

Beer – More than 5,425 gallons of kegged beer, plus cases of bottled and canned beer.

(Starfish's promotional literature notes 100 beers from 50 breweries, but those round numbers always seem to be the case.)

Plastic sampler cups: 6,000

Ice: 3.6 tons

Volunteers: More than 150.

Aggregator moment: A beer culture waning

The folks over at Slate feature a sobering look at the retreat of Germany's brewing industry.

It's hard times over there for the beverage that's virtually a country identity and gave the world the notion of beer purity, reinheitsgebot, an idea some have called one of the earliest consumer protections, but as Slate points out, the mandate for only hops, barley and water has had a sclerotic effect on Germany's brewing industry.

What's also interesting is the fact that Germany's youth eschew beer, seeing it as their fathers' Volkswagen, so to speak. Yet, here in the US, craft beer has become a beverage that many in their early 30s down to legal drinking age know before and better than their fathers' and grandfathers' Budweiser and Coors.

This is pretty cool ...

We like to think we're in good company on this one, as far as music for enjoying a beer goes ...

Richard Thompson is playing a Fillmore gig for attendees of the 2011 Craft Beer Conference in San Francisco toward the end of the month.

Folks familiar with this site may recognize the title Beer-Stained Letter as a play upon Richard's tune Tear-Stained Letter.

By the by, he's playing solo acoustic gigs in Newark (think Port 44 Brew Pub as your preshow watering hole) on the 18th and Princeton (think Triumph Brewing for a pint to get the night going) on the 21st.

Like we said, good company ...

A talk with Beach Haus' Tom Przyborowski

East Coast Beer Company is pilot-brewing an American pale ale to hit the market this year as its second label.

Once again the Point Pleasant Beach company is turning to Tom Przyborowski to shepherd a brew from test batches on a half-barrel homebrewing rig in neighboring Brick Township to commercial production at Genesee Brewing, the beer-maker contracted to produce East Coast's first label, Beach Haus Classic American Pilsner.

A 20-year homebrewer with a taste for English ales, Tom, 48, pilot-brewed Beach Haus, helping to shape the brew that East Coast entered the New Jersey marketplace with late last summer. (Tom has ties to Rochester, N.Y.: It's where he studied photo illustration at Rochester Institute of Technology, and yes, drank plenty of Genesee Cream Ale.)

Tom recently shared a sample pint of the upcoming ale and talked about its R&D progress, what it was like to create Beach Haus pilsner, and revealed that the composers of "Autobahn" were a catalyst to his taking the The Beer Guy job title with East Coast.

BSL: You're now full-time with East Coast Beer. How did your affiliation with the company, with John Merklin and Brian Ciriaco, come about?
TP: I met the founders through a mutual friend, one of my best friends worked with them at their old jobs. He introduced me one day – actually he sent me an email – and he said he wanted me to meet the guys because they wanted to discuss a business venture that involved beer. So I said, "Sounds good, what's the worst that can happen? I'll have dinner and some beers" ... With John I had a mutual connection, the band Kraftwerk. I knew he was a fan; my friend and I were huge fans; he was a huge fan, and although we had never met, we had this kind of a bond through some emails. So I knew that at least he would be a decent guy just because of that.

BSL: What was it about East Coast Beer Company that seemed like a good opportunity?
TP: When they told me what their plan was, basically doing this model, I was on board right away. Every homebrewer dreams of taking the next step. A lot of them find, if they're living in New Jersey, they've got to move to Colorado if they want to take the next step.

SBL: Like Charlie Papazian ...
TP: You gotta move away because it wasn't happening here. So this gave me the opportunity to go from doing 10-gallon homebrew batches to doing 15,500 gallons at a clip, which is pretty overwhelming.

BSL: You guys launched Beach Haus at the tail-end of last summer, and it was pretty popular at some of the festivals then. Talk a little about the R&D of that beer.
TP: The style of beer we were going to do was an accident. We were throwing around the idea of a name in email. John mentioned the words "classic American pilsner" as the name for the beer, and I replied that's a style of beer that no one is really doing.

BSL: Where did the recipe for Beach Haus come from?
TP: By reading some historical information, some older magazines that talked about (the style), and just trying find as much information from old recipes, about the breweries in Newark, the breweries in Brooklyn that were doing that kind of beer, we came up with the recipe for Beach Haus.

BSL: What were some of the early test batches like?
TP: I always do a two-step mash; regardless of the beer I'm doing, I always do a two-step mash. They say you don't need to, but maybe it can't hurt. Also I really think it helps with the head retention, which is obvious in a beer like Beach Haus, because the head just lasts forever. And not all the grains are malted the same way, even though they may be highly modified ... So the two-step mash really, I think, makes a difference, for anybody that's brewing at all.

