A Craft Beer Lover’s Dream: over 100 beers on tap at Yard House

The outside of the entrance to Yard House, located at Moorestown Mall in Moorestown, New Jersey.

Craft beer lovers need to stop by Yard House. Yard House is a chain restaurant/sports bar that is known for it’s large selection of beer. This past weekend I visited a newly-opened Yard House located at Moorestown Mall in Moorestown, New Jersey. They are open every day from 11AM to 12:30AM. Fridays and Saturdays they are open until 1AM. In addition to beer, this place also has awesome food and I’m not going to lie, their menu is a little pricey, but it’s worth it. It’s a high-end sports bar, it’s really nice inside and very clean… they even have automatic-opening bathroom doors.

Here you can see people sitting at the bar area of the restaurant. You can also see the crazy amount of tap handles which continues on the other side of the bar as well. (Photo/Marissa DeLuca)

The bar is located in the center of the restaurant with TVs all around so people can sit and drink beer and watch the football game. (Photo/Marissa DeLuca)

This is a picture of the outside dining area which is also supplied with TVs so people can watch sporting events. (Photo/Marissa DeLuca)

They have over 100 beers on tap! All of the beer comes from their keg room which holds 4,000 gallons of beer. I was so overwhelmed with decisions and excitement while looking at the beer options on the menu. They have so many choices and so many different styles. They have pale ales, IPAs, seasonals, fruit beers, lagers, wheat beers, spiced beers, porters, stouts, even classic light beers like Bud Light and Heineken. Which I thought was pretty cool because not everyone who enjoys beer necessarily likes craft beer. Or it works out if you and a group of friends want to go to go here and some of the people you are with don’t really like craft beer, at least they have beer options that they can choose from and enjoy. It’s nice that they cater to everyone’s tastes instead of making it all and only about craft beer on tap like one might assume would be the case at Yard House.

This is the menu at Yard House that holds every beer lover’s dream within it. (Photo/Marissa DeLuca)

This beautiful picture displays all the beer options you have at Yard House. Well, almost all, there’s another full page that didn’t fit into the picture. (Photo/Marissa DeLuca)

These are two beers that I tried. The one on the left was the one that I ordered, Green Flash Brewing Company, Soul Style (IPA). The one on the right was the one that my boyfriend ordered, Evil Genius Beer Company, Stacy’s Mom (IPA). (Photo/Marissa DeLuca)

The first beer that I tried was an IPA, of course. I ordered Green Flash Brewing Company‘s, Soul Style. Green Flash Brewing Company is located in San Diego, California. I tried another Green Flash beer called West Coast which is also an IPA. This beer has a very strong, hoppy taste, but it was good. A third beer I tried was again… an IPA… it was Evil Genius Beer Company’s, Stacy’s Mom. Evil Genius Beer Company is located in West Grove, Pennsylvania. This place has a huge variety of beers from all over the United States and also outside of the country. For instance, they had a stout from an English brewery called Wells & Young’s Brewery located in Bedford, England. The stout is called Young’s Double Chocolate which sounds delicious, I didn’t actually try it because I’m not a huge fan of stouts, but this one sounds intriguing since it’s chocolate. Yard House offers a “house” beer, that is only available for a limited time. It’s called Rogue Spruce Tip IPA. With the help of Rogue’s Brewery located in Newport, Oregon, they created this beer in order to celebrate their 19th anniversary year of business.

This is a close-up image of the many beers that they have on tap. (Photo/Marissa DeLuca)

Something unique about this place is that they offer “Six Pack Samplers.” A Six Pack Sampler is basically their version of a beer flight, you get six small glasses of six different beers. They have 3 different options of samplers: IPA, Belgian, and Traditional. The Traditional sampler changes every week and the two change annually.

