See, beer enjoys a rich, comedic heritage

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

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

Published images, imagine that

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

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

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

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

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

Reminder

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stirred, not shaken

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

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

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

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

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

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

In the glass

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where have these people been?

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

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

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

Hops Project (Update)

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

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

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

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

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

So we can’t wait to taste that beer.

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

Biergarten beer in the Garden State

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Central Jersey Beer Fest 2.0

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

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

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

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

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

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

New! Jersey's breweries get book treatment

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cheers!

InHeuser-Bevusch

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

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

Honestly, we like our name idea better.

Bine of the times

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

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

RH factor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Centennial celebration

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

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













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

Battlefield Earth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oktober sky

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LongShot Addendum

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

Here's to your beers, Dave. Salut.

LongShot winners coming up

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

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

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

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

The Hop Project (Update)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good luck, see you at harvest time.

In the glass

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

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

Tim’s Peculiar Porter, from the Ship Inn.

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

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

Some buying advice on the beer box:

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

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

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

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

Also in our glass …

Hoffmann Hefeweizen, from Climax Brewing.

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

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

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

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

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

Guild's got game

Where can you find practically all of what New Jersey brews on one stage? At the Garden State Craft Brewers Guild's annual festival, of course.

Yeah, that’s just a way of bringing up the fact that the 12th incarnation of the festival is scheduled for this Saturday (June 21st), once again at the Camden waterfront aboard the floating military maritime museum that is the USS New Jersey.

If you’re a newbie to the festival here are the quick facts:

• Breweries: Basil T’s of Red Bank, Cricket Hill, Flying Fish, Gaslight, Harvest Moon, High Point, JJ Bitting, Krogh’s, Long Valley, Pizzeria Uno, River Horse, Ship Inn, Triumph and Tun Tavern. (FYI: Krogh's, the brewpub in bucolic Sparta, NJ, is listed on the marquee, and they're a Guild member. But generally speaking, they have not ventured this far south to the festival, meaning it's possible they will be a no-show. We hope not.)

• It’s a rain-or-shine event from noon to 4 p.m. at the fantail of the battleship. Admission is 40 bucks and you get the customary souvenir taster glass and a self-guided tour of the ship, and it looks like online ticket sales have closed. The USS New Jersey’s website says tickets are still available at the box office, but it’s best to call ahead at this point. Here's the number: 856-966-1652 ext. 108.

• Music by the Cabin Dogs, who have sort of a residency with this event. The Dogs are pretty good, so give ’em a listen.

• Parking: Public parking (for a fee) is available over by Adventure Aquarium, with shuttle buses running from the garage to the battleship.

• Yes, there will be food vendors. Last year the food was a marked improvement from the year before. Ditto for the access to it. We’re expecting it to be at least the same this year.

•Weather: Nice for a festival, upper 80s. Let's hope the humidity stays reasonable.

NJ beer world, one year later

Some highlights of the New Jersey beer landscape since last year’s festival:

• Flying Fish in Cherry Hill topped 10,000 barrels in production, 10,511, according to figures we obtained from the Brewers Association in Colorado. (The top 5 NJ brewers are: Flying Fish, River Horse, Triumph, High Point and Cricket Hill.)
• High Point Brewing in Butler earned a spot at No. 7 in Beer Advocate’s rating of the top 25 breweries in the USA. High Point also picked up a top-10 accolade for its Oktoberfest beer from Draft Magazine. (Take it from us, High Point makes a killer Oktoberfest, and that beer will be coming around again very soon.)
• River Horse Brewing in Lambertville is closing in on the first anniversary of new owners. Chris Walsh and Glenn Bernabeo scored a hit with a new Belgian Double Wit a few months back that was part of a brewmasters reserve series they started. RH is promising to roll out more new beers and has struck a deal with Lion Brewery in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., to contract brew RH’s Penn Brook Lager (more on this soon).
• J.J. Bitting in Woodbridge successfully launched the Central Jersey Beer Festival last September and is planning a repeat event this year. That festival has room to grow, and we hope it does.

Jay Misson

Very, very sad news, indeed, coming out of Triumph Brewing this week ...