What I was doing for some of our earlier test batches, my second step, the temperature was too low, and we were making beer that was close to like 7 percent (ABV), but still this light-colored, easy-drinking tasting beer that ends up getting you really wasted because the alcohol was too high. So we modified that second step so we had a more reasonable alcohol (content). But there weren't a lot of changes in the recipe, which is kinda cool.

BSL: How does this translate with Genesee, are they following your specs on this?
TP: Absolutely. We're very involved and they're very receptive. And they really want to make sure they give us what we want. And we do do a two-step with that because the classic American style dictates that you have to have a certain amount of corn. We use corn grits, not corn syrup, so there is a two-step ... the main part of the grain bill starts out at lower temperature while the grits are cooking, then they're added, and it makes that second step.

BSL: What does the corn add?
TP: It actually ferments out fully; it adds a little bit of dryness to (the beer).

BSL: When you were piloting this, you were using the corn?
TP: Yes, flaked maize. It was always part of the grain bill. There's a certain element of flavor that is added – subtle, very subtle, as far as what you taste.

BSL: You guys are in the business of making a beer that reaches a wide audience, but also at the same time you're making a beer that reaches people who are part of the craft beer wave. How does it appeal to those two groups?
TP: People that are into craft beers get it. It's such a pleasure to be at the beer fests and guys come up to the table with their tasting glass and say, "What do you got here?" And you tell them, Classic American Pilsner, and they look at you funny; their beer of choice is Belgian tripels, they have dubbels for breakfast, tripels for lunch, beer tough guys. They'd look at it and see a light-colored beer in front of them; they'd taste it, and then they'd have this look on their face, "Yeah, yeah, this is pretty good."

You'd see that reaction a lot. They all appreciate it for what it is, a style of they're not use to drinking because 10 years ago they stopped drinking pilsner beers when they discovered everything else, and they kinda forgot how good it could be. So when they try it now, people who haven't had it for a while, they respect it, they think it's good beer.

At the same time, they can also take it to other people's (homes), if they're going to visit, instead of bringing a bottle of wine, bring a sixpack of Beach Haus. It won't sit in the refrigerator in the back until the beer geek uncle comes by nine months later and drinks whatever's left over. It'll get drunk by the hosts; the host and hostess will enjoy it as well.

The beers that we make going forward will hopefully have the same level of drinkability, accessibility. We want to have a lot of people like it, and we don't want to have anything, to start out with – (like) our next product that's coming out – too over the top, too overwhelming. We want them to all go along well with food. We want them to be part of the meal, not the appetizer, not one of the courses in the meal, to go along with the meal.

BSL: And so now you're heading back down the path of research and development with an ale.
TP: An American pale ale, yes. Hopefully it will be a year-round (brew). My hope is that it has a really good hop flavor and aroma, with just enough bittering hops that you're drinking something that's a little bit more. But again, not overwhelming. I want it to have that nice floral finish, refreshing, appeal to hop heads but not be overwhelming in the beginning on the tongue.

BSL: We're talking about what kind of alcohol content then, around 5?
TP: Yeah about 5, less than 5 and half. We'll see; we're still tinkering.

BSL: How many incarnations have you produced, and what level of the process are you at?
TP: This is about the fifth different try. We're pretty close. We want to do it a few more times. Hopefully we'll get it sooner than later, of course, but we're not going to just say, "OK, we're done let's just get it out there." We have time now, since it's early in the year, to continue doing test batches. We'll do as many as we feel we need. But now we're zeroing in; we're certainly much closer.

BSL: What are some of the nuances in this process?
TP: Part of the issue is when you go to a different facility, what their yeast is going to do overall. I've done the test batches to be not relying heavily on the yeast.

BSL: You're using a fairly neutral American ale yeast then?
TP: White Labs 001.

BSL: When you go to Genesee, how do they handle the pilot brews?
TP: They'll analyze a sample in their lab and tell us more than we can ever imagine to know about the beer. They'll have the parameters in front of them, and we can go over each element of that.

BSL: How many trips have you made to Rochester?
TP: With Beach Haus we were up there four times before we actually brewed, and for our brewing we were there on the brew day. We were there again for a taste panel, and then we were there again for bottling. We've brewed more than once, so we're always driving up to Rochester; it's better now that the speed limit's faster than when I went to college. But still it's a long drive.

BSL: Which is the harder style to make? Do you think it's more forgiving to be developing an ale versus the pilsner?
TP: I wouldn't say forgiving, but I would say maybe less nerve-wracking. You still have to be as careful, but there's a little more leeway. It's a little more relaxed, because ales themselves are. I'm having fun with the variations (of the test batches), whereas when we did Beach Haus we didn't have any variations. We were always very strict about it.

