Ghost Hawk Brewing Company – The Tap Takeover

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…

Oktoberfest takes up a good portion of the month and cooler temperatures are more prevalent. Dark beer season is beginning to settle in, though there is still plenty of room for the lighter ales and lagers. This month’s six pack is a mix of different styles, three of which are in the stout family. Three NJ breweries, 2 NY breweries, and 1 VT brewery. One new to me brewery and returns from a couple of breweries who haven’t appeared at the Triple T in years.

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Let’s crack open the October 2022 Six Pack …

Scrag Mountain Pils (Lawson’s Finest Liquids) | Pilsner – Czech | 3.75 Bottle Caps on untappd

Lawsons_Scrag

I had the Salt & Lime variant last year and finally got around to trying the original Scrag Mountain Pils recently. I thoroughly enjoyed this beer. Crisp, clean, flavorful, this beer boasts everything you could want in a pilsner. Delicious and world-class.

IPA (Finback Brewery) | IPA – American | 4.25 Bottle Caps on untappd

FinbackIPA

My wife and I happened to be in Brooklyn to catch a live recording of our favorite podcast, Hello from the Magic Tavern and as was pleased to see a pretty decent offering from local/Brooklyn breweries. I landed on this IPA from Finback because it was the only one that didn’t have Mosaic hops in it. Although it has a hazy west coast look, it’s got Chinook and Columbus that gives more of a West Coast hop profile, but there was a nice balance to the beer.

BA Coconut & Desist 2022 Weller Bourbon (Icarus Brewing Company) | Stout – Pastry | 4.25 Bottle Caps on untappd

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I visited Icarus for their annual “Build me Up Butternut” celebration for the third time and had a few beers including this is barrel-aged version of an Icarus beer that almost never was. You see, there’s a certain candy company that makes a candy bar with coconut and chocolate and Icarus wanted to evoke those flavors in a stout, many breweries make beers with this idea. However, the candy company “suggested” Icarus change the beer name, so they did. This beer is luxurious and everything a pastry stout should be, the coconut, bourbon, and chocolate are in sweet harmony.

Night Night (Bradley Brew Project) | Stout – Imperial / Double | 3.75 Bottle Caps on untappd

BBP_NightNight

Night Night is the first non-lager beer I’ve had from Bradley Brew Project and it sure is a thicc beer, as I’d expect an 11% stout to be. If you like bittersweet chocolate, then you’ll like this beer. I do, but what I like even more is how the vanilla cuts the bitterness just a little bit. The more beer I have from Bradley Brew Project, the more impressed I am with their output.

Ravendark (Ghost Hawk Brewing Company) | Stout – Foreign/Export | 4 Bottle Caps on untappd

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A night at a Barcade makes for some good beers, including this Stout from Ghost Hawk Brewing, my second beer from the North Jersey brewery. One way to think of this style of stout is a “Guinness, but more.” This beer is very prominent on roasted malts, which imparts a very flavorful amalgamation of coffee and dark chocolate. I was very impressed with this beer and it doesn’t really feel like 7.3% ABV.

Kim Hibiscus Sour Lager (SingleCut Beer Smiths) | Sour – Berliner Weisse | 4 Bottle Caps on untappd

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A sour Lager, sure, why not. Berliner Weisses can often be lagers and this one is quite unique. The beer has the slight funk I’d expect, and a bit of fruitiness, too. What really stands out to me is right there in the name, Hibiscus. A flower that imparts a great element of sweetness that may have balance with the currants in the beer. A really nice beer to finish off the night.

All told, a great October for beers.

Name: Lager
Brewing Company: Ghost Hawk Brewing
Location: Clifton, NJ
Style: Kellerbier/Zwickelbier
ABV: 5%

An impressive self-appointed Flagship Lager that is compatible with every kind of food or situation.

Great label, great logo for the brewery, and a fine beer.

From Ghost Hawk Brewing’s “What’s on Tap” Page:

Brewed according to the German Beer Purity Law of 1516 using imported malts and American noble hops, this golden export lager is balanced and satisfying. It’s the perfect beer to wash down a Ripper or enjoy with your favorite pizza.

Ghost Hawk Brewing Company is Passaic County NJ’s first independent/craft brewery and they’ve made a name for themselves in quick order after opening in April 2019. Not surprising when you launch a brewery whose brewmaster has nearly 30 years of experience. Less than a year later, cans of their beer have been popping up in beer shops in the state, which leads to their flagship lager, simply titled Lager. It was, perhaps, fortuitous that I was able to enjoy this beer in time to slot this review in February, specifically Flagship February, which is a movement in the craft beer world over the past couple of years:

Our thinking is that flagship beers have much to teach new drinkers and remind older drinkers, and if they fall off the radar so far that they disappear completely, we will all be that much poorer for it

This one is classified as a “Kellerbier” which is not the most common beer style in the world (especially America) or even a word with which many people are familiar, but it is a style that has been around for many years. So while Ghost Hawk Brewing Company is a new brewery, the fact that they’ve positioned such an old-world style as their “Flagship Lager” is worth note. The word, shockingly, is German for “cellar” because of how they are stored, but most importantly because Kellerbiers are neither pasteurized nor are they filtered. Imagine that, an unfiltered, somewhat hazy beer? But I digress. Most kellerbiers are essentially unfiltered Helles Lagers or pale lagers. With that starting point….

From the 16oz can, this Lager pours a golden hue with a bit of cloudiness. There’s not the overwhelming haziness of say, a New England IPA, but the beer is by no means clear. The beer looks the part of an unfiltered lager.

I don’t get much off of the aroma outside of the cliched it is a beer that smells like a beer. Trite, I know, but also true. 😊 That said, I find the aroma and the look of the beer very inviting and pleasing.

The taste… oh boy was this a nice Lager. I found it a little reminiscent of Carton Brewing’s This Town (a Helles Lager), there’s a nice crackery/breadiness to the beer from the malts, but unlike This Town I’m tasting a little bit of fruitiness from the hops. Drinkability is another term that is thrown around quite bit, but this beer has it in spades. Very tasty and thirst quenching; each sip makes you want to have more. For a beer that is 5%, that’s a great quality to have.

For #FlagshipFebruary, this beer doesn’t exactly hew to the “beers that got us here” ethos, but it is a beer that can proudly stand up as a beer the exemplifies a brewery’s quality. Besides, shouldn’t a brewery nominate one of their beers as a Flagship? For a brewery to come out this strongly with such a good Lager as a core beer is impressive. Ghost Hawk boldly proclaims this as a “Flagship” on their label and Ghost Hawk Lager is a great beer to slap with such a status. Not sure how much it sells, but any brewery would be well-positioned with such a great beer in their portfolio and as their Flagship.

Ghost Hawk is only about a year old so their beers aren’t super widely available outside of NJ. They began canning late 2019, which is how I grabbed this beer. It was a nice surprise to see it in a relatively new liquor store so I immediately snagged a four pack, which did not last very long in my refrigerator.

Recommended, link to 4 bottle-cap Untappd check in.