Jay Misson, the director of brewing operations for Triumph and one of the pillars behind the great beers that Triumph always makes, died suddenly on Monday. He was 45.

Lew Bryson has an eloquent and fitting tribute over at Seen Through A Glass. Jay's brewing roots run deep in New Jersey and place him at the forefront of the Garden State waking up to craft beer.

Our interaction with Jay was fleeting. But in March, at the Philadelphia Real Ale Festival, he was kind enough to participate in the video we produced from that event. It may sound like a small thing to bring up, but not exactly when you consider it was a very busy festival, the sign-off point for Philly Beer Week, and Jay played no minor part in seeing the day’s happenings meet with success.

We greatly appreciate anyone who takes the time for an interview. It's tough for the person when things are so busy. But Jay (that's him on the right in the picture) graciously gave his time, joining Tom Kehoe of Yards to talk about the pleasures of cask-conditioned ale (although you’ll note Jay was a true lager champion, notably German-style beers).

Thanks, Jay. Rest in peace, brother.

Catching up

Word from Beertown (the Brewers Association) is that SAVOR, that craft beer plus fine food event, was a hit, a sellout over its two-day (May 16-17) run in the nation’s capital.

That’s 2,100 beer enthusiasts over three sessions. Friend of the blog John Holl, a brethren from our journalism days, filed this for The Star-Ledger of Newark.

SAVOR isn’t really breaking new ground here, as far as beer being a dinner guest goes. But it does keep a porch light on for the wider realization that beer and food, à la fine cuisine, aren’t just a winning combination, but a natural one.

That’s another way of saying if you haven’t noticed beer shedding its plebeian image, you’ve probably been watching Beerfest over and over.

It almost makes you wonder why beer has that image to shed in the first place. Well, maybe not when you remember Coors created a bottle label that turns blue to signal the beer’s cold and ready to drink. Then you recall how dumbed-down gimmickry imposed upon the public can steer the car into a ditch.

But make no mistake, beer’s roots include the supper table. Historically speaking, in the days before folks got a good handle on bacteria, beer was relied upon as a potable beverage, while drinking water was a gamble. So talk of beer at the dinner table is just beer reclaiming what belongs to it.

Speaking of beer and food, here’s one fans of organic foods and locally grown/locally served community sustainable farming will be interested in: The Ship Inn (Milford, Hunterdon County) is committed to that philosophy in a big way.

We caught up with brewer Tim Hall on an unrelated topic, but the subject came up in our discussion. Tim says the pub composts discarded vegetable matter, while spent grain from its brewery, which now goes to a local farmer, likely will wind up in the compost, too. The pub’s thinking is to avail that compost to local produce growers who supply the Ship Inn.

The Ship, known for its British-slant on atmosphere and ales, has organic foods on its menu and takes a novel approach toward beer-to-go with its beer a box (think of it as a cardboard growler, although the Ship still offers the glass version, too.) But here’s something else about the pub that commands attention – session beers.

That’s hardly going to get Wolf Blitzer Situation Room treatment, a brewpub standing session beers on the bar. But when you consider the unyielding grip of the big beer trend – heavy on hops, high in alcohol – the Ship’s session ales are a welcome step back in time.

Nearly all their ales are under 5% ABV, with three in the range of 3.5-4% ABV. Their IPA – which puts more emphasis on India pale ales’ tradition for hop aromatics and less on bitterness – is the highest at 5.5%. But even that’s fairly light in the face of the 7% beers that are as nearly ubiquitous as iPods now.

The Ship's beers invite drinking and conversation, and prove flavor is not sacrificed when the ABV is comes back down to earth.

Happy landing.

Big Brew, Part 2 (We won!!!)

First and foremost: A shout out to fellow Jerseyans, WHALES, the Woodbridge Homebrewers Ale & Lager Enthusiast Society, for their second-place showing in the American Homebrewers Association’s YouTube video contest.

WHALES’ efforts on Big Brew 2008 (May 3rd) were chronicled by BobbyFromNJ (that's his YouTube handle), and claimed second place in the most-viewed category (more than 1,750 hits as of this writing).

It’s worth mentioning here that some WHALES members are first-round winners in the AHA’s national homebrew competition. Good luck, and we're behind you all the way.