BSL: You mentioned Summit hops for the ale. You chose that variety why?
TP: It's higher alpha, but you still have the citrus notes, but it has that lower cohumulone.

BSL: How will you know that you've got it, that you've nailed the ale recipe?
TP: Part of it will be, when I first drink it, even when it's still in primary fermentation, transferring to secondary, and maybe while it's doing a little bit of cold conditioning, try it each time and you'll kinda know. If you think of a certain flavor in your head before you drink it, and that matches, you'll kinda know.

But part of it, too, is all the other people who might try that test batch. If 20 other people try it, you can just tell when they're drinking it that they like it. If I know I like it, and 20 other people like it, then hopefully 20,000 people will like it.

This one will be more by committee ... If people who aren't craft beer drinkers like it and people who are craft beer drinkers like it, then you hit the mark. And when it happens we'll know.

Tun homebrew challenge winner

The winner is: Belgian tripel.

Vince Masciandaro and Evan Fritz, both members of the Barley Legal Homebrewers club, took top prize in the Tun Tavern brewpub's homebrewer contest, winning a chance to scale up their recipe to a commercial-size batch.

(That's Vince in the middle and Evan at right, both talking with Iron Hill head brewer Chris LaPierre at last year's Big Brew/Homebrew Day at Iron Hill-Maple Shade.)

Vince and Evan's Tun-made brew will go on tap at the Tun and be served at the Atlantic City beer festival April 1-2.

The two edged out a double porter entered by Andrew Tobisen and Greg VanGilder (2nd place) and a double red ale brewed by Robert Ochs and Betsey Ford (3rd place).

Beach Haus' splash & an ale for 2011

Contract brewer East Coast Beer Company notched a run of 600 barrels for the final four months of 2010, and the company is setting its sights on releasing an ale this year to join the lager that launched its brand.

Based in Point Pleasant, East Coast hit the Jersey beer scene last August with their Beach Haus pilsner (draft and bottle), produced under contract with Genesee Brewing in Rochester, New York. Beach Haus proved to be a beer that made an impression and quickly found favor among beer drinkers, even fans of exotic and hop-heavy brews.

Founder John Merklin says East Coast now has statewide reach with Beach Haus, and the 2010 production runs puts the company's pace "slightly ahead of where we wanted to be."

But the beer business is an uphill game, and John says there's still plenty of work to be done to build on that early success and market splash.

"Our distribution continues to expand, and we pretty much have the entire state of New Jersey covered. We are having lots of regional success in Cape May and Atlantic counties, which were just added to our portfolio in December," John says.

Last week, the East Coast crew began some some final phase work on the recipe for a year-round ale to join the company's pilsner label toward late summer. Tom Przyborowski, who had been doing brewing consulting work for East Coast and helped develop the pilsner recipe, is now working with the company full time.

'"Tom studied under Dave Hoffmann (of Climax Brewing) for a number of years, and we think he provides a neat aspect of New Jersey brewing legacy to our mix," John says.

Roofs, River Horse & Mark Twain ...

A Mark Twain moment at River Horse Brewing in Lambertville ...

By that we mean, when Twain heard the New York Journal had published his obituary, he commented: The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated. And so it goes with reports of a partial roof collapse at River Horse brewery in Lambertville – the incident has been oversold by the headlines.

Owner Chris Walsh says rain and melting snow did drain down onto a portion of flat roof in the center part of the building above some fermenter tanks, weakening it and causing it to sag Monday evening. No one was hurt.

Yes, the fire department showed up, the water had to be drained, and today became a day to catch up on brewery paperwork and not production, Chris says. The affected area has been shored up and will be fixed, and Lambertville officials will reinspect the place.

The incident has made for slow-news-day fodder, with Philly TV, among other news agencies, sniffing around for a story. Meanwhile reports like the one Monday evening by mycentraljersey.com, which did the journalism no-no of posting unsubstantiated police radio chatter about the building sagging and in danger of collapse, are as Twain put it, greatly exaggerated.

Chris says the brewery expects to be back in production about Friday, finishing orders for Belgian Double Wit. Coming in the middle of winter, the brief shutdown won't set production back too much. "This time of year, there's no problem on the orders. If this was June I'd be freaking out," he says.

The brewery posted photos on its Facebook page around noon today, as well as a word of thanks to the Lambertville fire department.

Around the world in 100 beers & Jersey, too

Jersey-made brews pouring in Secaucus on Saturday.

Festival promoter Starfish Junction is bringing the international beer show it staged last fall at Nassau Coliseum on Long Island and last June in Philadelphia to the Meadowlands Exposition Center, marking Starfish's first foray into Garden State beer festivals.

The International Great Beer Expo boasts 100 beers from 50 breweries hailing from 25 countries.

