A couple of good local Jersey beers to keep you cool for the summertime. Eight and Sand Swing Nose is a nice sold IPA, with Simcoe, Citra and Hallertau Blanc hops. Beautiful look with a hazy golden appearance, nice light citrus IPA taste with a slight bitter bite. American Dinosaur is a fruit sour beer, it is a collaboration with the band American Dinosaur out of Philly. It is a nice light tart cherry sour easy going down beer.
Czig Meister Farm Hand Orange Cream ALE, is a delicious orange cream ale beer. Very light with a smooth creamy mouth feel but packs a punch of orange taste. Last but not least is Luminescence, fantastic IPA hopped with large amounts of African hops Southern Passion and African Queen. This beer is great, pick up a 4 pack and put it on ice and stay cool for the summer.
Visited Heavy Reel Brewery this month and was very impressed with the brewery. The staff was incredibly friendly in this small 2bbl brewery at Seaside Heights NJ. The brewery had a very cool laid back and hip vibe to it. It had a beautiful fishing theme all around with the pictures and paintings. They played classic rock and reggae music to enhance the laid back feeling. Beers were very solid, had a couple very well done hazy NE IPA’s, a nice crisp refreshing blonde ale and a mildly sweet delicious milk stout. Overall, a fun chill brewery with a great positive vibes to it and really good brews. I will for sure make another visit there and highly recommend checking out this brewery if you are ever in that area of NJ. Cheers and good beers to you all.
What a great month for New Jersey beer, I hope everyone had a great St. Patty’s day weekend I certainly did. I have to start off with Irish Potato Candy Stout by Flying Fish Brewering Co., it tasted spot on to what the candy taste like. This is a superb imperial milk stout by one of the oldest craft breweries in New Jersey and with beers like this they will be around for a long time to come. IPC Stout clocks in at 10.3% abv but you do not taste the alcohol whats so ever, it has a great smell of cinnamon and coconut on the nose. Great dark roasted coffee color with a light fluffy head, light on the body and very easy to drink. Big taste of cinnamon, coconut, roasted grains, and some sweet vanilla icing notes on the finish. But just as well as IPC Stout went with St. Patty’s day, Bolero Snort Brewing Co. knocked it out of the park with their rendition of King Cake for Fat Tuesday. MooDoo Doll Stout while in a small can packs a big punch at 10.8% abv, but with so many good flavors in this dessert stout you would not think that it is such a high abv. On the nose you get cinnamon and nutmeg, but when you get into the beer you get the subtle hints Madagascar vanilla and lemon zest, it all goes together so good. Great mouth feel with the use of oats and lactose sugar, a very well made beer. I hope we start to see more of these dessert pastry stouts in New Jersey, I enjoyed the both a lot.
A lot of great IPAs out there this month by Atco Brewing Co., Double Nickel Brewing Co., JugHandle Brewing Co., and Tonwood Brewing Co., try to check them out. I thought they were all really good, I seen a few on tap at the local bars if you are unable to find cans at the store. Drink safe and support local.
We visited our favorite porter place again Kane Brewing Co., it is so hard not too when they keep putting out such great porters. This week was Morning Bell 9.2% imperial milk porter brewed with locally roasted coffee. Its no Mexican Brunch or Shell Game both with a lot of good adjuncts and were really great from last visit. Morning Bell is more simple, pours like dark chocolate velvet while building a light fluffy foam brown head. The aroma of roasted coffee makes you feel like you are at coffee shop, it has a great mouth and just taste like the best coffee you ever had. This beer can be found on tap at local bars, I been lucky to have found it a handful of times but it does not last long. If you see any of the variants which are harder to come by, they are just as enjoyable. They had a lot cans along with Morning Bell, I picked up their new can Corduroy Lines 8.4% DIPA brewed with a nice tropical blend of hops very good at hiding the high abv and goes down smooth.
We stopped at Icarus on the way back, great brewery with 16 beers on tap and 5-6 beers in the cooler for take out. A very warm and welcoming spot, everyone was really friendly. They had a lot great beer, I walked out with Spelt Check and Licking Toads. Spelt check 8.5% DIPA made with heavy amounts of spelt which gave it a rich creamy thick mouth feel and lots of tropical hops that gave it a great sweet and light bitter taste. I was very impressed with Licking Toads 6% pale ale, if you want a good beer that you can keep drinking without it putting you out for the count this is it. It taste like a high quality IPA but with the percentage of a pale ale, well done.
Last beer of the week is Grateful Jams by Brix City Brewing, this is a 8.5% DIPA brewed with oats and hopped with mosiac and citra. This is a winning ingredient combination if you like IPAs and you see these ingredients on the can pick it up 99% of time you won’t regret it. Brix City Brewing is just constantly making great IPAs all of their Jams series beers are great including this one.
The group took a trip to Kane Brewery Company in Ocean Township to pick up our Mexican Brunch bottles that we ordered online. There was a good crowd and great energy, everyone was excited to pick up their bottles it was neat to see. We got to spend sometime there trying different flights of beer, people were just coming in like waves and they kept putting out the beer. I was surprised how well they were able to keep up with the demand. Along with picking up the Mexican Brunch bottles they had 2 new bottles Simplicity (Belgian strong golden ale) and Shell Game (Stout collaboration with Jackie O’s Brewery). I also grabbed some cans Brighter Light which is a really good hoppy blonde ale a soft easy drinking beer at 6.2%, and Overhead which is a New Jersey staple for DIPAs. I could never turn down an Overhead it has a nice combination of pine and citrus, goes down clean and crisp at 8.2%.
I was lucky enough the week before to go to Eight and Sand Beer Co. in Woodbury Township, I picked up 2 new cans that they just released. Flynn’s Irish Red a sweet Irish red ale with little bittering, and Space Force which is a home run for these guys. If you like galaxy IPAs like I do this needs to be stocked up in the refrigerator. It is a nice golden cloudy NEIPA with citrus and tropical notes, a real enjoyable beer.
