Here Come the IPAs

As the weather starts to warm, we see more lighter beers like IPAs, and less stouts, porters and the like.  If that's your thing, or you're just ready to break away from the winter brews, you'll want to stop in this week and check out what's new!  As always, our beer departments move fast, so if you're coming in for something specific, give us a call at the store to make sure we still have it in stock.

Green Flash Palate Wrecker
Palate Wrecker was originally brewed for the Hamilton’s Tavern 2nd Anniversary celebration. It’s the most complicated West Coast–inspired IPA we have ever brewed—mashing and sparging with hopped wort, in addition to our hop layering regimen for IPA. We use almost 6 lbs/bbl of Columbus and Centennial hops to create this very bitter hop monster (tested at 149 IBU and no extracts in case you were wondering). By popular demand, it is now released for the world to enjoy (even though this beer isn’t for everyone, only the real hop heads!!!). Cheers! 9.5% ABV.  99pts RateBeer

21st Amendment Brewery Blah Blah Blah
We are huge fans of IPA and love our hops like anyone else, but we also like to have fun. Our Blah Blah Blah IPA is a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the popularity of this style and all the sub-styles that have become part of craft beer conversations and offerings. This is a deep gold color, double IPA (of course) and jammed packed with hop flavors and aromas. With nine different hop varietals, on top of late-kettle boil additions, this beer has a juicy, hop chewy flavor. IPAs are here to stay and Blah Blah Blah in many ways is a tribute to their prevalence and popularity and we love it. So, grab yourself a Blah Blah Blah IPA and celebrate this plentiful style and hoppy indulgence. 8% ABV


Demented Brewing Scarlet Knight Amber Ale
Sailor take warning: Whether our neck of the Raritan River is where you live or work, play or study of this we’re certain… Scarlet Night is a beer everyone can enjoy. Our American Red Ale is a liquid tribute to all that we love about Middlesex, the Hub City, and being local. A blend of five different malts gives this brew intense red color and complexity, a medium body with light caramel sweetness and a feint roast finish. Just enough hops balance it out with a slight bitterness and great flavor that trails into an earthy floral nose. Red sky at night… a beer drinker’s delight.  5.8% ABV

Dogfish Head Beer to Drink Music To 2017
Music has been a part of Dogfish Head since before Dogfish Head. So it’s a natural fit for a brewery that makes ‘Analog Beer for the Digital Age’ to be the Official Beer of Record Store Day, a celebration of the unique culture of record stores and the special role they play in their communities. Of course, as the Official Beer of Record Store Day, we had to create a special brew for the occasion! Now for the second year, that’s just what we’ve done with Beer To Drink Music To. In volume two of this celebratory ale, this Tropical Blonde is brewed with hibiscus flowers and kiwi juice. It’s the perfect marriage of beer and music and best when paired with some of your favorite tunes.  Beer To Drink Music To ’17 is a pinkish-red brew with forward notes of tropical fruits with hints of berries and floral. 6.8% ABV

Stone Pataskala Red IPA
Pat-ASK-ala? Pata-SKALA? Pa-TASK-a-la? While those in the know favor the third pronunciation, no matter how you say it, this is a unique red IPA. The beer was first brewed in September 2015 to support music and arts education programs in Pataskala, Ohio, where Stone co-founder Greg Koch grew up. People there loved it, so we added the beer to our seasonal lineup. The deep crimson hue is courtesy of a fairly new special German malt variety by BESTMALZ called Red X. Dry-hopped with Mosaic, Cascade and Amarillo hops, this beer is incredibly citrus-forward, rounded out with biscuit and toffee notes. We think you’ll find this red IPA to be quite deliciously satisfying, no matter how you choose to pronounce it.  7.3% ABV