"This is a festival for those who enjoy imports and not so much the craft brands," says Joe Chierchie, sales and marketing manager for Starfish Junction.

Still, if you're going, you can get an array of 2-ounce pours of American craft beers in your logoed sampler glass, including Jersey-made beers from Cricket Hill, Flying Fish, High Point, and River Horse, and contract brews from Jersey-based Boaks Beverage, East Coast Beer Company and Hometown Beverages.

You'll find the Garden State brands interspersed throughout the international labels. "We like to mix in the local guys with the big guys, so you can get a real taste between certain styles," Joe says.

Starfish Junction is widely known for its beer shows in Philly and New York. The timing was right, Joe says, for Starfish to set its sights on New Jersey.

"We're based in Long Island and the business partnerships made with those festivals there led to the (2007) Philly festival," he says. "There was an outcry for a Jersey festival. Through distributors and the connections made in New Jersey we found venue that would work."

Tickets, priced at 40 bucks ($10 for designated drivers), are still available for both the afternoon (12:30-4 p.m.) and evening (5:30-10 p.m.) sessions.

Growler mania

Out West, in Big Sky country, folks want some clarity on legal aspects about selling growlers.

The question on the floor in Montana is who can legally sell 'em. Here in the Garden State, Beer-Stained Letter sort of put that question to New Jersey regulators, (specifically, the Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control).

The answer is: If you're licensed to sell by the pint, as in you're a bar owner, you can fill and sell growlers. Also, some packaged goods stores have additional licensing that allows growler sales. Brewpubs may seem like a special case, but they fall within the category of bars and taverns.

This quest for an answer about Jersey growler sales results from what seems like some of the larger packaged goods stores jumping into the business of draft beer by the half-gallon or 2-liter jug. Not to mention the bars that have capitalized on sales of to-go draft beer. So we fired off a quick inquiry to ABC.

And here are the numbers Trenton provided:

As of December 2010, New Jersey had 473 package goods stores licensed to sell growlers. (It seems like a high number, but that's the count ABC provided. It doesn't mean all 473 licensees are doing growlers.)

As of December 2010, the state had 5,665 bars that could fill growlers at their taps and sell them over bar.

Growler mania.

Signs of spring, talk of winter

Forget groundhogs as harbingers of spring.

Here's a sure sign that winter will make its scheduled hand-off: a collection of green Post-It notes stuck on the production calendar at High Point Brewing.

The notes read maibock.

Yes, spring is coming. So is that maibock, officially on March 12th at an open house at the brewery in Butler. There are 30 barrels of it fermenting right now, brewed at the end of last week, the headwaters of a planned run of eight 15-barrel batches, already pre-sold to Ramstein draft accounts.

But as much as there is a longing for spring, there's still a reason to talk about winter: High Point saw some firsts with its current versions of Winter Wheat Doppelbock and Ice Storm eisbock, some minor but noteworthy circumstances that illustrate how hot craft beer continues to be nationally and in New Jersey.

For starters, High Point dedicated two 12-barrel batches of its multi-tank run of the winter wheat exclusively for freezing and concentrating into Ice Storm, the Ramstein brew (12% ABV) in the Aventinus vein that has grown from a one-keg experiment eight years ago to a wildly popular beer that's expensive to make, sells out fast and has helped underscore the Ramstein brand. (This should give you an idea of the cost involved with producing Ice Storm: those 24 barrels of winter wheat doppelbock yielded 8 barrels of eisbock after freezing part of the water content and drawing off the remaining concentrated liquid.)

"This year we made more eisbock than we've made in the cumulative amount of time that we've ever made it. For the first time, we actually brewed batches of winter wheat that were dedicated solely to becoming eisbock," High Point founder/owner Greg Zaccardi said last Saturday, a snowy day that saw a steady stream of beer enthusiasts swing by the brewery for sample tastes and to get growler fills.

"This batch that's on now never was served as winter wheat. It was converted to eisbock, and that's a new thing for us. And the reason for that is we had so much demand for it that it made a lot of sense to just focus on it."

Then there's this: High Point bottled only a tiny fraction of the winter wheat doppelbock this year – 10 or 15 cases to have sixpacks on hand during its release open house last year – leaving the lion's share as draft. To be sure, the backbone of High Point's business has been draft beer; the winter seasonal is among only three of High Point's dozen beers that get bottled. But the brewery's tilt toward draft business is growing, and it signed on with Micro-Star keg service last year to ensure an ample supply of half barrels.

"This year the decision to not bottle was essentially (draft) pre-orders," Greg says. "This was the first year we really never did a substantive quantity bottling. Normally we do hundreds of cases.

