Office trolley

An aggregator moment ...

Nate Schweber, whose name some folks may recognize from New York Times bylines, takes a beer snapshot of Westfield for patch.com, and highlights the Union County town's watering hole, the Jolly Trolley, which sets up pints these days under its corporate banner, The Office Beer Bar & Grill. (The item also is in today's news feed column on the right; Nate also fronts the band New Heathens, who have a couple of albums to their credit – Hello Disaster and Heathens Like Me.)

The Office wades into craft beer deeper than just being a chain of craft beer friendly bars. The folks there also sponsor competitions for the brew-it-yourself crowd, Homebrew Wars, in which winners get to go commercial and make scaled-up versions of their beer at High Point Brewing in Butler.

A West Coast-style IPA turned in by Ian Burgess and Brett Robison landed in the winners circle of the most recent Homebrew Wars. The beer is scheduled to go on tap at Office locations during the week of October 18th.

'Untraditional for a traditional brewery'

High Point Brewing will soon roll out the 2010 version of its Ramstein Oktoberfest.

Followers of the Butler brewery know the märzen speaks to German traditions of noble hops and a decoction mash for a rich, malty beer. And in a growing Ramstein tradition, the draft-only festbier will be debuted at the brewery's September open house (Sept. 11 this year, 2 to 4 p.m.).

But sometimes tradition can use a little standing on its head, like the West Coast turn High Point took with its draft-only golden lager, another malty Ramstein brand that holds the No. 2 spot behind its top-seller Blonde weiss beer. (The golden lager is brewed as Ghost Pony lager for the Harvest Restaurant group across North Jersey. Charlie Schroeder, brewmaster at Trap Rock, part of the Harvest chain, makes a house version Ghost Pony for the Berkeley Heights brewpub.)

For High Point's Aug. 14th open house, Revelation Golden Lager was jazzed up with a load of Centennial hops left over from a homebrew contest the brewery co-sponsored with The Office Beer Bar & Grill. (High Point scaled up the winning pale ale recipe and brewed it for The Office's several locations.)

"For a long time, we've been known as a brewery that makes very malt-driven beers that are traditional in the German way of making beer," says High Point owner Greg Zaccardi. "I guess what we did a was something very untraditional for a traditional brewery."

Greg explains the late-summer open house feature this way:

"I took an immeasurable amount of Centennial hops and put it into a keg ... then we filled it up with Golden Lager." The citrusy Centennials are "very untraditional for a German beer. It was a total redesign on the aroma and flavor of our traditional lager."

At the open house, unfiltered versions of Revelation – with and without the Centennial hops – were on tap for the monthly brewery tour-takers.

A few diehard Ramstein fans made the grapefruit-hop face upon tasting the West Coast version, but the brew still found favor among the crowd.

"I think it was a big surprise for everybody, including myself," Greg says. "We got a number of people interested in trying it; we sold a number of growlers. I thought it was a great way to explain to people in taste terms what hops can do to beer."

FOOTNOTES: Pictured up top is Ron Clark of Oakland, who makes the obelisk-like taphandles for High Point.

A shout-out to Chuck Kady (left) of Wayne, who sported a Kentucky Ale T-shirt (the brewery is located in Lexington, Ky.).

Chuck was three months beyond a pass through the Bluegrass State, where he visited his brother-in-law, who's stationed at Fort Knox and lives near Brandenburg, Ky.

Morristown Pale Ale

Matt Lamm's Morristown Pale Ale, reproduced in a craft beer-batch size at High Point Brewing last month, has been flowing from the taps at The Office Beer Bar & Grill's various locations across North Jersey for a week now.

A launch party and ceremonial barrel tapping was held at The Office's Morristown location on Feb. 18.

You may recall Matt, who lives in Morristown, won the privilege to help brew the scaled-up version of his recipe by taking first place in the homebrew competition sponsored by High Point and The Office at the end 2009. We caught up with him to get a report on how the pale ale he helped brewed in that commercial-size batch Jan. 19 turned out.

Coming in slightly less hoppy, the orange-hued beer is a still a tasty approximation of his original and delivers some toasty malt flavors, Matt says.

To be sure, the beer is a good drinking experience, and Matt's pleased, especially when you consider amplifying a homebrew recipe by a factor of about 100 is no easy task.

Check out the video and see why. And try Matt's beer.

(Photos courtesy of Tina Gehrig and Matt Lamm.)

A brew in search of a party

A few more details about the pale ale that bested a coffee porter to win the Office Beer Bar & Grill homebrew contest.

Matt Lamm says he originally crafted his Morristown Pale Ale – a golden-to-orange West Coast interpretation – months ago for a softball team party.

It had become Matt's custom to treat teammates to some of his beer creations after games. So the team's pitcher tapped Matt, who took up homebrewing five years ago while he was a University of Delaware grad student, to come up with something for an end-of-the-season party.

However, that get-together never happened.