And now for the big moment, for us anyway ...

We won first place in the YouTube contest in the category of "Best Represents AHA Big Brew."

Winning is fun, but we're not going to crow about this too much or let it go to our heads.

But we will say (and underscore) that we’re flattered, immensely so, and honored in an equal measure. And we can’t overlook the other 17 folks whose entries qualified for judging and made it a competition. It was a fun contest, capturing one of the things central to beer: It brings people together. And nothing does that like homebrewing.

Big Brew 2007 was among the first videos we shot and posted online. A year later, we were back at BeerCrafters, doing it again. So it goes without saying that we owe the the folks there in Turnersville a huge round of thanks for availing themselves for an interview, or for just letting us taste their brews.

But it’s not just BeerCrafters and the Gloucester County Home Brewers Club.

It’s everyone – most of the craft brewers in New Jersey, easily – who has put up with our camera over the past year (or longer in some cases, like Flying Fish).

We like to think that we’ve learned something each time out that we've shot in the news-gathering style we rely on, which has hopefully (and we hope, artfully) kept us out of the picture and put the emphasis on the beer and the people making it, celebrating or otherwise just enjoying it.

Because that’s what it’s all about, the beer.

Hopping on hops, Part 3

An update on our hops.

It’s been a wet season, and that late-spring nor’easter that whacked the shore with a drenching and powerful gusts gave the Centennials we planted a rough time last week.

Fifty mph winds were hard on the young vines, kind of stunned them a little bit and the bines that were just starting to wind around the trellis lines were blown off course somewhat.

It’s a good thing the foliage wasn’t as dense as it can get. The gusts could have ripped them up like the oaks and other trees that lost a lot of just-sprouted leaves when the storm was peaking.

But nonetheless, the hops are doing fine, and eight days after the storm have bounced back rather hardily. The largest is passing 3 feet, maybe higher, while the other three hills are playing catch-up.

By the by, our trellis is wholly unconventional, not much more than a simple frame fashioned from 1 by 4s and braced with some 1 by 1s, spreading about 6 1/2 feet, over a plot about 5 feet wide.

It’s probably about 5 feet (at least) too short in height – it's about 7 feet – but hopefully that won’t matter. There’s room for the hardier bines to branch out if they run out of vertical room as they climb up the lines.

With some luck, the weather will start to cooperate, dry out a little and the hops will really take off, lush and vibrant.

Lunar observations

For a poetic image, it’s hard to top a full moon.

Even though it puts in a monthly appearance, it still has the hypnotic power to make you stop and gaze skyward, more so when it’s low on the horizon looming large in a buttery yellow.

It’s no wonder something so mystical has woven itself so pervasively into the fabric of folklore and culture.

So why not have a beer and toast and old friend’s return visit?

That’s sort of the idea with the Fullmooner beer tastings sponsored by Beerheads and TotalBru. The next one is Tuesday in Manayunk, Pa., and this being May, it’s aptly dubbed Fullmooner V. (By the by, May's full moon is called the milk moon in English-speaking cultures and corn-planting moon in Native American cultures.)

So what’s the Jersey connection? Well for starters, River Horse’s Belgian ale Tripel Horse (10% ABV) is among the flight of beers to be poured (see the flier below for other beers on the menu). Plus, Philly and its near and far environs are rich in beer prospects, even for us on this side of the Delaware.

So by the light of a full moon, have a brew.

Big Brew ... The poetry of worts' worth

Here’s our entry to the Big Brew 2008 YouTube video contest sponsored by the American Homebrewers Association.

Where were they last year when we did this? Just kidding ...

But seriously, we did shoot Homebrew Day last year in our run-and-gun electronic news gathering style, with an eye toward posting on YouTube and Current TV, the website and digital cable television channel that airs user-created videos. (We even trumpeted our efforts in email to the AHA last year and got a nice reply.)

The AHA told us the contest idea came from the granddaddy of homebrewing himself, Charlie Papazian. So a nod to Charlie for seizing the day of user-created videos and inspiring the Cecil Beer DeMille (yeah, we know: bad pun, dated reference) in all of us.

