New Jersey, Hunt-style

I've told you about the annual busman's holiday* I do -- The Hunt -- and this year it fell to just Les Gibbs and me. We decided to do something completely different, and headed out -- after a leisurely cup of coffee and a split bottle of Flying Fish Imperial Espresso Porter -- for New Jersey. As you can see by the picture, our first stop wasn't even beer-related, but more about "laying in a base": Calandra's Bakery in Newark, which was, to use a simile that came easily to our Berks County Hunt-trained minds, kind of like a Dietrich's Meats of bread.

It was crazy delicious stuff. We got four loaves of bread, a dozen canoli (which I dutifully took home in their cardboard box lovingly tied with red-and-white string, and of which eight were gone before I even got a shot at them, my family are pigs!), and some eat-on-the-spot goodies: a custard tart for me and and some pignoli sweet bun for Les. The French baguette was still steaming when I ripped it open in the car, gawd, it was good!

From there, we struggled with traffic to the excellent Helmer's Cafe in Hoboken, and managed to find parking pretty quickly. I got some Krusovice Cerne (a dark lager the bartender seemed to think was a spiced holiday beer; I liked it) and sausage-stuffed mushrooms; Les joined me on the Cerne and got a slice of leberkäse, a first for him that he decided was very much to his liking, especially with the German mustard that was served with it. We had a good time, but decided to move on; I could have stayed there for a while.

We struggled with traffic to the Star Bar in Jersey City, only to find that it didn't open till later. Okay...I was about done with the metro area traffic, so we aimed the Passat for Montclair and Tierney's. I found Tierney's when I was working on New Jersey Breweries, and I'd been hankering to go back again. It was a bustling day, the bartender was handling the whole place on his own (and trying to get a late lunch), but he did get us our drinks (I went light with a Guinness, Les had a Cricket Hill American Ale). Tierney's is solid and true, and we hated to leave.

But The Hunt is about moving on, so we headed out for the Stirling Hotel. It was hopping, at least in the bar, and we managed to snag one stool out at the far end. Great taps, good bottles, and I grabbed a Stoudt's Winter, and then went to drinking water. Very knowledgeable staff here, one of the reasons I wanted to return, and this time I got to meet more of the patrons. We had a great time (although the kids who piled into the table behind us were kind of a pain), and I'd be happy to go back again.

Onward! It was getting nasty wicked cold by now, in the low 20s and a whistling wind. When we pulled into the parking lot in front of the Warrenside Tavern, I was ready to sit and warm up for a bit...er, and hit the head. I left Les at the bar and went to see a man about a dog. On my way back, I walked by the cooler in the back. The Warrenside's taps hadn't impressed me before, but the bottle selection was pretty damned good. Wow, no longer: huge open spaces in the cooler!

I did spot some Fuller's Porter, though, so that's what I ordered. When the bartender brought it, I asked her: is the beer supply low, or are you cutting back? Cutting back, she said, there's a recession on. Too bad; almost every other bar I know of (like Helmer's, and the Stirling...) has found that craft beers have been the thing that people keep buying. But hey, I'm not a bar owner! It was a nice place to warm up, and the Porter tasted good. But it did hone my hankering for English beer, which made up my mind for the next, last stop...

The Ship Inn was doing a pretty good business, families, folks at the bar. We got glasses of Best Bitter, and tucked into dinner: Shepherd's Pie for Les, a Lancashire Cheese and Onion pie for me, solid and tasty. We ate, we drank, we talked...and then drove home, laughing and talking some more. It was a very good day.

* the link's to an Urban Dictionary definition that -- gasp! -- includes no sex, scatology, repetition, racism, homophobia, or repetition -- will wonders never cease? 

Benefits of Beer Proselytization

Seventeen years ago, I worked at a small start-up pharmaceutical company in Ft. Washington, PA. One of the friends I made there was a young chemist, Tom Lawler. Tom was a good guy, and we got along well, but Coors Light was where his beer world began and ended. I decided to open his eyes to the variety that was available -- which wasn't really all that much, in 1991, in the Philadelphia area.

The first cracks in the wall were Yuengling Lager and Killian's Irish Red (which was a significantly beefier beer in those days). Tom took to them, and we ran around in Berks County, drinking Yuengling and eating the local Pennsylvania Dutch chow. We grabbed a new toxicologist at the firm, Les Gibbs, a Bud man, and broke him in on beer variety, too.

We toured the Yuengling and Lion breweries (talk about back in the day...our first Lion tour featured scrounging up some hardhats, and duckwalking under tanks in the crowded old fermentation hall). We took a day off work to go down to the old Dock Street brewpub at 18th & Cherry for May Day, when they released their bock and had a farmer bring three goats into the city.

The high point while we were at Greenwich was probably in 1993. (Warning: long and rambling reminiscence ahead.) Eight of us did "The Long Ranger Trip," a three-day journey into New England, where we visited New England Brewing (where I first met Phil Markowski), New Haven Brewing (where we had a very funny and profane tour and walked away with an unexpected free case of each of their beers...those were the days) the Hartford Brewery (where the beer tasted like there'd been a cleaning solution incident, except the alt, which was good), Northampton Brewery (where one of our gang got a quick French lesson), Commonwealth (a sadly missed brewpub that was all about cask ale), Harpoon (we sucked down a lot of Oatmeal Stout on the tour, during which it started snowing heavily), Cambridge Brewing (where we had one of the coolest yards of beer I've ever seen; a dark beer floated on top of a lighter one, and the dark spiraled down into the light), and then a harsh run up a very snowy I-95 that ended just short of the Maine border where we finally gave up and ditched it for the night in a hotel. We'd planned to visit the Portsmouth Brewery and Gritty McDuff's and Geary, but the three hours it took us to go fifty miles up I-95 convinced us otherwise.