Here is an image of the IPA Six Pack Sampler information. It includes Brooklyn Blast, Carton Brewing Boat Beer, Evil Genius Stacy’s Mom, Flying Fish Hopfish, and their House IPA. (Photo/Marissa DeLuca)

I had a wonderful experience visiting Yard House and it truly is every beer lover’s dream. They have a ton of beer to choose from, excellent food, and TVs for sporting events. It’s a great hangout spot for friends to go out and drink. If you love beer then you need to visit Yard House ASAP.

A photo of the outside entrance of Yard House. (Photo/Marissa DeLuca)

Sit Back and Watch a Guided Tour of Kane Brewing Company

A couple of weeks ago, I went and visited Kane Brewing Company in Ocean, New Jersey. Kane is a small brewery that sells their beer at over 200 locations in New Jersey. They are currently only distributing in New Jersey and they occasionally will sell their beer in cans, but for the most part you can only try their beer on tap! The brewery has a small bar inside where people can go and hangout and drink beer. They have guided tours every Saturday at 1PM, 2PM, 3PM, 4PM, 5PM, and 6PM, and also on Sundays at 1PM, 2PM, 3PM, and 4PM. You can also choose to take a self-guided tour. My tour guide was Emil Nauerz, who is also a Rowan Alumni who graduated in 2012. He walked us through the brewery and explained their brewing process. Please watch and learn all about Kane Brewing Company’s brewing process!

A Look Inside Neshaminy Creek

Robert Jahn, one of the owners of Neshaminy Creek Brewing Company. (Photo/Marissa DeLuca)

This past week I went and visited Neshaminy Creek Brewing Company located in Croydon, Pennsylvania. I got to speak with one of the three owners of the company, Robert Jahn. Robert Jahn is from Elizabeth, New Jersey and he is actually a Rowan alumni, he graduated in 2007 with a degree in History and Education. After he graduated, he traveled around with his friends who were in a band, taking the role as their camera man and also just hanging out and drinking beers. When his traveling days came to an end, he began homebrewing. Then, a friend of his, who previously worked for River Horse Brewery, proposed the idea of starting a brewery together. In 2010, Robert and his two friends started building up Neshaminy Creek Brewing Company. The brewery didn’t become official until June 1, 2012. Neshaminy Creek is relatively new, they currently distribute in New Jersey and half of Pennsylvania and are working on trying to distribute in Delaware and Maryland.

The brewery is set up in a warehouse in the town of Croydon. Robert explained to me how Croydon is not a huge craft beer drinking area. So, they made a beer named after the town, Croydon Cream Ale, in hopes to spark some more interest. Their brewery is a pretty cool hangout spot and very welcoming. When they first opened, Pennsylvania law didn’t allow them to serve pints of beer, but then the law changed and they opened a bar inside of their brewery. They also have a pool table, foosball, air hockey, arcade games, televisions for watching sports, and sometimes they host charity events in the brewery.

People sitting at the bar inside of Neshaminy Creek just hanging out and trying the beers that the brewery has on tap. (Photo/Marissa DeLuca)

People hanging out at the brewery, drinking beer, watching football, talking, etc. There was also a charity event going on in the brewery this day, puppies and cats were being sold for adoption. The benches that are seen in this picture are actually beer tables from Germany. (Photo/Marissa DeLuca)

Here is a picture of a man and his son playing air hockey inside the brewery and also two guys playing on the arcade machines. (Photo/Marissa DeLuca)

During my visit, I got to try 3 of their beers. Their County Line IPA, which is their biggest seller, A Good Problem To Have Double IPA and Dank Hill Wheat Double IPA. (Photo/Marissa DeLuca)

These wooden barrels are from England and are typically used for fermenting wine. Neshaminy Creek uses these barrels to age beer in order to create sour beers. (Photo/Marissa DeLuca)

This here is what they use to brew small batches of beer for their limited releases. (Photo/Marissa DeLuca)

Here is a picture of all the cans that will soon be filled with beer and distributed for sale. Last year, Neshaminy Creek brewed about 4,500 barrels of beer. This year, they are going to brew about 12,000 barrels. A barrel of beer is equivalent to 2 kegs, so for a different perspective, they will be making 24,000 kegs of beer this year!