About Big Brew
If you’re not a homebrewer, you may not know Big Brew is the annual AHA-promoted event in which homebrewers worldwide strike mashes and brew their tried and true recipes, all the while celebrating the conviviality of and finer things about beer, notably good food and the exploration of exotic or amped-up beer styles.

Last year, the AHA says, more than 9,000 gallons – 72,000 pints! – of homebrew were brewed by more than 4,000 participants at 242 sites on four continents. That breaks down to sites in 42 US states, and kettles fired up at celebrating locations in Israel, Australia, Argentina, and Russia. AHA stats show the volume has been rising annually for the past four years.

The folks at BeerCrafters in Turnersville (one of two places we relied on to stock up on malt and hops when we actively homebrew our Cross-Eyed Mary Pale Ale and Black Satin Dancer Stout) says they’ve been doing Big Brew for 15 years. BeerCrafters was the location for our video shoot on May 3rd, and you’ll notice in the video their commemorative mugs with a big blue 15 on the side.

But BeerCrafters and their affiliated club, Gloucester County Home Brewers, aren’t alone in their celebration of Big Brew. PALE ALES, a Princeton-area homebrew club, and WHALES, the Woodbridge-area homebrewers group, also get into the game. By the by, some members of WHALES – Woodbridge Homebrewers Ale & Lager Enthusiast Society – were first-round Northeast regional winners in the national homebrew competition that the AHA conducts each year. (The annual AHA national conference is June 19-21 in Cincinnati; we went in ’95 in Baltimore and again in ’97 in Cleveland.)

About the video
The AHA’s rules for the YT contest pretty much limited the length of videos to three minutes. So if you paused for an interview with us and didn’t make the cut, it’s because of the time limit. You still have our enduring gratitude, and we still have the footage, which could wind up in a end-of-year piece in December. (For the record, the video doesn’t have our signature logo/image at the end, either – again to meet the time limit.)

A last word about the video: Winning that AHA contest doesn’t matter an iota; it’s all about the beer, not us.

Onward
Monday kicks of American Craft Beer Week. The name is self-explanatory. A quick check of their website didn’t show any Garden State brewers with registered events. However, Cherry Hill’s Flying Fish Brewing is participating in the food-and-beer event, SAVOR, which is the coda to craft beer week.

We’re going to take this moment to note what’s been our glass this past week or so: Cricket Hill’s Col. Blides Bitter, FF’s Hopfish IPA, River Horse’s Double Belgian Wit, Triumph’s German Pilsner and Basil T’s (Toms River) Double Bock. Don't see your beer on that list? Don't worry, it will be.

Cheers.

The Don of beers

If you already have a copy of Don Russell’s road map to Philadelphia’s beer scene, then you know that this Philly guy spends some time on our side of the Delaware, too.

(To be sure, as a man worthy of his beer hunter-chronicler occupation, Don gets around: He once returned a call to us while he was in Austria, if memory serves us correctly.)

Don’s new book, “Joe Sixpack’s Philly Beer Guide,” spotlights eastern Pennsylvania neighbors Flying Fish Brewing (Cherry Hill, pp 44-45) and River Horse Brewing (Lambertville, pp 46-47). Besides its obvious quick-read, utilitarian design, the book is seasoned with interesting tidbits.

Don will be signing copies from 5-7 p.m. Friday (May 9th) at Flying Fish. FF plans to have a well-aged barley wine and a sixtel of Espresso Porter on tap for the occasion. Like to talk beer? See this guy.

We caught up with Don at the Philly Craft Beer Fest back in March and asked him about the genesis of his book. Check out the video.

Don’s been keeping up with beer under his working-class nom de plume for a dozen years as a Philly Daily News and Web columnist. So sandwiching his expertise and wisdom between book covers was a natural beer-writer arc.

It’s not on the video, but we also asked Don for beer-consumer advice, some how to buy, not so much what to buy. He threw in a little of what to drink.

Don’s advice: Buy fresh, buy local. Fresh beer is always a goal, and what brewers save on transport costs trickles down to store shelves and tap handles. One more word: Step off your beaten path; don’t just drink your favorites from your favorite brewers. Explore their other styles, too.

