August 2022 – The Tap Takeover

Beer Review: Better Maize Ahead by Neshaminy Creek Brewing Company

Name: Better Maize Ahead
Brewing Company: Neshaminy Creek Brewing Company
Location: Croydon & New Hope, PA
Style: Cream Ale
ABV: 4.4%

Happy Anniversary to Neshaminy Creek Brewing Company and cheers to a fantastic Cream Ale!

From Neshaminy Creek Brewing Company’s landing page for the beer:

The classic American Cream Ale is dear to our hearts and quite frankly, we miss having one around but we’re moving forward! Better Maize Ahead fills that void as a crisp and refreshing relative of the American Light Lager. Brewed with flaked maize and gently hopped with Hallertau for a delicate floral finish. You’ll find this to have a soft mouthfeel with a subtle, sweet cereal character and notes of corn pops. You’ll be feeling equally optimistic when you pour yourself one of these.

This year (2022), Neshaminy Creek Brewing Company celebrated 10 years of brewing and selling tasty beer. To honor the milestone, the brewery did a minor rebranding, slightly modifying the name stamp and upping their can art game.

I knew I wanted to highlight one of their beers here at the Tap Takeover, but with such an interesting and diverse portfolio, I wasn’t sure which beer it would be. As of this post, I’ve had 20 of their beers and I’ve enjoyed just about all of them. I visited the main brewery in Croydon a couple of times, too. I’d been pondering which of their beers to feature for a while especially since they hit the 10-year mark, actually, so when my wife and I took a quick drive down to New Hope, PA, where Neshaminy Creek has a tap room, I figured I’d give Better Maize Ahead a try. I’d been wanting to drink and feature an unfettered* Cream Ale for a while now, and the two thoughts converged with this beer and I couldn’t have been more pleased.

*unfettered in that there are no adjuncts, additional flavor elements, or barrel aging like the other Cream Ales I’ve reviewed

Cream Ales are one the few truly American styles of beer. Originating in the 1840s, the Cream Ale is an Ale that is very similar to a lager, it has the same kind of crispness, refreshing nature, mild sweetness and look. Although some Cream Ales may have lager yeast for cold conditioning, most Cream Ales are just that, Ales. Where this makes a Cream Ale perhaps more appealing to a brewer is the reduced fermentation time for an Ale (two to four weeks compared to the 6-8 weeks for a Lager). As the beer is an American style, Corn (specifically flaked corn) is often used as the grain to lighten the beer, which is where Neshaminy Creek drew inspiration for the name of this beer.

Enough of the history lesson on Cream Ales, let’s get on to Better Maize Ahead.

The day we visited the NCBC New Hope taproom, it was quite warm (as it has been for most of August this past summer) and my wife and I had walked up and down Main Street in New Hope so we both worked up a bit of a sweat. I follow the brewery on social media and I was intrigued about this beer and I wanted something light, refreshing and beer flavored and was hoping this beer would be on tap. Also, John Holl (of all the beer podcasts and one of the people behind Defend Pilsner) always extolls the virtues of the Cream Ale. Hell, his likeness adorns a can cream ale from his co-conspirator’s brewery.

I ordered a full pint of this beer (only $5!) and took my first sip and dammit if this beer wasn’t exactly what the doctor ordered, as the saying goes. Pure refreshment. It was all I could do not to chug the beer in two gulps, but I wanted to enjoy the beer in all its glory and get a sense of the full flavor profile.

There’s a sweet malt element that is extremely appealing with a very mild, barely noticeable hop element – that minimal, soft hoppiness is a feature, not a bug. There’s a hint of corn or sweet cereal on the finish that makes for a very well-rounded, balanced flavor profile on the beer.

Better Maize Ahead is elegant, simple, straight-forward and quite flavorful for a beer this low in ABV and under 5%. I was so impressed with the beer I looped back around to the brewery after a short jaunt through the indoor market and grabbed a six pack to put in my poolside cooler. Quite simply, this is a fun beer that will please most beer drinkers.

Recommended, link to 4/4.25 bottle cap untappd rating check in.

Untapped badges earned with this beer:

Cream of the Crop (Level 7)

A relative of the American light lager style, cream ales are crisp, golden brews, often finished with the addition of lager yeast for a lighter body. That’s 35 different beers with the style of Cream Ale.

Beer Review: Heavy Reel Brewing’s SKELLINATOR

Beer Review

Name: SKELLINATOR
Brewing Company: Heavy Reel Brewing Company
Location: Seaside Heights, NJ
Style: Bock – Dopplebock
ABV: 7.2%

The Jersey Shore brewery known for sours churns out a tasty classic German Lager.

I’ve reviewed a couple of beers that were a collaboration between Heavy Reel Brewing and another brewery, but this is the first all Heavy Reel beer getting the review feature here at the Tap Takeover. My wife, myself and a few others made our annual trip down to Chegg’s in Long Beach Island, NJ and as has been custom, we stopped at a brewery on the way home. This year, we stopped at Heavy Reel Brewing in Seaside Heights since it was just off the Garden State Parkway about 20 miles north of the LBI exit.

