New Jersey Brew News & Releases (2020)

Stopped by Sunken Silo on route 22w in Lebanon today because I was coming back from my last Kayaking/Fishing session of the year at the nearby Spruce Run.

They had a new beer on tap called Folded Paper Academy with Nelson, Mandarina, Motueka, Lotus and Mosaic. Holy shit, that is a great tasting IPA if you like those hops. It's quite scrumptious, especially at 6.4% abv. Great body, great look and taste. I ended up getting a crowler to take home + a 4 pack of their Wystouti stout which I already had about a month ago (also good tasting). If you're in that area, it's a must visit. They seem to be consistently packed on the weekends.

The one thing I don't like is their wooden/metal bar stools inside. They only have one rung on the bottom, so You can't place your feet under the chair on an angle (you know what I'm talking about in regards to bar stools), except just straight down. I know it's a weird thing to mention, but that bothers me a lot (+any other place that implements the same stools).

 

I keep thinking about returning. Haven’t been there since before the pandemic.

 

Jughandle has been very consistent with their beers latly... I think they also get a very good local following and decent sized distro. You wont be disappointed with their offerings you get, I would put them in that 2nd tier of NJ breeweries

 

Just curious- what’s first tier and what’s second tier in NJ for you?

 

Friday 12-04-20 Bull & Bear Brewery in Summit to open. Details coming soon.

 

Excellent news!

 

1st - kane refrind carton twin elephant -
2nd source Tonewood glasstown cape may icarus

there are more in each and this is just top of head after a few beers

 

Glasstown in Millville? I'm really surprised to see that. I've only had 3-4 beers from them but all pretty mediocre. It's been a while, so maybe I need to revisit.

 

See now I feel we NJ guys have to have an actual new NJ tier thread for 2021. Totally agree Kane Carton Referend Twin Elephant 1st tier but I’d add Tonewood, Cape May and Conclave as well.
Would put Magnify and about 20 other breweries at second tier:

 

Yeah, 100% Tonewood in the top tier. Fuego is a top beer in the country (in my opinion) right now.

 

zero disagreement from me adding Tonewood and Cape May to tier one. Conclave I have not had a ton of unfortunately; they are just not easily accessible for me. Personally I think Cape May is underrated, they distro a ton and most of their beers are very very good; they may not get hype but incredibly consistent.

 

I wouldn’t trade being close to Tonewood for any other NJ brewery.

 

I can’t disagree. They’ve saved me literally hundreds of dollars over the years (less frequent 2-hour Kane drives, paying less for quality beer, etc).

I might stop by this afternoon to grab some of that new DIPA. Hopefully Blackbird gets released this week, I think it was around 1st week of December last year IIRC (EDIT: per Untappd, first check-in was 11/30/19)

 

No mention of Troon? It’s a pain in the ass to get and there’s not much of it, but certainly deserves mention in this conversation.

 

I agree they make tasty beer but between missing alerts and not being fast enough when I did get them I haven’t had their beer in a loooong time. Don’t even try anymore. I did have some at BFT close to a year ago.

 

Same boat as above on Troon. Only had a beer from them 1x at the Tavern and it was over a year ago. While I remember it being good I don't recall enough about it to put it on my list.

 

To add to my response I’ll say that I find Troon an anomaly also because they have no actual taproom and release literally one beer on random days every week or two weeks and in crowlers instead of regular cans. Very strange business model. It seems to work for them (and what seems to be roughly the same 100 or so people every release).

 

I would say they COULD be number one tier, but yeah when's it's such a difficult "get" it's almost pointless to discuss it. Either you're getting it with a little luck and minimal thought or you are trading for it/buying it well above MSRP on secondary. Hard to speak much about it. Not like you can ask for reviews from others. They don't present a hop bill or anything like that, and constantly make "new beers" at least based on the name.

 

Lately have enjoyed beer from The Seed, Muckracker, Bradley Brew Project, and Hidden Sands...

I think each of them make great beers and with The Seed and Muchracker some very unique offers.

 

I’ve been curious about The Seed.