Elsewhere:
To us anymore the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry is as shopworn as the Mac-PC feud or Canon-Nikon debate. So our pulses didn’t quicken over that Sox jersey jinx attempt that had to be retrieved from concrete poured at the under-construction Yankee stadium.

But this one is mildly funny: A Cricket Hill fan apparently emblazoned a tribute to the Fairfield brewer’s brews on a girder at the stadium in the Bronx. Check out CH’s blog for the picture.

The Dance Card
Jersey brewers are busy this month. Check out this from the Garden State Craft Brewer's Guild calendar:

• German wheat beer specialist High Point Brewing is hosting an open house from 2-4 p.m. on Saturday (May 10) at the brewery and will be featuring their maibock. (It’s billed as a last chance for that seasonal.) High Point will also have its Ramstein beers at Spuyten Duyvil in Brooklyn May 8 for a niche brand night. (Check out Spuyten’s jukebox listing. XTC’s “Big Express” is currently in the mix; “All You Pretty Girls” is a great tune. King Crimson’s hypnotic disc “Discipline” is on the juke, too.)

Also look for High Point/Ramstein on May 25 at Old Bay Restaurant in New Brunswick for OB’s annual Maifest.

• More Fish: Flying Fish is on the card of 48 U.S. breweries at the Brewers Association's inaugural food-beer matchup, "SAVOR: An American Craft Beer and Food Experience," May 16-17. FF is among only eight mid-Atlantic brewers on the Washington, D.C., happening's lineup, and this is one of those events that (happily) breaks from oversold chug festivals and marries beer to great food in a more intimate setting. It's also rounded out with educational discussions on brew and food.
Website: www.savorcraftbeer.com

Don’t forget:
• Tuesdays are cool at Triumph Brewing in Princeton, meaning it’s a jazz house on Nassau Street. Have a pint and get Mingus eyes (that one’s for Richard Thompson fans).

• Double up at JJ Bittings in Woodbrige with two for one on Tuesdays, a good deal now that a gallon of gas rivals happy hour prices and will probably pass them before summer's done. Live entertainment on Thursdays.

• Cask of the Amarillo … OK we’re taking some wordplay license with E.A. Poe works, but cask ale is featured at the Gaslight in South Orange on Thursdays and on Fridays at Harvest Moon in New Brunswick.

Cheers.

Down by the river, Part 2

It’s getting to the tail end of the double Belgian wit seasonal that River Horse Brewing introduced in March in draft and bottles.

Co-owner Glenn Bernabeo says they have one more tank to run through, but the beer has exceeded expectations, doing well enough to earn a place in the Lambertville brewery’s year-round lineup.

That’s not official, Glenn says, but the brew has cleared a crucial hurdle toward life as a year-round beer. Stay tuned.

RH's wit (7% ABV) debuted around March 1 as the first of a brewmaster's reserve series, and was a centerpiece of what RH poured at ShadFest April 26-27. (Check out the stills from the video shot at RH’s back lot on the Saturday of the weekend event in Lambertville. The video is for a larger piece we have in the works on RH.)

All of RH’s beers were on tap for the event, and Glenn says the brewery went through nearly 30 half barrels over ShadFest. The brewery sold 1,200 pint glasses as well. And the overall attendance at the brewery? Well, it’s just a guess, but somewhere between 1,500-2,000 people.

FYI: Glenn and Chris Walsh are closing in on their first anniversary of taking over as owners of RH and, as you would expect, are busy making plans for the next year.

Speaking of anniversaries, Tim Kelly notches his first year at the Tun Tavern this month. Tim is an alumnus of Flying Fish in Cherry Hill, and FF’s loss has clearly been the Tun’s gain.

When he took over, Tim noted he wanted to put more pub-brewed lagers on tap in Atlantic City. That’s not always an easy task, since the longer cold conditioning required for lagers ties up tank space, compared to ales, which by nature have faster turn-around times.

But Tim has managed to keep his word, and not just with seasonal lagers, like bocks. Last fall the Tun put on a Vienna lager, although its decoction-mashed Oktoberfest was fermented with an ale yeast.

Right now, the Tun’s winding down its doublebock and pouring a dark lager that’s a response to bar patrons looking for a Yuengling-like beer. But the real treat is on the horizon, a Czech pilsner that’s due on tap some time in June.