https://njmonthly.com/articles/eat-drink/beverages/best-new-jersey-breweries-2019/ So this is just for fun, no wagering here. I figure lets get some thoughts here. Overall a good list but i thought a couple breweries could have made this list Flying Fish (largely on Exit series), High Point (Ramstein) and Brotherton. I think Flying Fish and Ramstein suffer from the i dont issue a new hazy IPA all the time syndrome, although Flying Fish has tried their hand at it. So if i want to add what do i want to take off? Let the teeth gnashing begin, Brix city has been hit or miss for me, like some stuff but not consistent, and i do love Spellbound for their porters but their pale ale and IPA just dont do it for me. Any thoughts? Cheers
Well, pretty much all the breweries I visit and buy are represented here. I do buy some Czig Meister stuff from time to time but otherwise this list is spot on. A few places I haven’t been to and one or two I hadn’t even heard of.
Looks like a pretty fair list. I'll need to try some more Brix City stuff, I wasn't expecting to see them on this list from my experience. I think a larger sample size may be needed for me.
I have recently become a big fan of Brix City. Their IPA game has been really good and the other styles with the exception maybe. Of the sours have also been solid. The place has a great vibe as well. I enjoy visiting and like that they do half pours.
Oh and Tom of Monk's has shared with me great praise of Referend! It is really awesome to talk about beer with him.
Agree on Flying Fish and Ramstein. Ramstein rarely adds new beers to their lineup (not that they need to add new ones), so that may be a mark against them for something like this. If the Exit Series were still active, I think Flying Fish *may* have had a better chance of making the list, but I do think they've been trying to keep up with what is HOT! AND NEW! with some of their releases over the past few years. I can't argue too much for what was included - Conclave may be my favorite and I'm fortunate to live very close. Spellbound really impressed me when I visited in November. Of course Carton makes the list as they should. I need to get down to Eight and Sand and head back to Twin Elephant. I haven't had anything less than a Very Good Beer from Cape May. But yeah, I think YTB was excluded because as I think we can all agree, they are truly in a class all alone.
If I could actually ever find Ramstein, remotely fresh, I guess I could comment. But seems like the winter wheat is a big hit with a subset of people. I think certainly the hazy IPA aspect drove the list quite a bit, as did a good story/human interest aspect (Backward Flag as an example, which to be fair I've never had, but if I were putting together a blurb and I had to choose between two breweries, yeah I'm taking the one with the "Support the troops" angle; add in the head brewer's training background and you honestly don't even need to comment on specific beers!). That said, other than Ramstein it doesn't seem like any brewer that garners any interest on BA consistently wasn't listed, and they didn't pretend to rank them by some magic formula....so pretty reasonable list no?