Visiting this brewery was a lot of fun. I enjoyed learning about the background of the brewery and how it came about. In addition to being a brewery, it’s just a cool place to hangout and drink delicious craft beer. Robert said, “We are here to do business, but also to have fun”, and you definitely get this type of vibe from being in this brewery and when talking to the workers.  It’s a very welcoming, chill spot to be. I highly recommend going for a visit!

“The Beer Babe”: Carla Jean Lauter, freelance beer writer

Carla Jean Lauter, “The Beer Babe.” (Photo/Carla Jean Lauter)

Over this past week, I got to talk to a fellow craft beer blogger, Carla Jean Lauter. Carla is 33 years old and lives in Topsham, Maine. She grew up in Syracuse (Upstate New York), but moved to Maine in 2009.  She started her craft beer blog, “The Beer Babe“, in May of 2007. Carla has always loved to write. She likes science writing and nonfiction writing so much that she decided to minor in journalism and also wrote for the university newspaper while she attended college. She attended the University of New Hampshire where she received a B.S. in Marine and Freshwater Biology, and then she received an M. S. in Environmental Science/Environmental Education at Antioch University New England (New Hampshire).

Carla didn’t become interested in beer until after college when her friends started telling her about good tasting beer instead of the nasty, cheap beer you find at college parties. When she was 25 years old, she lived in a house with 5 room mates. There was a beer store around the corner from their house, and so Carla began going to the beer store each week to pick-up a six pack of beer that her and her room mates hadn’t tried yet. They would all hang out and drink beer and discuss their opinions about the beer. They wouldn’t keep track and so they never really knew which ones they liked and didn’t like. This sparked curiosity in Carla about all the different beer styles there are and this is when she decided to start her own blog to record and share her beer experiences. She chose the name, “The Beer Babe”, because it was memorable and she thought it would keep her anonymous, like a restaurant critic,  she said. She soon realized how kind and welcoming the craft beer community is and started receiving invites to breweries, events, and gatherings, with her being known as, “The Beer Babe.” She came to know that she was one of the only people concentrating on New England beer and also one of the very few female beer bloggers.

Two of the most challenging things that Carla faces while maintaining her blog are: time and money. She wishes that she could attend every beer event, dinner, and visit breweries across the world, but for financial and times reasons, she unfortunately can’t. Her beer blog is not her only job, she works during the day at a job she loves and so that job is top priority. Her blog originated as a hobby, but became a second job because she is now paid to write. Generally, the hardest thing for her is that she has many ideas to post, but not enough committed time. If she does not have a deadline to work with, she struggles keeping her postings to a regular schedule.

The most exciting part of running her blog is that she gets to sample some really creative beers and talk to amazing people. She loves being able to bring attention to breweries and beers that not many people know about, but should. She said it’s exciting when people out of her local area talk to her about her writing. One of the things she likes the most, is when a brewer is talking about a new beer or project they are working on and how their face lights up when when they are discussing it. She said the best “beer adventure” she has been on so far, was her recent trip to Carlsberg Brewery in Copenhagen, Denmark. She said, “It was fantastic, and made me realize how much beer history there was before the U.S. craft beer boom!”

Carla thinks that blogging is a way for people who, are subject-matter experts or want to start conversation, to have a voice. She says bloggers can go more in depth on a subject or from a different angle than what you would find in a standard newspaper. Journalists are trained to make sure they have their facts right before reporting on them, and bloggers are not trained for this, but should be held to this as well, in Carla’s opinion. She also believes that it’s best to maintain a professional attitude and stick to informing instead of incorporating too much opinion. As as whole, she believes that blogging is a way to let more voices in, and that she hopes that it will support, but not replace, traditional journalism.