"We always wanted to be at least 65 percent draft. Since we started with Microstar, we're up to about an 80-20 ratio," Greg says. "The more draft beer we can do, in my opinion, the better it is. It's a 100 percent reusable container; there's a lot less waste in terms of beer spillage going through the bottling line ... the system is set up to have better turnover, better management of draft beer than bottled beer. The consumer has a better chance of getting a very good draft beer than a very good bottled beer."

The draw of seasonal brews can't be ignored, either. Ice Storm is "wow factor" kind of beer, Greg says. "At this point if you really want to make something special and make an impression in the community you have to do something that is wow," he says. It's a situation that seems to steal the thunder from brewers' year-round labels, but you probably won't hear many complaints.

"As a brewer you really want to put all of your energy behind a couple of flagship beers, seasonals being something to mix it up, to accent your core brands," Greg says. "But it's not only me; it seems that Sam Adams and a lot of my contemporaries have a lot of more excitement when it comes to their seasonal releases than their core brands."

But just as seasonals have been helping brewers' bottom line, so have the rising number beer bars in New Jersey and in neighboring states. That's enabled High Point to grow (up 15 percent for the business year that ended last month) in a smaller sales market than it served a dozen years ago. It's also translating into some planned expansion this year, a couple of 30-barrel tanks due to come on line at the end of the spring.

"There's a lot more taps available, a lot more tap space available. There are places that normally wouldn't carry a sixtel of craft beer but have given it a try, and now they have two sixtels that they rotate through, in a place that's a beer and a shot joint," Greg says. "That didn't exist 10 years ago. Even the specialty beer bars these days didn't exist. If they did, what was exotic was Molsen and Bass; it wasn't a local craft."

Atlantic Highlands brewery in development

Another production brewery is under development in New Jersey, with hopes of entering the state's craft beer market with a draft brew around Memorial Day.

Cousins Chris and Augie Carton got the blessing of Atlantic Highlands officials for their planned Carton Brewing Company late last year. They've been spending this month gutting the interior of their building (pictured below) on Washington Avenue in the Monmouth County bayshore town to get it prepped for delivery of brewing equipment.

The equipment from Newlands Systems in Canada – a 15-barrel brewhouse, three 30-barrel fermenters, a 30-barrel bright tank and same-size hot liquor tank – is expected to arrive some time in March. Barring any glitches or delays, the cousins hope to have their state and federal licensing squared away in April so they can launch in time for the summer with a hoppy, kolsch-like beer. That brew could be followed up with a steam beer (working name Carton Common) or an IPA.

For their brewer, the Cartons have hired Jesse Ferguson, a Brooklyn friend and trusted homebrewer now turning pro after a stint managing the indie hip-hop record label Definitive Jux. Over the holidays, Jesse did some on-the-job training at Terrapin Brewing in Athens, Ga., where his brother-in-law, Bob Weckback, works. For the past couple of weeks, Jesse has been dividing his time between some on-site work in Atlantic Highlands and additional brewery training at Greenpoint Beer Works in Brooklyn. (Pictured at top around their half-barrel test brew kettle is Chris, Jesse and Augie.)

"It's my version of beer school. I'm trying to learn everything I can," he says.

New Jersey's craft beer scene is enjoying a growth spurt since of late. Iron Hill brewpub opened in 2009 in Maple Shade as the first new Garden State brewery in 10 years. In April 2010, New Jersey Beer Company launched, and last August, Port 44 Brew Pub began turning out its lineup of house ales.

By the end of 2010, there were four limited brewery license applications pending before state regulators.

Carton Brewing's development is tracking closely to that of Kane Brewing, which is taking shape about 20 miles south in Ocean Township and also eyeing a potential launch this spring. (Kane and Carton would become the second and third breweries in Monmouth County behind Basil T's brewpub in Red Bank.) And then there's the planned Cape May Brewing in Lower Township, which, like Carton and Kane, also has designs on a spring 2011 launch.

On Saturday, in separate telephone interviews, Chris and Jesse outlined plans for Carton Brewing.

The vision for the brewery goes back two or three years, says Chris, who's an attorney in Newark. (Augie works in finance in Manhattan.) The cousins, both longtime residents of Monmouth County's bayshore, were enjoying some beer (Troeg's Nugget Nectar, Chris recalls) one day, and in some discussion, came to the conclusion that their home state could and should be more of a player in the craft beer scene. Homebrewers themselves, they decided to take matters into their own hands and make the leap into the industry.

Fast forward to now, and Carton Brewing is shaping plans to hit the market initially with a draft beer, self-distributing to regional accounts. In time, packaging could include bottles or cans, with an early preference for cans, Chris says.

As the brewery project moves along, Jesse says, there's a palpable sense of excitement.

"I was down there (in Atlantic Highlands) yesterday taking some water samples and doing some measuring for the grist mill. I had to pinch myself," he says.

