Category: Monthly Features

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The Firkin for July 2022

New Jersey breweries are now limited to the following:

• Hosting only 25 on-site activities per year (Events such as trivia, live music, etc.)
• Host only 52 private parties per year
• Attend only 12 off premises events per year

In addition to the above, this ruling also prohibits breweries from the following:

• Selling coffee on site
• Collaborating/ coordinating with food vendors/ trucks
• Selling food or operating a restaurant
• Selling specialty cocktails using malt alcohol
• Offering a free drink to any guest
• Offer Happy Hour pricing

You can read more about it right HERE and it is not good for beer. And it just seems to be yet another instance where one industry that should be tight with beer seem to want to knock them down a peg.

Why can’t restaurants work “with” breweries? Why can’t a coffee roaster create a special beer with a brewery and sell their coffee at the taproom? How does limiting 12 off premises events help anyone? Especially charities that get funds from beer festivals.

Other beer writing voices have chimed in on this with exasperation and I expect that New Jersey will water down these rules or selectively enforce them. What may also happen is that breweries go into the restaurant business to work around some of these rules.

As a show of solidarity, I will be highlighting New Jersey breweries all next month.

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Sean Suggests for July 2022

Summer might be the time for pilsners and lagers to shine but there are still a lot of IPAs out there with almost all the hops you can imagine.

Smog City Squall Line IPA – 6.4% – “the next beer in our Smog Days IPA Series. This is one bright & crushable West Coast IPA, coming in at 6.4% and featuring Azacca, Veteran’s Blend, & Simcoe hops. It’s got wonderful flavors of mango, pineapple, & stone fruit.

Fremont / Bale Breaker Cultivision Cold IPA – 7.5% – “we used Yakima Chief Hop’s 301 Mosaic Fresh Cryo Hops. Just because it’s not fresh hop season, doesn’t mean we can’t bring you a fresh hop beer. By using fresh hops it really accentuates the pine, grassy and fresh floral aromas.”

Societe Brewing Glorious Odds Hazy IPA – 7.5% – “a playful hazy with a boat load of stone fruit notes. Adorn your senses with aromas of peach, tropical fruits and lemon followed with some orange & sweet aromatics. Crafted with Idaho 7, El Dorado, Mosaic, and Azzaca hops, this spunky brew is mildly bitter with a heavy haze.”

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A Book & A Beer – Tracy Flick Can’t Win by Tom Perotta

I have not seen the movie Election nor have I read a Tom Perotta novel before even though his works have been made into a lot of TV.

Maybe this wasn’t the best book in his list to start with then. Not because it is a sequel, I don’t mind them and even like checking in on the same character in later books.

No, this book just seemed slight. Sure most of the characters are bruised and beaten by life and make decisions based on that pain but they seem paper thin still.

And do not be fooled, this is not a Tracy Flick book. She is one of many characters who get their turn at the narrator mic and her arc is fine but her hurdles seem to pop up out of nowhere.

My main flaw found with this book is the end. There is an incident at the school where Tracy works. The person causing the incident gets basically one chapter before then creating havoc. It feels forced and too sudden and really ended any chance of me recommending the book.

I haven’t had too many negative book reviews so it is new territory for me when choosing a beer pairing. But let’s tack to Sierra Nevada and choose a few “little things” beers. Hazy Little Thing, Wild Little Thing, Sunny Little Thing and Big Little Thing. You could consider brand extensions like a sequel and the characters in this book could be described as sunny, wild, big and hazy (especially in character motivation).

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A Podcast & A Beer – Betwixt the Sheets

Wanna get a bit kinky with history, well Betwixt the Sheets has the juicy (in more ways than one) news.

And there was a beer specific episode that would be a great entry to the podcast…

Your host Kate Lister is funny, asks good questions and finds good topics and corners of history such as a British cardinal who owned brothels or a history of vasectomies.

Since some of the topics are considered dirty or subversive when they should be normalized and not kept secret, I suggest drinking something so plain and unadorned that each episode becomes less scandalous. How about an amber lager, or a simple porter.

Or if you want to embrace the color of love and wear that scarlet letter, find yourself an aggressive red ale.

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The Firkin for June 2022

Americans both love a redemption story AND quickly tire of outrage. Don’t believe me? Wander to this LINK from Paste Magazine. And don’t TL:DR it either.

Americans and craft beer fans have all the beer choices available. I could “cancel” a brewery a day for years without making a dent in the number of IPAs in my ‘fridge. Which is why Vorel’s point of having a long memory is both important, AND not that hard.