Carla gave three main tips of advice for new bloggers:

• Decide on a posting frequency that you can keep up with
  • She says if you try to post to your blog every day, you’re going to burn yourself out. It’s better to be infrequent and regular.
• Meet as many people as you can
  • Referring to craft beer blogging, she said to meet as many people in the beer industry as you can. Sales reps, brewers, the guy that cleans the kegs, event organizers, etc. The more people you come in contact with, the more these people will give you a heads-up about upcoming events, beer releases, news, and so on.
• Keep a Google Doc of information
  • She said this is helpful so you don’t have to go looking up information every time. She keeps a Google Doc of all the breweries in Maine that she covers along with the full name of the brewery, name of the brewer, the year they opened, whether or not they bottle or can their beer, and if they have a tasting room.

This was a pleasure getting to speak to Carla, another female craft beer blogger. She gave some truly awesome information and advice. Her current favorite beer is Foundation Brewing Company (ME) – Epiphany (Double/Imperial IPA), which sounds like a beer I’m going to have to try. Go check out her blog!

The Life of a Homebrewer: Q and A interview with Scott Scott, an NJ homebrewer

First, what is homebrewing?

Homebrewing is brewing your own small amounts of beer for yourself, and not intended for profit. Homebrewing has been going on for years, like thousands of years, going all the way back to ancient times. According to Beer100, the oldest surviving beer recipe that we know of is a 3900-year-old Sumerian poem found in Mesopotamia. The poem honors Ninkasi, the patron goddess of brewing, and in the poem it describes how beer was produced from barley. There was actually a goddess of brewing, how awesome it that? Anyway, homebrewing is legal in all 50 states and exempt from federal taxation thanks to former President Jimmy Carter for signing the bill, H. R. 1337 in 1978. Homebrewers use brewing equipment (kits, brew pots, fermenters, boilers, tubing, etc.) and use either their own recipe or already known recipes that they try out themselves. Some people that brew their own beer are apart of a Homebrew Club. Homebrew Club activities can include going to meetings, sampling each other’s newest homebrew, taking trips to breweries, partaking in competitions, and so on.

This past week I interviewed with a homebrewer from New Jersey, Scott P. Scott. Scott and his friend started brewing their own beer together using an extract kit and have been for about 5 years now.

How did you first become interested in brewing beer at home? I actually was not interested in home brewing until my friend receive a kit for Christmas and asked for my help making beer.

Do you have a brewing kit? If so, what kind? Where did you get it? I currently have an American Wheat Beer kit purchased from Northern Brewer.

Can you explain the process of brewing? In brewing with an extract kit liquid malt is boiled and hops are added for bitterness, flavor and aroma to produce wort.The wort is combined with water to produce a pre-fermentation volume.  The wort is aerated and then yeast is added.  Each yeast strain has an optimal temperature and a length of time to convert sugars to CO2 and alcohol.

What kind of ingredients do you use? I use liquid extract, hops, water, yeast.

How long does it usually take? An extract kit takes several ours to brew.  Fermentation take a couple of weeks.

How much do you usually make? I brew five gallon batches.

How often do you brew beer? I make beer about five times a year.

What was your favorite beer you ever brewed? Why? My favorite was a Chinook India Pale Ale.  It had a wonderful bitterness and great piney hop flavor.

What was your least favorite beer you ever brewed? Why? I recently brewed and American Wheat Ale flavored with strawberry.  I did not care for the strawberry flavor.

How confident are you in your brewing skills? Do you feel confident in judging the outcome of the taste? Over the past five years I have improved my technique in each area of brewing.  The beers i make are consistently good quality.

Have you ever entered a homebrew competition or thought about it? I have not thought about entering a homebrew competition.  If I did, the beer making process would become an obsession to me instead of a fun hobby.

Are you a member of a Homebrew Club? Yes, Hamilton Hop Heads.

What is your favorite way to enjoy a beer? Out at a local pub with good food and friends.

