On Saturday, June 21, Ray, his sister Steph, her husband Tim, and I went to the 12th Annual Craft Brewers Festival, hosted on the Battleship New Jersey. We were pumped. A brewfest on a battleship. How could this not be fun?

Ray, Mel, Steph and Tim in front of the Battleship New Jersey.
Photo credit, Stephanie Weber.

Sigh.

Steph had ordered the tickets months ago and we had them in hand. However, the green tickets we had needed to be traded in for another set, so we waited in Line #1 to do that. We were also given stickers that we had to display somewhere on our bodies… stickers that were roughly 3″-4″ in diameter. After chucking them into Ray’s bag, we moved to Line #2, where we had to show the new tickets in order to pick up a coupon for our tasting glasses, and get our wristbands. As we approached the ship, an older woman on the staff with freakishly long aqua blue nails insisted we put on our stickers.

Why couldn’t we have just given them our green tickets?

After a lot of “Are you kidding me?” looks between the 4 of us, we dug the stickers out of Ray’s bag and stuck them on. We then boarded in the hopes of grabbing our tasting glasses and having our first taste of some NJ brews we weren’t familiar with.

Fat chance.

First, we had to tour the battleship… up and down narrow stairs, leading in and out of various rooms, always remembering to lift our feet high enough to clear the top of the doorway. At first we laughed and took the time to check out different aspects of the ship. But that got old quick as we climbed to the top of the ship, and then began to descend. It soon became a race to just get through to the end without falling down any of the steps or tripping. The one plus was that it was a light cardio workout, but that was about it.

FINALLY we made it to the fest, traded in our tasting glass coupons for plastic cups with the words “NJ Beer Goes Here” (it kind of makes me think of a a t-shirt that a middle-aged guy with beer gut would wear). Originally there should have been 16 NJ breweries, live music, and some food. Not all the breweries showed up, and we weren’t too interested in either the music or food.

I don’t feel like rambling about the beers we weren’t too impressed with, but it was nice to see old favorites (Flying Fish, Triumph and River Horse) as well as a few other we hadn’t heard of before, but now after tasting some of their brews, have definitely made a splash on our radar.

So, in no particular order, here are some of our favorites:

• Gaslight Brewery: They had a really tasty Belgian White that had a great flavor that Tim and I recognized as honeysuckle. It totally brought back memories of being a kid in the summer and ransacking the honeysuckle bushes in my yard for the tiny drops of sweet honey.
• Harvest Moon: They had an excellent brew called the Moonlight Kölsch. It had a beautiful pale, cloudy yellow color to it, and was extremely crisp and refreshing. A perfect brew to sip all summer long, especially in the muggy heat. They also served their Moonshine Barleywine, which according to their Web site, “is brewed with dark Munich malt and assorted rich crystal malts, resulting in a big and complex Mahogany beer that is smooth and warming. Bold but balanced hop flavor comes from Chinook and Liberty hops.” We found the hop character to be interesting.
• Basil T’s: Maxwell’s Dry Stout. There weren’t a lot of stouts to be had at this fest, but luckily there was this offering and it was pleasantly roasty. I even managed to hold it long enough to get it up to the right temperature!
• River Horse: They had their Summer Blonde and one of their Brewer’s Reserves, a Belgian Double White known as “W2″. Ray and I had been fortunate to pick up a 6-pack of the Summer Blonde previously, so we already knew how good that was, and the Double White was excellent. Beer for beer, River Horse has never disappointed us.
• Flying Fish: The 3 beers they had available we already had before: Hopfish, ESB, and Farmhouse Summer Ale. I’m not a huge fan of the Farmhouse (a little underwhelming for my tastes) but I know Ray likes it. Their ESB is solid, as is the majority of their other beer that was not featured (we’re HUGE fans of their Grand Cru Winter Reserve and the Imperial Espresso Porter).

Regarding Harvest Moon’s barleywine: I’m a big fan of barleywines, and this might now be one of my favorites. It had this nice, smooth hop flavor to it, and it finished roasty, which I thought was pleasantly unusual for this style. I hope I can find it in our local liquor store!

Tun Tavern was also there, and they had a fantastic hefeweizen at their table. Next to that, they had also brought a case of a super-alcoholic special reserve that I cannot seem to recall the name or style of right now. It tasted like a plain ol’ malt beer (i.e. un-hopped). I enjoyed it, but felt that it was overaged and could use a little dry hopping. Tim loved it, though. To each his own!

However, despite these good brews, I must make a mention of Pizzeria Uno: They need to just stick to pizzas. I had an underwhelming Porter, but I can’t remember what Steph and Tim had. However, I will always have burned into the memory of my tastebuds the unfortunate Maibock Ray had. I took a sip and made an awful face, even worse than the face I made after trying scotch for the first time.

This beer was simply BAD, as in something very wrong with it. Did they use tomato sauce? I mean, god, it was awful, and I even LIKE sour beer.

It was almost as if the malts that they used had been smoked with dried oregano. I can’t imagine how anybody could have thought that monstrosity tasted good.

Enough about that.

Though the fest ran from 12PM-4PM, we were done by 2 PM, and that has NEVER happened before. We took some time to talk to Joe Sixpack, and I purchased an autographed copy of his book. More on that later. After that, we hightailed it home.

Simply put: We learned that cramming 750+ people onto a battleship on a hot day in NJ is not a wise idea. Neither is having too few brewers to keep things interested. Oh well. Lesson learned.

All four of us agreed on this: The fest was just poorly done from head to toe. Yeah, we found some new beers that we enjoyed, but the massive (and often rude) crowds coupled with the tepid beer selection removed any chance that we could have gotten our money’s worth out of it.

So cramped! Photo credit, Stephanie Weber.

Breweries, Brewfests, Craft Beer 2 Comments »