Heavy Real has been around for a few years (since 2018), they are best known for their hop-forward beers and sour beers. That said, I will often spotlight a beer slightly askew from a brewery’s core or flagship beer. Thus, I’m reviewing Heavy Reel’s take on the classic, malty, German lager.

The beer I’m given is murky brown in the classic Germanic, dimpled mug. A thick light khaki head sat atop the brownish-caramel colored beer. Although it isn’t as translucent as I’d expect from a doppelbock, it looks the part. Maybe this is an unfiltered beer?

The beer has a very sweet, almost chocolatey taste at the outset. A very appealing first impression that makes me glad I ordered a full pour of the beer. Skellinator also has a very pleasant caramel element, also from the malt. There’s a slight bite on the end that reminds of perhaps the most well-known American doppelbock, Tröegs Troegenator.

Most doppelbocks have the -ator as a “calling card” to the style and an homage to the first Dopplebock brewed, Paulaner’s Salvator. With a skeleton being Heavy Reel’s mascot, thus we have the name “SKELLINATOR.”

I had a couple of other beers while I was at the brewery, two sours which were tasty, but the Dopplebock stood out to me. It is an extremely well-made lager and when I complemented the beertender on the beer, he noted that it was his favorite beer, or at least one of his favorites from the brewery.

Recommended, link to 4.25 bottle cap untappd rating check in.

Beer Review: Sixpoint Brewing’s Super Raspy

Beer Review

Name: Super Raspy
Brewing Company: Six Point Brewing Company
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Style: Sour – Fruited Gose
ABV: 8.3%

The Brooklyn-based brewery known for hop-forward beers crafts a tasty, tart, fruited German-inspired ale.

From Sixpoint Brewing’s landing page for the beer:

A lush, juicy burst of tart raspberry blitzes the tastebuds –like an ELECTRIC BLAST OF BERRY FLAVOR and aroma! In Super Raspy, loads of raspberries and a touch of milk sugar have their powers combined for a mouthwatering, super tasty brew.

Sixpoint is one of the great, historical northeast craft breweries. They were one of the foundational Brooklyn craft breweries. Founded 2004, they’ve been crafting hop aggressive beers which were immediately recognizable for their thinner cans. In other words, the potent hop nature, strong branding, and unique cans helped the brewery to stand out from other beers on the shelves. Fast forward to 2018 and Sixpoint was acquired by Artisanal Brewing Ventures, the family office-backed holding company formed in early 2016 via the merger of Victory Brewing and Southern Tier. Sixpoint has mostly stuck to their core beers from what I’ve seen, but the last year or two more experimental, or rather beers outside their core brews, seemed to emerge. Super Raspy is one of those beers,

Outisde of their Core beers, Sixpoint has been brewing and distributing beers in what they call the “Infinite Loop” series, which is where this beer sits in their portfolio, which is where this beer sits in Sixpoint’s line-up. What we have here is a beer that amounts to an imperial Gose. What makes it imperial? The ABV at 8.3%, whereas a Gose will typically be floating under 5%. Like many modern Goses, or interpretation of the Gose style, Sixpoint made this beer with fruit, specifically Raspberry.

There’s a tangy funky aroma to the beer, which I’ve come to expect from the Gose style. Raspberry is the most potent element of this beer on the first sip, including the tartness associated with the fruit. The funk that typically crosses my palate in a Gose is present in Super Raspy.

Where this differs from many other Goses I’ve had, especially the more traditional take on the style, is the addition of lactose, or milk sugar, which seems to be one of the most popular adjuncts in brewing. Thankfully, lagers are about the only style where I haven’t seen Lactose added. As for Super Raspy, the “touch of” lactose is a nice sweet counterbalance to the tartness of the Gose style as well as the tartness of the raspberries.

As the picture might suggest, I enjoyed this beer on a hot day next to my pool which was an ideal way to enjoy this refreshing ale.

Recommended, link to 4 bottle cap untappd rating check in.

Beer Review: Bull ‘N Bear’s Alternative Investments

Beer Review

Name: Alternative Investment
Brewing Company: Bull N Bear Brewery
Location: Summit, NJ
Style: Altbier
ABV: 5.5%

Bull n Bear crafted a nice, malty easy drinking and flavorful German Ale.

I was in Summit, NJ recently for a few things and knowing I was going to be in Summit, one of those things was visiting Bull ‘n Bear Brewery. I was quite happy with the beer I had when the brewery first opened and a subsequent visit, so I was happy to give their beer another try. Altbier (literally, “Old Beer” in German) is not exactly a popular style in today’s “craft” beer landscape. Northeast brewery Long Trail’s “Long Trail Ale” is one of the few more widely available interpretations of the style so I was excited to see “Alternate Investment” on draft.

Altbiers are predominant in the Düsseldorf region of Germany and are one of the few German styles not a lager (Hefeweizen and Dunkelweizen being the others). Often characterized by a maltiness, some sweetness, and maybe some hop character, the color is often reddish brown or even copper. An English Brown Ale is a somewhat close equivalent, but the malts in the Altbier will stand out as a major differentiator from my experience.