Jesse described the brew they plan to launch with as leaning toward a kolsch but with some hop assertiveness.

"The goal isn't to be a kolsch but to have a kolsch-like quality, with a hoppier profile," he says. "It will be complex enough that craft beer drinkers will know they're getting something special."

(NOTE: Interior shots courtesy of Jesse Ferguson and Carton Brewing.)

Cultural connection: NJ & Italy brewing

One more item out of Basil's in Red Bank ...

A familiar face to some in the New Jersey craft brewing scene – certainly to regulars at Basil's – is back in the Garden State.

Francesco "Frank" Barritta, who owns a small brewery in southern Italy with his brother, Pasquale, lent a hand this month at Basil T's when brewer Gretchen Schmidhausler and Tun Tavern brewer Tim Kelly created Gretchen's version of the chocolate-chili pepper beer collaboration between the Tun and Basil's. (That's Frank in the red on the right in the photo above.)

Frank spends winters in New Jersey (he has family in the state) and is a longtime friend of the Red Bank brewpub, a friendship that was struck when the Barritta brothers were scouting for brewing equipment and Basil's was suggested as a stop. The brothers learned the craft of brewing in New Jersey – at Basil's and Tom Baker's Heavyweight brewery, when it was in operation a few miles south in Ocean Township.

"We met Gretchen, and we met (Victor Rallo, Basil's owner), and we started coming here to learn how to brew beer," Frank said over a pint of porter on Jan. 20. "Then we met Tom Baker, and we ended up brewing with Tom, too, down at at Heavyweight. I did a lot of brewing with Tom. He taught me everything there is to know."

That was eight years ago.

Birrificio Cunegonda, the Barritta's brewery in Spilinga in the Calabria region, opened in 2007. The brothers turn out 600-700 barrels of ales, serving a touritst/resort region at the toe of boot that is Italy. (Gretchen toured the region and Cunegonda last year.)

"We figured it was something new for our area, there was nobody – there's still nobody in the area" Frank says. "You have to go 150 to 200 miles away to find someone like us, not even like us, smaller than us. So being that it's a tourist area, we thought 'let's bring something new to the area.' "

Wine's the top draw in Italy, and for beer, it's straw-colored lagers. But the Barrittas are creating some space in that array for their ales.

"When we started, in the first year there were 85 breweries like mine, microbreweries and small breweries like Basil's, bars and stuff. I think now it's up to 200." Frank says. "There's been a little change. But they're small. They're not like 10 barrels; they're very small, like 3 barrels."

Fire in mid-winter

Cocoa fuego, cocoa fuoco ...

By either name, this chocolate-chili pepper-cinnamon beer, a collaboration between brewpubs Basil T's and Tun Tavern, keeps the fire burning for the Jersey's Finest craft brewing ventures that kicked off in mid-January with a pairing of a stouts from two other Garden State brewers.

Chocolate Fire will also warm your mid-winter mug when it goes on tap at Basil's and the Tun in February, just in time for Valentine's Day. (Note: It may go on tap at the Tun this week.)

Cocoa fuego (the name in Spanish) is the version Tun brewer Tim Kelly made Jan. 6 in Atlantic City with the assistance of Basil's brewer Gretchen Schmidhausler, whom Tim approached last summer with the idea for a beer collaboration. Gretchen is using the Italian phrasing, Cocoa Fuoco – after all, Basil's features an Italian menu – for the version she brewed in Red Bank last Thursday with Tim's help. (Tim showed up at Basil's with a couple of in-progress samples pulled from the five-barrel batch made for the Tun; there's a chocolaty presence with a hand-off to subtle, unfolding heat.)

Inspiration for the beer comes from a chili pepper chocolate bar that Tim discovered. He mentioned it to Gretchen at the Garden State Craft Brewer's Guild festival aboard the USS New Jersey in Camden.

"The Red Fire Bar ... it's chocolate with a couple chili peppers, some cinnamon ... I thought it was a delicious thing, and these flavors might make a great beer," Tim says. "So I approached Gretchen last June at the battleship, to see if she would be interested in collaborating. She had some experience brewing with peppers; I've worked with chocolate and cinnamon before."

Six months later they put together a recipe that features ancho, chipotle and guajillo peppers, Dutch chocolate, and cinnamon. (The specialty malts range from aromatic, munich, chocolate and crystal rye.)

For the craft beer enthusiast, it's one recipe but two beers that will be alike, yet with some individuality owing to the different brewers, brewing systems (the Tun has a 10-barrel system; Basil's is a 7-barrel), and some minor variations between the grain bills and hops. (For instance, Tim used Nugget hops; Gretchen used Goldings.)