The next day we made the 11 AM tour at Catamount, did some drinking at the Inn at Long Trail (still a favorite stop; we dropped off about half the guys here, they were going to stay and ski at Killington), took in the self-guided tour at the old Long Trail brewery (and bought lots of stuff from the powerfully cute woman in the hospitality room), and then finished up in Brattleboro at The Latchis (back when they were still brewing; we were terribly gruffty and rough for the white linen dining room, but the waiter was extremely gracious about it) and the last stop, appropriately, was McNeill's (as rough and gruffty as we were, but friendly, and the beer was excellent).

As you can see, the beer education process had gone well. The point of this whole long post was last night, when I was over at Tom's house for the Super Bowl. The three of us -- me, Les, and Tom -- stood in his barroom, where beer posters lined the overhead, and his "shrine" of Yuengling collectibles and antiques sat proudly below the plasma screen. Each of us was holding a glass of draft Tröegs Nugget Nectar from the sixtel he'd reserved for this occasion, served on his two-tap home draft system (Miller Lite on the other tap, he's a reasonable man). That's when Tom gestured at the shrine, and held up the beer, and said to me, "You know, this is all your fault." We clinked glasses and grinned.

The pleasure of having turned someone on to the fuller joys of the broad spectrum of beer was gratifying. Getting invited to a party where there was draft Nugget Nectar was a nice side benefit as well!

Walking and Drinking in Old City

A long time ago, in a life that seems far, far away, I worked in Ft. Washington, PA, as a corporate librarian and IS Director. Really. The company fell apart just about three weeks after I sold my first beer piece (for $25), and I left libraries behind and started writing as a career.

I still stay in touch with some of the folks from the old company; they're the core of The Hunt, I see them at the Grey Lodge, we get together for beers sometimes during the year. So when I got my new gig (I'll be talking more about that soon), one of them, Les Gibbs, suggested we go out and celebrate. Always a good idea!

Accordingly, I met Les at Triumph Old City last Tuesday. It was an ugly drive down: 110 minutes to make what should be a 35 minute drive, thanks to some wicked thunderstorms that had knocked down trees and totally snarled traffic on I-95. But on-street meter parking salved that irritation somewhat, and Triumph's solid pilsner did the rest of it.

I filled Les in on the details, we clinked glasses (Saison, now, that first Pilsner just kind of evaporated in a really welcome way, and the Saison was tasting great: just a bit over 5%, not overdone in the spice department, and more complex than a wit -- get down to Triumph and have some), and relaxed.

Nice bar at Triumph: the bar itself has two levels, the main bar and a little elevated section right in front of the whiskey. You can also look up to the 2nd floor bar -- some kind of event going on up there with a lot of very attractive women -- and the brewery, and across the open barrier into the downstairs dining room -- which is where I spotted brewer Patrick Jones.

Hey! I waved, and he came over. That's him on the right, Les on the left. Not much pilsner left, he said (it's probably gone now), but the Saison had just come on a week ago and he was justly proud of it. The barrel program is progressing; Triumph is going to have some seriously interesting specialty releases by this time next year, and it's only going to get better from then on.

Patrick got back to work, and we went back to...not work. I had a Maibock (which was not in the same league as the pils and the Saison, unfortunately; still good, but not stellar), and we ordered food. There was some great salmon on Brussel sprouts and mushrooms (I think they were mushrooms, the light was kind of bad); small triangles of thin-crust broccoli rabe pizza (real good, and understated in a beautifully Italian way), and fish and chips: all that small plate stuff Triumph Old City's doing.

We finished up and decided to head across the street to Eulogy for one more; Les had never been. We sat at the downstairs bar and split a bottle of Dupont Avec les Bons Voeux, the Christmas-season super-saison from Belgium's Dupont brewery. I love this beer, it's sparky and spicy, but smooth and sophisticated. Les really liked Eulogy, and was impressed with the beer list. Hell, it is impressive! So's the service: I've always had informed and personal service at the downstairs bar.

I offered to give Les a lift rather than train out to his place, so we walked up 2nd Street...and there was Cuba Libre, just looking fine and inviting in the light rain. "Nightcap?" I asked. Sure, and I was soon enthralled with the choices of rums at the bar. (That's the bartender at Cuba Libre in the top picture, by the way.) I finally settled on a 10 Cane, a new luxury light rum from LVMH that I'd been hearing about but hadn't had a chance to try. I like these white sugar cane rums, rhum agricole (although I understand 10 Cane is not technically rhum agricole because it is double distilled to a higher proof, according to Ed Hamilton, who surely should know), and 10 Cane didn't disappoint: silky smooth, sure-handed cane flavor, and vaporously aromatic. A delicious way to end a celebratory evening.