Sunny side up

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On the horizon

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

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

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

Dark side of the Moon

There’s just something seductive about black. Tell us that a lass decked out in elegant black and trimmed with some well-heeled boots wouldn’t grab your attention and we’d call you a liar. Or dead.

Well we love black and we’re not dead, and those are just a couple of reasons why a beer that dances in the dark caught our eye at New Brunswick’s Harvest Moon Brewery Café.

This is not just any obsidian brew. This raven has lager contours and an accent that’s refreshing, inviting you back for more.

And right now, she can be yours.

Paint it black

This is schwarzbier, that cool German cousin of ale-leaning stouts and porters. It’s a beer style whose most well known example is probably Köstritzer, but Samuel Adams and Saranac have been known to paint it black, too.

Schwarzbier (auf deustch, schwarz = black, bier = beer, duh) traces its roots to 17th century eastern Germany (Saxony). That’s all well and good if you’re fielding questions on “Millionaire” or “Jeopardy!” (Bonus trivia for a college town: Goethe supposedly favored Köstritzer in his stein.)

But we’re talking about a Jersey bar and your glass, so just know that Harvest Moon brewer Matt McCord has chalked up a fourth incarnation of schwarzbier on the pub’s lineup for this spring/cusp-of-summer time of year that usually finds folks returning to the pub at their Belgian wit’s end.

“It’s our summer option for people who want to enjoy a darker beer,” says Matt, whose own palate tends toward English ales, and whose labors have put plenty of stouts and porters of all inflections into the pint glasses of Moon patrons.

Brewed in early spring, Matt styled the schwarzbier with German malts – deriving that deep inky color with chocolate malt and roasted barley – and jazzed it just enough with Czech hops (Saaz), while turning in an ABV of just under 6%.

That’s a little more robust than the typical 4-and-change -to-5% ABV of a schwarzbier, Matt concedes, but his beers tend to run a notch or two higher than what the beer fetishists say is style. And honestly, to drink this beer you wouldn’t know it's elbowing that envelope. Nor would you care since it has an easy-drinking, thirst-quenching quality you’d expect from the lager it is.

So it’s no wonder that among the Moon’s specialty beers, the schwarzbier has earned a following at the establishment, located along a bustling block of George Street just off the center of town.

“Last year we didn’t do it and caught a lot of heat for it. People came in and asked for it, so we weren’t going to make that mistake again,” Matt says.

Doing that would be just plain ... lunacy.

About Harvest Moon:

With 30 specialty beers that can be stirred into the mix of six house beers (including an IPA, America pale ale and a red), plus a roster of seasonals, there’s a lot to like about Harvest Moon. Not to mention the fact that the pub’s within walking distance of the train station, and its growler prices are a comparative bargain at $15 and 10 bucks for refill. (Some brewpubs command $18 before the $10 refill, while others can hit you up initially for $24). On Fridays in the summer, the pub taps a keg of fruit-flavored Belgian wit to feature through the week. Later this summer look for Matt’s take on a saison.