Stone Jindia Pale Ale
Tired of being in the beer slump dumps? Looking for that certain sprightly spring sprig? Well search no further! One bottle of this aromatically fragrant, ginger-spiced lupulinicious liquid is all it takes to appease even the most rambunctious of palates. This is no snake oil philter good friends. We have the masterful inclination to call it exactly what it is – EXCITEMENT for your taste buds!  Made from the exotic ginger root, juniper berry tincture and a citrus peel duo of lemon and lime, these botanicals mix miraculously well with a double dose of the most delectable hops known to mankind. Be sure to crook that elbow of yours, for one gloriously refined swig! You’ll find that another is certain to follow as if by divine influence. Good for everything a beer ought to be good for. Beware of Jindia Pale Ale counterfeits from hucksters and mountebanks, and accept only this genuine article. 8.7% IPA

Troegs First Cut Mango IPA
Each Spring, hop growers dust off their pruning shears and trim the first shoots, bolstering the bines for a rich growing season. First Cut - a mouthful of mango - is a nod to this ritual, without which the world would be a less hoppy place. 6.2% ABV

In the Mood for Something Different?

 

This week's craft beer deliveries feature some interesting new brews!  Check a few of them out below.  As always, please call the store if you're coming in for something specific - our Craft Beer department moves fast and things do sell out quickly!

 

Did you know that February is Pet Rescue month at Joe Canal's Woodbridge and Lawrenceville stores?  Our friends at Tito's Vodka are matching your donations, up to $5000!  Check out your store's webpage for more information: Woodbridge or Lawrenceville.

 

Now, on to the beer!

 

Allagash St. Clipperstein
At the brewery, we celebrate St. Klippenstein day to commemorate our love of free ham, pot lucks, and strong stouts. In honor, we brewed this Belgian-style strong stout aged in bourbon barrels. Rich cocoa brown in color, the first sip of this beer opens with a complex chocolate and roasted aroma. Notes of vanilla, coconut and o

ak infuse the palate and lead to a smooth, warm finish. This full bodied beer is brewed with an array of dark roasted malts: dark chocolate malt, roasted barley, chocolate malt, and brown malt. After being hopped with Chinook and Northern Brewer, and fermented with a trappist-style yeast for a month in stainless, the beer spends three months aging in bourbon barrels.  11% ABV



Ballast Point Red Velvet Nitro
Our Red Velvet oatmeal stout is a mind-bending beer. Like the cake that inspired it, the deep red color comes from beets, which add a rich, earthy character that complements the chocolate flavor and aroma. The foamy head of the nitro pour is our “icing”, adding a creamy smoothness to the mouthfeel. But this liquid dessert still finishes like a beer – not sweet, but just as satisfying. 5.5% ABV

 

Flying Dog Lucky SOB Irish Red Ale
Lucky SOB is an Irish Red for those whose lives always fall into place…and also for the rest of us who curse those blessed bastards. Brewed with real four-leaf clovers, it is perfectly poised to bring the “Luck of the Irish” to those who drink it. With a rich amber color, its toasted and honey malt flavors are balanced with a subtle hop bite. Not to mention that its clean and refreshing finish is the perfect accompaniment to chants of “Erin Go Braugh.”  5.5%

 

Demented Brewing Donar's Oak
Our Oud Bruin, a flanders brown ale was fermented with brett and bourbon barrel aged. Expect a sweet and sour profile with notes of dark fruit and caramel.  7.2% ABV

Smuttynose East Coast Common Lager (LAWRENCEVILLE ONLY)
East Coast Common is a nod to those uniquely American lager beers – fermented warm, in the San Franciscan-style. One sniff of the heady aroma tells you this isn’t a utilitarian, washing machine-variety beer. Our brewers infuse significant quantities of late-in-the-boil and post-fermentation dry hops to make sure you know East Coast Common is a New England original. 7.4% ABV

 

The Bruery Orxata
Horchata is a traditional, sweet, milky drink originating in Spain and Latin America that has become quite popular in Southern California, particularly with Mexican cuisine. Our take on the traditionally non-alcoholic drink is a blonde ale brewed with a heavy dosing of rice, cinnamon and fresh vanilla beans along with lactose for a little extra creamy character. If you didn’t know better, you’d think it was carbonated horchata. The flavor is hard to describe, but for those who know it, you know you love it. 7.1% ABV