What is your favorite craft beer (in general)? I tend to enjoy offerings from breweries rather than a single beer.  I like Stone Brewing and Lagunitas as my favorites.

It was a pleasure interviewing Scott about his homebrewing experience. I really enjoyed learning how the process of brewing at home works. My favorite part of the interview was his answer to the question about entering a competition. “I have not thought about entering a homebrew competition.  If I did, the beer making process would become an obsession to me instead of a fun hobby.”, I like this answer because it shows he genuinely enjoys what he does and that it’s just a fun activity that he loves to do at home. It was fun to learn about the ingredients used and the amount of time it takes. This interview was a nice little insight into the art of homebrewing.

The Social Beer Drinker: awesome apps to download

As you know, there’s an app for just about everything, including beer! When I first started drinking craft beer, my boyfriend introduced me to the app, “Untappd.” You can use this app to search a beer that you have tried and give it your own rating and review. You can also add friends and look at other people’s reviews. You can win badges as you add beers to your list. For example, I received a badge called, “Pale as the Moon”, for trying 5 different pale ales. This app is a fun way to keep track of the beers you try and to share your experiences with your friends. Best part, it’s FREE! I use this app every time I try a beer that I’ve never had before. It almost adds excitement to trying new beers because I love being able to add new ones to my list and give it my own rating as well as see other’s opinions. You can rate beers on a scale of 1-5. My highest rated beer is Pliny the Elder (Russian River Brewing Company found in Santa Rosa, California) with a 5 out of 5 because that beer is awesome. It’s an Imperial/Double IPA which means that it’s very hoppy. I’m a big fan of the hoppy beers and IPAs are my beer style of choice.

Another fun app you can download is called, “BeerMenus.” This app allows you to be able to search bars, restaurants, pubs, stores, etc., to see what kind of beers they have for sale. This app is helpful for when you are trying to find a certain beer you want to try or simply if you are just curious what’s on tap at a bar before you go out. It not only informs you where you can find a beer, but it tells you the kind of beer it is, the alcohol percentage, what size it comes in, and the price. Again… it’s FREE! This app is seriously great because when I’m trying to decide between a few places to go to eat, this app usually helps my decision by finding out what is on tap. By the way, “on tap” and also “on draft” mean that it is beer being poured from a keg through a tap instead of being in a bottle or a can. This is, in my opinion and the majority of the world, the best way to drink a beer. Yes, it makes a huge difference. It just tastes so much better. Anyway, so if I look up what beers that a restaurant has on tap and I see one that sounds really amazing or one that I’ve been wanting to try, then that’s where I’m going to eat. And it’s all thanks to the BeerMenus app for helping me with my indecisiveness.

 

 

 

Hopportunities

Don’t miss out on all of the fun craft beer has to offer! Here, you can find out about events, beer fests, and breweries in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. Always drink responsibly and don’t drink and drive!

Photo of 2014 Garden State Brewfest taken by: Garden State Hiker (Flickr.com)

• New Jersey Breweries
• New Jersey Events/Beer fests
• Pennsylvania Breweries
• Pennsylvania Events/Beer fests
• Delaware Breweries
• Delaware Events/Beer fests
• Events across the US!

I will be attending BLEND Central Jersey Beer Festival on October 10th in West Windsor, New Jersey so check back for photos and updates! Also, if you are interested in attending there are still tickets available!

“A little bit of beer is divine medicine.” –Paracelsus, Greek physician

 

Bring on the beer

I’ve created this blog to welcome you into the world of craft beer. Here you’ll find information about the history of craft beer, learn about the brewing process, and discover how craft beer is enjoyed daily and socially. I will be visiting breweries in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware and sharing my experiences and new knowledge through this blog. I will learn and share what an ordinary day is like for a brewer. I will also keep an update on beerfests and other events. I hope to inspire all to join in on the brew love. Enjoy!