"I don't think they need to be identical. I think they'll be very close," Gretchen says.

Collaboration craft beers are trendy now, and one of the flashiest marquee examples is probably Infinium, the recently released brew created by Boston Beer and the Weihenstephan Brewery in Bavaria.

Last year, Flying Fish in Cherry Hill teamed with Philadelphia's Nodding Head Brewery and Stewart's Brewing in Delaware for FF's Exit 6 rye beer, then with Iron Hill in Maple Shade, under the banner of Jersey's Finest, married its newly minted Exit 13 chocolate stout with a coffee stout that IH brewed last fall.

Collaborations serve many purposes, Gretchen says, notably to create a buzz about beer brewed in the Garden State and to promote some camaraderie among Jersey brewers. It's also a touch of marketing for the brewpubs.

"After the first of the year, things tank a little bit. You've got the weather to contend with; sales are generally a little slower. So it's nice for us to generate a little publicity for the Guild, for our individual pubs and for craft beer in general," Gretchen says.

Update: Kane Brewing moving along

Interior work progresses at Kane Brewing's site in Monmouth County.

Owner/founder Michael Kane is busy getting his 7,000-square-foot facility in Ocean Township ready for delivery of the brewhouse next month from Diversified Metal Engineering of Canada.

Sitting in a conference room adorned with blueprints and brewing-gear schematics on Wednesday, Kane took some time to provide an update on the Belgian-style and American ales brewery he's bringing to the New Jersey craft beer scene.

His site is just a bottle cap's throw from where Tom Baker built a cult following with Heavyweight Brewing, before Baker opted to pull up stakes five years ago and open Earth-Bread + Brewery brewpub in Philadelphia.

"Best-case scenario, middle of April; worst-case scenario, end of May," Kane says of his eponymous brewery's projected launch. "Delivery of the brewhouse should be middle of February, and then depending on what phase we are in building out the facility here – plumbing, electrical and steam – it will take a couple of weeks to get that installed and up and running. (We) should be in a position to start brewing the beginning of March."

For those anticipating another Jersey brewery, here's what you need to know: Kane brews will, at least initially, be draft-only in half barrels and sixtels, with self-distribution in Monmouth County and northern Ocean County, then points northward. However, with the Belgian styles, some bottle-conditioned brews packaged in 750-milliliter bottles are likely. You can also expect tours and the accompanying allowed samples.

A homebrewer turning commercial, Kane's vision of going pro began picking up some momentum late last year, after a planned site in Manasquan fell through. Undaunted by the setback, Kane pressed on and ended up signing a lease last August on the Ocean Township site tucked in an industrial park just west of Route 35.

Nearly six months later, he finds himself with plenty to do, besides an expected February installation the brewhouse, three accompanying 40-barrel fermenters, 40-barrel bright beer tank and 40-barrel hot liquor tank. There's also bringing a brewer on board, and of course, getting the green light from state and federal regulators, as well as having local officials give their blessing to the brewery, too.

On that last point, walking a trail blazed by Heavyweight offers some advantages (the Manasquan site was hampered by some misgivings on the part of locals about what goes on at breweries).

"The town was familiar with the process a little bit – what it is we'll be doing over here – so that helped out a little bit," says Kane, who counts himself among those who enjoyed Heavyweight brews like Perkuno's Hammer and Lunacy Golden Ale.

So would Kane like for Tom Baker to help christen his brewery with the first mash?

"We were down at his place about six months ago. It's a great restaurant, great beer. He's a great brewer, would love to have him come up if he's interested. He's welcome to come up here any time he wants," Kane says.

New deadline for Tun homebrew challenge

There's a deadline extension for the homebrew contest sponsored by the Tun Tavern brewpub and The Press of Atlantic City's At The Shore entertainment guide.

Homebrewers now have until Monday, Feb. 14 to drop off their entries at the Tun in Atlantic City.

Remember, the winner's circle includes a chance to scale up your recipe and brew it on the Tun's 10-barrel system under the guidance of brewer Tim Kelly, plus admission to the Atlantic City beer festival, April 1-2, at the Atlantic City Convention Center. The finished beer will be served at the festival and will be on tap at the Tun.

More details:

• Entrants must submit six bottles of their homebrew (or the equivalent of 72 ounces).
• All bottles must be clearly labeled with the homebrewer's contact information (name, phone number and email) and the style of beer.
  
• Entries must be dropped off at the Tun Tavern by Feb. 14. (The Tun is located in same building as the Sheraton hotel, across from the convention center. The phone number is 609-347-7800)
• Judging will take place Thursday, Feb. 17.

Cans, new brew & marketing for Hometown

Hometown Beverages, the company behind New Jersey Lager, will look to retool its marketing approach in the Garden State in 2011, as it begins its third year in the region's beer industry.

