15th annual garden state brewers'
guild fest
battleship new jersey
camden, nj
6/18/11
The day was perfect....lots of sunshine,
a light breeze coming off the delaware river and the best beers to be found
in the state of new jersey all in one spot!
accompanied by my friends jeff linkous
of beerstainedletter.com fame and scott cronick of the ac press, we arrived
early to talk to the principals before the crowds arrived. just several
weeks before my aug/sept deadline for mid-atlantic brewing news, i'm able
to corral people i don't normally get to see.
needless to say, we also got to be the
first to taste the fine wares. A couple of the beers that really stood
out were Triumph's 10% framboise with lots of tart raspberry flavor. Tun
tavern's tim kelly brought some of the belgian dark strong ale (that myself
and several members of my fire co. brewed with him)in a firkin aged on
oak chips...wow! Trap Rock's Saison de Roc and Kestrel ipa were both outstanding.
gaslight also brought some nice beers. of course, flying fish was pouring
several exits and their summer reserve. Harvest moon brought a schwarzbier
and a saison that really hit the mark. couldn't get to taste them all as
it was a long ride home, but i didn't hear that anyone was disappointed.
the big buzz that was going around
was the semi-retiring of 12 year Basil t's veteran brewer gretchen schmidhausler
and her replacemnet by 15 year brewer mike sella of pizzeria uno! I had
aLREAdy heard that but it gave me the chance to speak to them both. gretchen
is just looking for a little more time to herself. she has no intention
of leaving brewing forever and will reappear somewhere down the line. she
had mentioned that to me several times in the past, but i never thought
she'd do it. I knew mike had some thoughts about moving on and this gave
hime the perfect opportunity since he has manned the kettles for gretchen
in the past and is very familiar with the system. i wish them the best
of luck. moving up to mike's position is chris percello who is a dave hoffmann
protege and late of the sales dept. at flying fish. i wish him good luck
also.
this festival is held pretty much
the same time every year, so be sure to put it on your calendar for next
year. with the admission, you get a free walking tour of the battleship
so you can't go wrong. it's a massive hunk of metal and has a real long
and storied history.
Check out the guild's website
to keep up with all the latest updates and events.
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