Beer festivals have lots on tap

Every Tuesday on the BottleBlog, we'll focus on interesting or exciting industry news from here in New Jersey, to the valleys of California, to the vineyards of New Zealand. Today, Star-Ledger reporter Peter Genovese reports on the Rockin' Brewfest, where we met him last month as we worked our table.

Beer festivals have lots on tap
by Peter Genovese/Star-Ledger

I hold a notebook in one hand, a glass in the other, with camera slung over my shoulder, ready to capture a digital beer moment — such as a runway-model-worthy beer lover who obligingly poses for pictures.

It’s not easy covering a beer festival.

Believe me, there were times at the recent Rockin’ Brewfest in Trenton when I wished I could have ditched the notebook and camera and concentrated on the beer.

Alas, there was work to do, like interviewing two brothers waxing poetic about Intercourse (um, the beer, from Pennsylvania) and waiting for Unibroue rep Bernard Johnson to break out the bottle of Unibroue’s 17 Belgian strong ale stashed under the table.

Actually, I didn’t know he had the bottle, but I’m sure glad he offered it, apparently convinced that I really was a newspaper reporter, and I really was there to cover the beer festival.

“What is the Munchmobile guy doing here?” one attendee asked.

The Munchmobile guy likes beer, and he intends to cover the great big beer world out there without any of the stuffiness, pomposity and tech talk you’ll find on other sites.

Back to Rockin’ Brewfest and beer festivals in general. Beer festivals are popping up like fast-rising yeast around the country — there’s a good list at beerfestivals.org. This weekend alone, you have the Vegas World Beer Fest, the Tennessee Beer Festival, Detroit Beer Week, Cleveland Beer Week, Albuquerque Hopfest, the Great Tucson Beer Festival, the KC Beerfest, the Knoxville Brewers Jam, the Flying Saucer Beer Festival in Austin, the Dunedin Stadium Beer Fest in Florida, the Santa Barbara Beer Festival, the Lehigh Valley Brewfest, the first-ever Baltimore Beer Festival, the Delaware Wine and Beer Festival and the L.A. Beer Week Beer Festival.

So much beer, so little time . . .

Attending a beer festival is one thing; working it is another.

Asked how often he is on the road, Bryan Pettit, New Jersey district manager for Long Trail Brewing, smiled.

“Too much,” he said.

Pettit does 20 to 25 beer festivals and events a year. “Absolutely,” he said. “There are more than ever. There’s a lot of money to be made at these things.”

Long Trail bought Otter Creek Brewery this year, joining two of Vermont’s top craft brewers. At Rockin’ Brewfest, Pettit poured several Long Trail brews — Centennial Ale and Harvest Ale. Nearby, Johnson happily handed out samples of Ephemere Apple, a slightly sweet, tart and spicy white ale with the flavor of Granny Smith apples. Some liken it to an apple champagne, but it’s a beer through and through.

One festivalgoer took several sips and pronounced: “It’s not like Woodchuck” hard cider.

Security!

I was ready to move on, then Johnson smiled and said, “’I’m going to give you a treat, dude.”

Out came a bottle of Unibroue 17, so named for the Quebec brewery’s 17th anniversary. It’s slightly fizzy, a bit sweet, intensely malty and marvelous. The brewery’s website says 17 “is not available for now,” but Johnson says you can still find bottles in stores. I was tempted to dash out of the Sun National Bank Center and start looking.

Unibroue “should be coming out with a new series of beer in 2011,” according to Johnson.

“What can you say about them?”

“I can’t say anything.”

Across the way, John Merklin, president and co-founder of East Coast Brewing Co., poured samples of East Coast’s Beach Haus Classic American Pilsner, a “pre-Prohibition-style Old World recipe from Germany.”

“The Jersey Shore is the unofficial pilsner drinking capital of the world,” Merklin said.

Hmm, didn’t know that.

Merklin would have loved to open his brewery in Jersey, but the beer is brewed in Rochester, N.Y. You’ll read more about East Coast, New Jersey Beer Co. and other Jersey-themed-or-based breweries in this space in the coming months.

I pressed on (note the hardship in my tone here), sampling Yards Philadelphia Pale Ale, Troegs Hopback Amber Ale, Magic Hat Hex (a malty amber ale with hints of toffee and caramel) and others. The folks at Joe Canal’s in Lawrenceville and Iselin (good store, on Route 1 south, across from Woodbridge Center) were doing a brisk business in growlers.

And Barry Holsten, brewmeister at River Horse Brewing Co. in Lambertville, sounded like one of those guys happy to talk beer 24/7.

“I love what I do and I love what I brew,’’ he said.

Holsten talked about River Horse’s Hipp-O-Lantern Imperial Pumpkin Ale and then described beer in general in musical terms. “The hops is the harmony, the malts is the rhythm, the yeast is the undertone, the timbre . . . ’’

And at that point, they started turning out the lights in the arena. My stint as beer festival reporter was over. I walked back to the hotel, grabbing a cheesesteak on the way and managed to finish it before falling fast asleep.

Peter Genovese: (973) 392-1765 or pgenovese@starledger.com

This post originally appeared in the Star-Ledger on October 13, 2010.