The Manasquan-based contract brewer entered the beer scene in late 2008 with a trio of state-named lighter lagers – New Jersey Lager, New York Lager and Pennsylvania Lager. The latter two have outpaced the brew named for the state that founders Bob Selsky and Chris Curylo call home.

But nurturing growth for New Jersey Lager is only part of the picture for Hometown, Selsky says. Plans call for packaging the company's flagship lagers in cans this year and introducing another brew to their lineup.

Possibly launching at the Atlantic City beer festival April 1-2, the new Hometown Lager will become the fifth label brewed by the Wilkes-Barre, Pa.-based Lion Brewery for Hometown Beverage, which added Hometown Light to its flight of beers in 2009 and began canning that brew last fall for sale in 24-packs.

Hometown Lager will initially be available as a draft product and will keep to the company's business model of easy-drinking lagers that Selsky says are more defined by the shorthand session beer than any other modifier.

"We're not craft beer. We're not overbearing, with all the hops like some of those can be. There's a lot of flavor and you can drink a lot of ours," he says. "We're session beers."

Selsky expects the lagers that launched Hometown in '08 to go into cans this spring and sold in 24-packs like Hometown Light. The brews will still be available in bottle and draft. The attraction of cans, Selsky says, is they have a go-anywhere quality to them. They're lighter in weight, more portable by the case than bottles and easier to dispose of the empties.

With New Jersey Lager's distribution, the company ended its ties with its Garden State wholesalers over the last three months. Moving forward, Selsky says, Hometown wants to find a distributor more attuned to the company's marketing strategy of establishing a presence in package stores with smaller commitment of beer for the retailer, then Hometown following that up with sampling at those stores.

Selsky says he's sympathetic to wholesalers' inclination to throw more support behind core and top-selling brands. "That's what pays their salaries, their bonuses," he says. But that situation can come at the expense of smaller brands, he says.

Despite plans to retool New Jersey Lager's marketing, Hometown has had success getting its other labels out before the beer-drinking public, with company's brews, for example, being poured at the major sports venues in Philadelphia (Citizens Bank Park), Pittsburgh (Heinz Field, PNC Park) and New York (Citifield).

Getting into those places has come with a steady flow of consumer outreach, Selsky says. He and partner Curylo do a dozen or so events weekly and hit about 45 beer festivals in the tri-state region last year.

And there's plenty more to come this year, Selsky says.

Cape May County brewery in the works

New Jersey's craft beer industry entered 2011 with four applications* for production brewer licenses pending before state regulators, among them a venture picking up some steam in Cape May County.

Ryan Krill, his father Robert Krill, and Chris Henke, a friend from Ryan's college days at Villanova University, say they're in the process of leasing a site in Lower Township for their Cape May Brewing Company, an enterprise they want to become a beer supplier in the South Jersey shore market and beyond.

"Our bread and butter is going to be local draft distribution," says Ryan. (Pictured from left to right: Robert, Ryan and Chris.)

Cape May, as a part of the business name, represents more than just a potential market. The region is also the shore destination that the three, as Pennsylvania residents, have a long had an association with. Coincidentally enough, their Pennsylvania haunts – West Chester, where the Krills hail from, and North Wales, where Chris has an address – are home to two Iron Hill brewpub locations. And for the record, Ryan now calls Avalon home.

Aside from being craft beer enthusiasts, the trio's passion for better beer is buoyed by their seven combined years involved in homebrewing, a typical springboard into commercial beer-making (the majority of the Garden State's craft brewers entered the business via this path). But their entrepreneurial sense rests upon 30 years in the pharmaceutical business for Robert, 65; work in finance for Ryan, 28; and engineering for Chris, also 28.

There's a "keener interest in craft beers. The quality is definitely better, and people are asking for local beers," says Robert.

Right now, the three are focused on the lease for their site adjacent to the Cape May County Airport (the property is owned by the Delaware River and Bay Authority, which runs the Cape May-Lewes, Delaware, ferry and the airport). After that, they'll turn their attention to installing their brewing equipment and securing their federal and state licenses. (They hope to have an initial 10-gallon brewing set-up installed around April, and then a three-barrel system.)

The trio would like to see Cape May Brewing up and running by Memorial Day, but they're also realistic that much needs to happen beforehand. (An April opening is noted on their Web page, but they say that will most likely get pushed back.)

In the meantime, they're also pounding the pavement to establish accounts for Cape May Brewing Company, which could launch with an IPA (Jump the Jetty IPA is a working name), followed up with wheat beer that makes use of Jersey-grown cranberries, plus seasonal brews.

"We're taking our time. We're not running into the market. It's easy to talk about starting a brewery," Ryan says.

*More on the other three soon.