On to the beer under review, Alternative Investments from Bull N Bear Brewery…

I’m given a brownish-reddish beer that is cold to the touch. Slight aroma, but nothing that would set it apart from other beers I’ve had. First sip is smooth and malty.

There’s a slight sweetness from the malt, the kind of tastiness that makes you want to drink the beer very quickly. I get notes of caramel and hints of vanilla, two flavors that complement each other very well. As such, those flavors work well in this beer. Maybe a hint of chocolate, as well as slight fruitiness. It isn’t over carbonated and at a nice ABV of 5.5% make for a beer that delivers on flavor, but won’t knock you over the head with booziness All in all, a really tasty, flavorful profile of the beer.

Recommended, link to 3.75 bottle cap untappd rating check in.

Originating from Germany, the Altbier, or old beer, uses the old school brewing style of top fermentation and is left to condition for longer than normal. That’s 10 different beers with the style of Altbier. .

Draught Diversions: July 2022 Six Pack

Draught Diversion, Monthly New Brews

Draught Diversions is the catchall label for mini-rants, think-pieces, and non-review posts here at The Tap Takeover. We hope you don’t grow too weary of the alcohol alliterative names we use…

SixPack_2022_July

As readers of this blog know, July is a big beer month thanks to the annual family party on the Fourth of July. That will often bring even more new beers to me and July 2022 was no different. I also happened to visit a few different breweries in NJ this past month, and one in Massachusetts as I documented a couple of weeks ago. Just one non-NJ beer this month, but it was a milestone beer for me, at least on untappd. No IPAs this time around, just one lager, but a fruitful assortment of beers, if you well.

Let’s have at it, shall we?

Mad Love (Twin Elephant Brewing) | Farmhouse Ale – Saison | 4 Bottle Caps on untappd

TwinElephant_MadLove

I was in the area of Twin Elephant so I made a long overdue stop at the brewery in Chatham. I wasn’t sure what I wanted because the taplist had quite a few appealing beers. I settled on this hefty (7.2%) Saison which was very earthy with a nice fruity balance. Although the Herd is more known for hop-bombs and stouts, this beer shows their skill at the art of the Saison quite well.

Cranberry Wheat (Hidden Sands Brewing Company) | Wheat Beer – American Pale Wheat | 4.25 Bottle Caps on untappd

HiddenSands_CranWheat

This is the first beer from Hidden Sands I’ve had the pleasure of enjoying and it was a dandy. Cranberries are a great fruit to add into beer, particularly a wheat beer. There’s a really nice balance to the tartness of the fruit from the “heaps of NJ honey” added to the beer. I could drink this beer all day in the summer.

Bay Daze (Cape May Brewing Company) | Sour – Fruited | 4.25 Bottle Caps on untappd

CapeMay_BayDaze_Tbl

I sometimes overlook Cape May because they are so large and their beers are ubiquitous throughout the State of New Jersey, but then bam! They brew a beer like Bay Daze to raise the bar for a sour ale. This isn’t the sourest of beers I’ve ever had, but it might be one of the more refreshing sour ales I’ve had. The classic pairing of cherry and lime is perfectly balanced and the sea salt just brings everything together. On top of that, the can art has a puppers on it.

Delirium Black Barrel Aged (Delirium – Huyghe Brewery | Belgian Strong Dark Ale | 4.25 Bottle Caps on untappd

Delirium_Black2500

I knew I was coming up on 2500 unique check-ins to untappd for a while and wanted to have a special beer for it, but didn’t know what it would be. When a co-worker gifted this to me, I knew and this is certainly a very interesting beer. The yeast of a Belgian ale is often the signature element and it plays some interesting notes with the barrel character. As it warms, the vanilla, oak, and bourbon elements emerge more potently.

The Juice is Worth the Squeeze: Blueberry, Raspberry, Lemon (Icarus Brewing) | Sour –- Fruited Berliner Weisse | 4.25 Bottle Caps on untappd

Icarus_JuiceSqueeze

Very shocking to see an Icarus beer here, I know. I did visit the brewery for their Canniversary in the middle of the month, so I had a few to choose from in July and went with this small batch Sour ale. Icarus does the Berliner Weisse style very well and this might be the best one I’ve had. I wonder if it will be a new “series” of the style. Either way, the blueberry is the star here, while the lemon is really nice on the finish. It was quite warm during the event at the brewery and this beer was a perfect cure for that heat.

Great Dane (Readington Brewery & Hop Farm) | Lager – Dortmunder/Export | 4.25 Bottle Caps on untappd

Readington_GreatDane

My dog Dusty is part Great Dane, so how do I not get a beer called “Great Dane” from my most local of local breweries? Fortunately, the beer was really tasty. Dortmunder Lagers are usually a little sweeter than say, a Helles Lager or Pilsner, but in the same family. Readington’s take on the style was very clean, dialed-in, and hit the spot. It is really nice to see this brewery making beer that continues to get better each time I visit.

All great beers and I could have made an additional 4-pack of new-to-me beers that were just about as equally excellent.