BLAIRSTOWN, NEW JERSEY
Established 2015, BUCK HILL BREWERY occupies a green wood paneled corner lodge at the agrarian Northwest Jersey corridor in Blairstown. Crafting mostly approachable beers leaning ion the mild side, the upscale pub’s mellow moderations suit blue collar tastes best.
Buck Hill’s left windowed brewtanks provide the octagon wood lacquered bar with up to twenty tap handled libations. There are a few two-seat round tables, four-seat square tables and community tables plus a heavenly wood-furnished loft. Three centralized TV’s at the bar provide sports entertainment.
Entrees, burgers and pub starters lined the food menu and a beautiful brick shelved liquor cabinet provided craft spirits alongside the proprietary suds.
In early June ’24, I tossed back a dozen five-ounce samplers.
Pleasant dry-hopped Italian pilsner, Mario It’s A Pils, soaked herbal lemon musk into lightly smoked beechwood (?) malts, picking up subtle lemongrass and dried floral snips.
Easygoing Backwoods Blonde retained a polite lemon candied tartness for salty white peppered herbage, grassy hop astringency and wispy dark floral tones.
Fusing Backwoods Blonde with strawberry, Strawberry Blonde stayed lollipop tart as floral-daubed rhubarb sweetness and earthen celery crisping crept aboard.
Post-fermented sour raspberry tartness pervaded mild Belgian witbier, Raspberry Wrath, letting mild lemon acidity bring the finishing bitterness.
An abstruse Belgian-styled sour ale, Slice Of Summer forwarded its tart watermelon adjunct to puckered lemon liming and cucumber watered crisping.
Spritzy light-bodied Mexican-styled blonde ale, Cerveza Cierzo, let limey Motueka hops pick up salt-licked agave cologne wisps above bready pilsner malts.
Effervescent gold-clouded wheat ale, Cumulus, compromised stylish orange-peeled coriander spicing for moldy lemon musting, phenol white grape esters and mild cologne musk above its cracked wheat base.
Mild coffee-stained chocolate mustiness, toasted amber graining and crisp cigarette roast paced Cliff’s Red Ale, leaving toffee sweetness to outlast desiccated orange musk at the backend.
One of Buck Hill’s most popular brews, West Coast IPA, Hitchin’ Post, maintained dry lemony orange stead for light pine tones and lightly sugared pale malts.
Dewy peat saddled English brown ale, Nutty Professor, gaining tobacco-roasted chestnut, caramelized hazelnut and candied walnut persistence.
Smoked dark chocolate embraced soft-toned nitro porter, Black Powder, leaving black cherry whims upon the dried cocoa finish.
Coffee-milked brown chocolate creaming consumed lactic stout, Saddle Sore, an oats-toasted dark ale with mild nuttiness.