On tap at Kitchen & Beer Bar, dry yellow grapefruit and orange rind bittering consumes piney interior, pumpernickel breaded rye malting and mild dark-roast hop pungency of grainier IPA.
450 NORTH HONEY KOLSCH
On tap at Kitchen & Beer Bar, raw-honeyed champagne-splashed kolsch malting kicks back while sour lemon fizz contrasts sweet doughy breading.
450 NORTH BLOOD MOON WITBIER
On tap at Kitchen & Beer Bar, deviating pale yellow hazed witbier brings tart blood orange adjunct to the fore as sour lemon-dropped green grape esters add mellow white wining that outdoes any stylish orange-peeled coriander sweetness.
SOUTH 40 BREWING COMPANY
EDISON, NEW JERSEY
Inside an old tan warehouse at the end of Raritan Center lies little hidden gem, SOUTH 40 BREWING COMPANY. A bustling 2,000 square foot facility with a small taproom and rustic right side overhead-doored brewing area (with stooled tables, old brown couch, beautiful agrarian proprietary mural and rear brew tanks), South 40 opened up October 2020.
An L-shaped lacquered pine serving station with twelve taps and blackboard beer list consumes the cement-floored taproom. A few sidled TV’s, loungey couches and wood tables fill out the space. A makeshift parking lot patio adds further seating.
Former homebrewing proprietor, Kevin Pacansky, mans South 40’s tanks. Constantly rotating stylistic fare and crafting mostly soft-toned elixirs, Pacansky utilizes different yeast strains for each separate beer. Paying tribute to an old road to Long Beach Island, South 40 has garnered many critical plaudits.
On my initial muggy noontime journey, August ’23, discovered four interesting brown ale variants alongside three locally popular India Pale Ales, a dry pilsner, blood orange pale ale and a fruited sour while chewing the fat with knowledgeable beertender, Dan Scanlon.
Strictly for less discriminating thirsts, but drawing in macrobrew denizens, light aluminum cleared Pilz Lite will please simpler palates with its millet-grained, oats-dried, corny malt liquor musk.
Mild blood orange tartness picked up delicate perfumed spicing and distant tangerine-clementine-cherry snips for honey malted pale wheat ale, One Orange Brain Cell, a nifty orange upside down cake divergence.
Lightly acidic raspberry tartness and sour blueberry rasps guided fruited sour, Blowin’ Raspberries, allowing leathery oaken cherry, white pear and rhubarb pie illusions to latently flow thru its salty acidulated malts.
Unique flagship India Pale Ale, Happily Peared, added subtle pear juicing to sharp citrus bittering, dainty red apple/ prickly pear sweetness and wavered lemony green grape esters, gaining mild herbal spicing over oated wheat flouring. A welcoming IPA changeup.
Easygoing year-rounder 40 Sessions All Day IPA retained frothy oats creaming for smoothly withered grapefruit, orange and pineapple tanginess as well as dry floral-perfumed spicing. Perfect for investigative pale ale lovers jumping over to less hoppy IPA’s.
Another well balanced IPA, Citra Skies, let candied lemon, pineapple and peach plus tangy orange-tangerine snips create a dandy fruit salad with minor bitter pining and a buttery pale malt backdrop.
As for the quartet of brown ales, salted caramel propelled Harvey’s English Style Brown Ale, leaving sweet chocolate hazelnut caking on its lovely confectionery finish.
Off-dry Chuffed Chap Brown Ale combined caraway-seeded rye breading and charred walnut bittering with sweet chestnut-almond-butternut conflux and dark chocolate remnant over a buttered biscuit base.
Toasted coconut sweetness endured for Nui Brown Ale, picking up chestnut, praline and fig niceties over mild chocolate malting.
Arguably the best and most complex of the bunch, Pecan Sky English Brown Ale let candied pecan pie sweetness indulge its fudgy cake-battered chocolate base, gaining hazelnut molasses, burnt caramel, praline and toffee subtleties.
TIMBER ALES BLENDED WITH LUMBER #1 IMPERIAL STOUT
Outstandingly elegant full-bodied stout blended with Elijah Craig bourbon whiskey and conditioned on Ugandan, Mexican and Comoros vanilla beans retains velvety dark chocolate syruping. Bittersweet cocoa nibs influence enriches bourbon vanilla, brandy and burgundy serenity above honeyed Graham Cracker base. Subtle cafe latte, cinnamon coffee, gingerbread coffee, granola and grape nut pleasantries penetrate chocolate-vanilla surface. Highly recommended.
ICARUS UNFLOWN PLEASURES IMPERIAL STOUT
On tap at Pompton Craft House, variant Imperial Stout semi-successfully blends molasses rye, Madagascar vanilla bean and coconut into debittered and black chocolate malting. Mild milk-sugared coffee tones, caramelized Maris Otter malts and maple syruping add latent sweetness to expansive Imperial derivation.
MOTHER EARTH MILK TRUCK LATTE STOUT
On tap at Hoover’s Tavern, well regarded ‘signature dark ale’ from Cali stays creamily smooth as luscious cafe latte, milk-sugared coffee and cappuccino tones receive capacious vanilla-chocolate sweetness over molasses oats base. Vanilla coffee creaming picks up candied Milk Dud chocolate splurge as well as lesser glazed hazelnut, pecan pie, macadamia and candied walnut snips.
FIFTH HAMMER DRAGON DRIP OATMEAL STOUT
On tap at Ambulance, expansive dark-roast Cloud Cover coffee bittering and creamy dark chocolate resilience settle above treacly oatmeal base. Deep coffee resonance picks up charred walnut, bitter Brazil nut and sweet hazelnut illusions.
OYSTER CREEK SUPERMASSIVE CHOCOLATE COCONUT STOUT
Semi-rich pastry stout goes for confectionery coconut-clustered dark chocolate candied Mounds Bar enticement. Expressive chocolate coconut splendor backed by vanilla-creamed marshmallow fluff, mild banana-chipped sugaring and dried cherry snip.
KOMES BARLEYWINE
Superb richly creamed top-fermented English-styled barleywine (with plush ruby browned body and well hidden 12% ABV)) brings caramelized dried fruiting to dewy peat mossing and delicate floral spicing. Brown-sugared dried cherry, plum and raisin resonate alongside subtle burgundy, brandy and bourbon licks, picking up candied molasses sweetness. Possibly the best Polish beer marketed in US.
VEIL THE BUGMAN HAZY DOUBLE INDIA PALE ALE
On tap at Kitchen & Beer Bar, relying less on typical citrus zesting and more on melon fruiting, perfumy orange-peeled grapefruit bittering of Eldorado-Simcoe-hopped NEIPA dangles honeydew, watermelon and pomelo tanginess plus salty passionfruit snag above dry pale malting.
VEIL SUPERNATURAL CREATURE DDH HAZY INDIA PALE ALE
On tap at Kitchen & Beer Bar, soft-toned, hazy golden glowed, double dry-hopped New England IPA plies orange-juiced yellow grapefruit and pineapple tanginess to salty guava-gooseberry souring and melon-y cantaloupe and clementine snips atop lightly creamed oats-flaked wheat base. Another worthy multi-hopped Veil IPA variant.
