Beer Fests Are Officially Back!

I don't think I could contain my excitement for beer fests returning any longer, so thank GOODNESS Atlantic City Beer and Music Fest happened last weekend!

Beer fests are... an Experience. My first one was GABF and that was an amazing introduction! Obviously, nothing is ever going to compare to the sheer size of that (at least not in Jersey), but ACB&MF is probably the closest we'll get this year! With most COVID restrictions in NJ lifted only weeks before the festival, it was slated to be outdoors on an airstrip and each booth spaced about ten feet apart. 120 breweries from all over (including Terrapin, from Athens, GA!) the country showed up to celebrate a semi-return to normalcy. It was different not being on top of another brewery, and there was a lot more walking to be done, but that didn't deter folks.

Friday night's event was heralded by a massive thunderstorm, followed by a double rainbow, which made me gleeful driving down the AC Expressway. My partner Greg was with me, and was about to experience his second-ever beer fest - and his first was nothing of the size or capacity of ACB&MF. Through the wind, which shoved those storms out to sea, we wandered the tarmac, and he tried a lot of new stuff while I paced myself and was the responsible DD. I had to be up at 6am the next morning, anyway.

We had a great time Friday night, sharing jokes and making up new band names (for a band we'll never create, naturally) along the way.

Saturday morning, I worked my first ever Byrne Plaza Farmer's Market! I learned a lot from that experience, and am looking forward to the ones ahead.

And Saturday night, Greg and I headed back to ACB&MF to work the booth. We met up with the crew that worked the daytime shift, hanging out by Slacktide and Gusto (because where else would a Cape May County crew hang out?). The evening session flew by with the sun setting behind us and before we knew it, we were packed up and heading back to Wildwood.

If you saw us at ACB&MF, thanks for stopping by! I hope you had as great of a time as we did and we'll see you at Battleship New Jersey.

Full Taps

Well, it's only March and here we are with full taps ready for the throngs of weekend shore-goers as South Jersey slowly warms up and we transition into Spring.

Freshest on our line-up is the Ryesing Tides IPA (formerly known as Y Not Rye). A personal favorite - and one I've missed over the past year - you can catch me enjoying it on tap and in cans (for sale in the brewpub and around South Jersey).

And if you've been craving something wildly different from the usual IPA line-up, why not try the Wee Heavy Wilson? A Scotch Ale with a significantly peaty and earthy aroma imparts a shockingly smooth malt sweetness on your palette. I will go ahead and say I hate Scotch whisky. Like, it's up there with Jaegermeister for me - undrinkable. But this Scotch Ale is perfectly drinkable.

We also have the bourbon barrel aged version of it on tap for a very limited time and for in-house consumption only. The bourbon infusion masks a good bit of the earthy aroma, and it developed that malty sweetness into a borderline whiskey flavor. It barely tastes like drinking a beer, so if bourbon whiskey is more your style but you really want a beer, ask for the Barrel Aged Wilson. It's around 10%, so if you plan on having more than one, pair it with a smoky barbecue platter or a Peanut Butter Explosion dessert (or both, really). You won't be sorry!

Lastly, for all of you looking for something sweeter that isn't as strong as a Belgian Tripel, don't worry. We'll have the Fruitie Patootie back on tap in time to enjoy some Springtime sunshine before the real summer crowds flock down here.

An Introduction

Hi! Welcome to the brew blog.

This is the story - and reflections - of my journey into the world of beer brewing. And it starts, unofficially, long before the pandemic of 2020.

In 2014, I moved away from my home in Atlanta, GA; away from everything I ever knew and started living with my partner in Norfolk, VA. The Hampton Roads area was burgeoning with craft beer and a couple breweries had made themselves household names. Excited at the prospect of doing something new, something other than bartending or food industry work, I enthusiastically applied to the closest one - and I never heard back. My partner was supportive nonetheless and we even tossed around the idea of home brewing.

(It would be four more years before we started home brewing.)

Two years later, we were living in rural North Carolina. We had big box stores and a few bars with a decent craft beer selection, but no breweries for hundreds of miles. And the wineries left something to be desired in terms of variety. We began growing our own grapes with ideas of being home vintners someday. My partner began doing all the reading and researching, but it would be years before we could produce anything viable from our own grapes.