And Matt, 29, who lives in Morristown and works in the pharmaceutical industry, suddenly had 10 gallons of beer that he was pleased with; yet it was a beer that also had lost its wider audience. A recent night out for a beer with his girlfriend, Selin, at the Office's Morristown location gave Matt's brew a new mission (beyond personal enjoyment) when they spied a notice about the bar's homebrew contest.

Matt entered what he had on hand: a blonde ale brewed from an extract and the Morristown Pale Ale, an all-grain endeavor backboned with Briess pale malt and shaped with some crystal (40 Lovibond) and Vienna malt, then hopped with Cascades and Centennial in the boil and dry-hopped with Centennials. Matt also plucked some Cascade cones from a first-year bine he had growing in planter on his deck and tossed them straight into the boil.

The result was a 5.2% ABV brew at 59 IBUs that Matt just finished the last of a week or so ago. As part of his victory, he'll get to help brew a scaled-up version at High Point Brewing, one of the contest sponsors. That's tentatively scheduled for the third week of January, with the finished brew to go on tap at Office locations in sometime in late February.

As for that coffee porter, the contest's runner-up, Matt hopes he can take a crack at the recipe created by Peter Kennedy of SimplyBeer.com, or a lager. But for now, he's focused on the grand-scale reprise of his pale ale, which will be part of a soiree after all – a ceremonial tapping at the Office, a party his softball teammates just may be able to catch.

Beer wars winner

The war is over, and a pale ale won.

Matthew Lamm of Morristown (that's Matthew in the middle in the photo at left) and his West Coast-style pale ale – brewed with some homegrown hops – walked away the victor on Saturday in the Beer Wars homebrew contest, sponsored by The Office Beer Bar & Grill and High Point Brewing.

Matthew, who holds a PhD in material science and engineering and is a senior scientist at a pharmaceutical company, now has a date with the mash tun and brew kettle in Butler, where he'll assist the folks at High Point in scaling up his recipe for a commercial-size batch of Morristown Pale Ale. Though when it goes on tap at The Office's seven locations in Febreuary, you'll find it renamed under the restaurant chain's house brew label, which High Point brews under contract.

More than a dozen homebrewers competed in this inaugural turn on the contest. Let's hope it grows.

The next front in Homebrewer War

It's on to the finals at the Office Beer Bar & Grill.

More than a dozen homebrewers made the cut Tuesday night in the opening round of the Office-sponsored homebrewer contest, and they'll now vie in the showdown Saturday afternoon/evening at The Office's Montclair location. The judging begins at 5:15 p.m.

Guest judges for the finals will be Greg Zaccardi, owner of High Point Brewing, where the winning recipe will be scaled up and brewed under contract for The Office; Ale Street News editor Tony Foder; Lon Lauterio of Nash Distributors; and Greg Stanton of Stew Leonard's Wines of Clifton. The Office staff judges will be Craig Godfrey, Ed Schwartz, Phil Butler and Dan Shea.

Friend of the blog Tom Eagan, who tracks his homebrewing and other malt adventures at Destination Beer, is among the finalists with his oatmeal stout. Good luck to all brewers.

Speaking of High Point Brewing, Saturday is also the Butler brewery's last open house until March 2010. The makers of the Ramstein beer brand debuted their winter wheat doppelbock last month. But we're still squarely in the season for that brew, which Gourmet magazine gave some props to as a fine winter beer, so expect to find it featured at the open house.

Update – Homebrewer contest

... The opening round will be judged next Tuesday.

We checked with Greg Zaccardi at High Point Brewing on Monday for some confirmation about the contest. So yes, the game is on, with the victor collecting the spoils of a $100 Office gift card, bragging rights, a commemorative tap handle, perhaps best of all for a homebrewer, the opportunity to help brew his or her recipe on a grand scale, namely at High Point in Butler.

The winning beer will go on tap at the seven Office Beer Bar & Grill locations, under the Office's house beer label.

Once again, here are the rules, and entrants should RSVP the Office at: beerwars@cbsteakhouse.com

• All styles are welcome.
• Criteria will be based on the quality of each beer and the commercial viability of a late winter beer to be sold in The Office Beer Bar & Grill, beginning in late January.
• Entrants will provide the equivalent of six 12-ounce bottles for the event.
• The restaurant winner will chosen by 50 percent guest votes, and 50 percent judges. Overall appeal is the single criteria.
  
• Each restaurant winner must provide an additional six – 12 oz bottles, or the equivalent for the championship.
  
• The winning beer will be determined by a panel of industry professionals.

Participants must comply and agree with the following conditions:

• 21 years old or older
  
• All participants must be present at the time of judging
• The winning recipe is to be provided, and the winner will relinquish any commercial rights for the winning the recipe.
• Employees of The Office Beer Bar & Grill and our vendors are not eligible to enter.

*EDITOR'S NOTE:
If you've entered the contest, shoot us an email at beerstainedletter@yahoo.com ... We'd love to hear from you.