Here is what you do:

  • open the notes app on your phone
  • creat new note and label, Do NOT Buy Beer From
  • add the breweries from Women of the Bevolution’s website that are distributed in your area
  • next time you are beer shopping, check that list

Not hard. You are not tracking the full journey of the fish at a seafood counter or who made the phone you just used to make a note.

Oh and next thing to do, stay tired of Tired Hands and their shithousery. We don’t need their beer. And you can tell their Instagram lawyers that.

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A Book & A Beer – When I’m Gone, Look for Me in the East

I really liked the first Quan Barry book that I read, We Ride Upon Sticks which combined girls lacrosse with witchcraft. It was well funny with a dark undercurrent to it.

The new book is a world away. Literally. Mongolia is the location and twin brothers go on the search for the next Dalai Lama. The brothers paths have diverged from the other and they know what the other is thinking in unguarded moments when defenses are down, yet neither knows the other really.

The chapters are super short. One to two pages, three at most. That format fits the monastic simplicity and also propels the reader to the next chapter especially with the philosophic chapter titles such as Every House is a Hotel or Two Notes Spiraling Up Into the Dark.

The descriptions of life in Mongolia such as the food is really interesting and the posse that joins them on the search have their own stories to tell. And by the time the book ends, it has grown to be quite profound in its look at a persons path through the world.

I do not think you will find much in the way of Mongolian beer at your local store. But there are monastic beers you could find and rescue instead of the latest IPA on the shelf and I know it is not in season but maybe a dopplebock would make a good choice, one with the -ator ending in the name.

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June Brewery # 2 – Barnaby Brewing Co.

North to Alaska and JUNEau to visit Barnaby Brewing Co.

Let’s grab a couple taster trays to try out the following from the BBC.

OMG I Love Trees – Imperial Spruce Tip Blonde

Theresa’s Meadow – Altbier

Jiggle Jiggle Wiggle Wiggle – Tropical Stout

Rodeo Clowns – Flanders Red

Slack Tide – BA English Barley Wine aged in Cherry Brandy Barrels

Guava Blood Orange – Imperial American Sour Aged in Tequila Barrels

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A Podcast & A Beer – Doctor Who: Redacted

I am usually a non-fiction podcast listener but I have quite enjoyed the seven episodes that I have listened to so far of Doctor Who: Redacted.

People are going missing. Forgetting seems to be happening to everyone and three intrepid podcasters try to track down the mystery of what is happening and why a mysterious blue box is involved.

For me, fiction audio needs to have immersive techniques used. Bring in the foley artists, use echos and other sound tricks. Actors reading can take you only so far and DW: Redacted is using a lot of effects that work really well with the story created that has a lot of Whovian history shout outs. Though they have been way tooo heavy with the Doctor. Who? dialogue. We know this is about memory, no need to bang on about it so often.

That quibble aside, the twenty minute episodes move fast and are give room for each of the three main characters, Abby, Shauna and Cleo to tell their stories.

To pair with this podcast you can go one of two ways, three if you want to use it as an excuse to have British beer. One is to have beers brewed by women to match with our protagonists.

The other option being to pick a beer that embodies the spirit of someone no longer with us. A beer that brings back a memory. I might pick up a wine/beer hybrid that is a combo of what my dad drank and what I drink. Take a walk down memory lane.

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The Firkin for May 2022

Though I always carry my trusty iPad around with me, there are more times where I prefer not to go online.

The whisky makers at Glengoyne had a similar thought, I guess, because they have hatched The Offline Edition of their whiskey that comes in a box with a mini Faraday cage inside that can block the signals of up to four phones.

That got me to thinking that brewery taprooms could have offline nights or a section of the space dedicated to those who want to enjoy their beer and not enjoy their beer whilst also glancing at their phones every minute.

You could then focus that nervous phone energy into talking to the beertender about the beers on tap, or simply savoring your beer.

I know that this culture likes to extol being connected but maybe we can discard this bit of multi-tasking and put the phones away.

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Best Beers of May 2022

The Premier League finished this month and with it came post-mortems and best of and worst of lists. What these lists has in common was expectations. A player expected to score goals who did vs one who didn’t. A player who was injured vs one who wasn’t.

Or a player who came cheap and overperformed vs an expensive player that was just OK.

Same can be said of beers, a beer gifted to you vs. a beer you hunted down and paid top dollar for.

This month, I was kindly gifted two beers from Shades Brewing in Utah. Had never heard of the brewery before and they were sours which I have less of due to stomach responses.

But the Passion Fruit Sour and Plum Berliner Weisse were easily the best of the bunch and if ever in the Salt Lake state, I would encourage a visit.