And two years after that, we moved to southern Jersey. Land of breweries and the newest (officially recognized) wine region in the country. I became fixated on trying to get my foot into the door of one of those breweries. Or, at the very least, a winery. It took several months and a government shutdown, but by sheer luck and terrific timing, I got hired as a bartender at MudHen Brewing Company in 2019, just before their 1st anniversary.

It was the newest brewpub in Cape May County and it’s the only brewery in Wildwood as of time of publication. MudHen is in a league of its own - a huge food menu, craft seasonal cocktails, and 10-11 beers of their own on tap with no outside beers sold on premises. When MudHen hires new people, they are destined to attend beer school with the head - and only - brewer, Tony Cunha. It took a little over a month before I was able to attend my first beer school, but I was eager to learn about the product made on-site.

I was thrilled to attend my first beer school. Tony gave us a thorough run-down of the process, from milling the grain to the serving tanks in the cold box. It was a lot of information, but all we needed was the bare bones of what went on in our brewery. We did a tasting afterwards and I think I mentioned one of his beers tasting like PBR, which I love, to which he said, “Thank you.” And I think he meant it, so I thought I was off to a pretty good start. I tried our IPAs and - never having found an IPA I wanted more than one of - I was pleasantly surprised at how much I loved our Baker’s Double IPA. I expected bitter beyond belief and was instead met with hints of citrus, a balanced, slightly-bitter IPA that sat at a hefty 91 BUs. Even better? We had it on nitro and if you’ve never had an IPA or DIPA or even TIPA on nitro? You’re missing out.

I digress. I was fairly intimidated by all the knowledge that Tony bestowed upon us that day, but a lot of it stuck. I wanted to serve our product - his creations - to as many people as possible. I knew that if I could change my mind about IPAs, I could change someone else’s mind about them, too. “Hoppy” was no longer a deterrent for me to try a beer and it shouldn’t be anybody’s deterrent, honestly. We’ll get to an entry on hops some other time. I wanted our guests to love our beer as much as they loved the idea of being in a brewpub, so maybe I felt a little heavier weight on me to serve the product to the best of my ability. Every time Tony was on the other side of that big glass window, watching me pour, I would sweat. Was there too much head on this beer? Not enough? Did I rinse the glass, first? Is everything I’ve ever learned about beer service wrong?

Some of it was.

And I guess he saw me learning or saw my passion for beer because he completely took me by surprise when he invited me out to Denver last year. I went from being the New Kid to part of what felt like an elite team to represent our brewery and introduce our beer to the West and what an adventure it was! That, too, is a whole other blog post.

On the way to Denver, I rode with Tony to the Philadelphia airport. We talked shop and eventually he mentioned he was looking for an assistant brewer. I thought, surely there must be someone with experience he can find for that position - ESPECIALLY someone local. Someone who wouldn’t need to learn every single little thing about the equipment or who could already hoist 55lb bags of grain above their head. But the weeks moved forward and nobody filled the position. Season was coming to an end, bar hours were getting shorter, and I took a leap and inquired about the assistant brewer position, despite having JUST begun home brewing with my partner. Tony was more supportive and welcoming than I’d ever imagined taking on someone with basically no experience, but I’m forever grateful for it.

In late 2019, I began working festivals all over the state, as well, while waiting for official word when I’d start my journey as assistant brewer. Then, one day this past February, Tony gave me news that I’d be official on March 1st with my first day as his assistant March 3rd. We bottled for the World Beer Cup and began prep for Atlantic City Beer Fest - the next biggest festival we’d be going to with a team. But Covid-19 began spreading stateside and large events were getting canceled one-by-one. Still, I felt like our little bubble down here might provide some solace from the pandemic. But on March 16th, I got a text from Tony - no work until further notice. I was broken-hearted, unsure of anything at that point. I got the same text from my bar manager, which meant I was out of work for an undetermined amount of time and I was devastated.

I filled my time with home brewing. My partner and I had brewed an Altbier in February, just before our fifth anniversary, and so we bottled that and brewed a Dunkelweizen. In April, I visited Tony and we had the extra bottles of beer we’d sent off to WBC, which got turned into hand sanitizer, wondering where we would’ve placed in competition. And then, in late April, Tony gave me the second-best news of 2020 - I’d be resuming my position as assistant brewer.

So, here we are. Amidst a global pandemic, I’ve begun my journey. And I have so much more to share about how I got here and where I’m going.

Til next time,

Cheers!