 

And available Friday exclusively in our WOODBRIDGE location is Carton Unjunct Stout cans!
The thing about stouts made with additions of things like coffee is, while they taste “just like coffee,” they taste just “like coffee.” A well constructed stout is a study of potential flavors. Both bitter and sweet at once, with just four ingredients aromas can ping-pong between: coffee, chocolate, vanilla, smoke, dark fruits, molasses and myriad others without running over each other. Drink Unjunct and don’t ask us to treat this one.  8.5% ABV

 

 

The Comeback

Well, not only was there a big football comeback over the weekend, your regular blogger also came back -- from maternity leave.  It's hard to leave a new baby and return to work, but it's also good to be back "in the know" on all the fun new stuff coming out in the craft beer world.  We've got deliveries of fresh product every week, and I'll always post them here, so check every Wednesday to be the first to know what's hot!

Here's what's being delivered this week!  Lawrenceville should have most of these in stock already, and Woodbridge expects their delivery on Thursday.  As always, please call the store if there's something specific you're coming in to grab - our craft beer department moves fast and things sell out very quickly!

Dogfish Head Seaquench Ale
SeaQuench Ale is our session sour quencher made with lime peel, black lime and sea salt. It’s a citrusy-tart union of three German styles of beer blissfully brewed into one. We begin by brewing a straightforward Kolsch with lots of wheat and Munich Malt, then we brew a salty Gose with black limes, coriander and our sea salt. We follow it all up with a citrusy-tart Berlinerweiss made with lime juice and lime peel. All three beers are then blended together in the fermentation tank to create this German hybrid.  4.9% ABV  Ratebeer 92pts!

The Hop Concept Dank & Sticky IPA
Our inaugural release boasts aromas of citrus, and dank, resinous pine. As the flavor opens, huge notes of stonefruit and dank resin give way to a juicy malt backbone and drying hop bitterness on the finish. 8.5% ABV Ratebeer 98pts!

Lost Abbey Deliverance
A blend of bourbon barrel-aged Serpent’s Stout and brandy barrel-aged Angels Share, Deliverance is the epic battle being waged between heaven and hell for the souls of mortal men… and your enjoyment in a glass. 12.5% ABV Ratebeer 100pts!

Lost Abbey Lost & Found
Modeled after the great Trappist and Monastic beers that inspired the founding of our brewery. A richly deep garnet colored ale created from a blend of Domestic and imported malts. As part of our commitment to interesting brewing endeavors, Chef Vince created a special raisin puree for this beer. Malts, raisins and a fantastic yeast strain working in harmony produce a beer of amazing complexity and depth.  8% ABV  Ratebeer 96pts!

Lost Abbey Serpent's Stout
The history of the bible and religion is indeed the struggle of good vs. evil. Our Serpent’s Stout recognizes the evil of the dark side that we all struggle with.This is a massively thick and opaque beer that begs the saints to join the sinners in their path to a black existence.  11% ABV  Ratebeer 100pts!

Weyerbacher Sunday Morning Stout
Sunday Morning Stout is an American Imperial Stout aged in bourbon barrels. The result? A beautiful ebony pour with a large, creamy, off-white head that lasts and lasts. The aromas of roasted coffee and bourbon awaken your senses while their flavors blend with hints of chocolate, roasted malt, vanilla and caramel.  12.7% ABV Ratebeer 99pts!

Lagunitas Cappuccino Stout
Brewed with boatloads of roasted coffee in each batch for that extra Krunk… this Mondo Coffee Stout will leave you wondering whether you're coming or going. Available in 22oz bombers mid-winter…ish.  9.1% ABV.  Ratebeer 95pts!

Also, our Beer Manager in Lawrenceville wanted to pass on that Nugget Nectar cans are back in stock!