CLARKSBORO, NEW JERSEY
New Jersey’s first coffee-beer brewhouse opened at the Villages of Whisky Mill in Clarksboro during August 2017. Playing tribute to the first hunting club in America, homebrewers Chuck Garrity and Dan Natkin initially partnered up because they liked German and Brit styled beers, leading to the creation of humble café-styled pub, DEATH OF THE FOX BREWING COMPANY.
An L-shaped 18 stool bar services three front-windowed tables, three mid-room tables, one community table and plush left side living room furnishings. Caged Edison lights hang from the high pipe-exposed aluminum ceiling and an emblematic Death of The Fox crest highlights the bright red right wall above six historic hunting portraits.
While the backroom brewery creates rangy regularly rotated fare and engaging one-off limited edition beers for the sixteen draught lines, a full menu of flavored coffees are also brewed here.
During my two-hour Friday afternoon visit, April ’19, I consumed ten original elixirs with my wife before heading to Renault Winery & Golf Club for further relaxation.
Lemon-peeled coriander spiced up modest flagship witbier, Sunshine Patriot, a casual off-dry summertime refresher with wheat-cracked sugared wafer spine.
Another fine flagship offering, New England-styled IPA, Hazy Crazy Diamond, grazed lactic milk-souring barley flouring against lemon-dropped grapefruit, peach and mango tanginess over groaty rolled oats.
Straight-up citrus moderation, Overflow Double IPA, stayed stylishly conforming as its grapefruit-peeled orange tang and zesty lemon spritz picked up herbal piney hop resin.
Goose-berried Huell Melon hops provided mild guava, passionfruit and pomegranate tartness for Dual Hop -Sterling Melon IPA, leaving unexpected pastry-caked donut residual upon deceptive cinnamon sugaring in a happily offbeat manner.
Easygoing dry-bodied Hessian Session Kolsch brought sour lemon-rotted grape esters to crisp spelt-grained pale malting.
Brown-sugared dried fruiting remained low key for caramel-spiced Reynard’s Last Chance Doppelbock, a sedately plum-date-induced moderation with mossy earthen dewiness.
Roasted caramel malting picked up dry earthen nuttiness for middling Hulda’s Black Forest Schwarzbier.
Hazelnut-glazed brown chocolate sweetness absorbed delectable English brown ale, Hazelnut Hound, leaving cocoa-powdered dried fruiting on its nutty mocha resonation.
Smoky milk chocolate creaminess defined the nitrogenated version of Stout Heard Round The World.
My fave was wonderful winter warmer, Spruce Wintersteen, where spruce-tipped fern minting sidled milk chocolate richness and juniper berry bittering in a most refreshingly unconventional way.
www.deathofthefoxbrewing.com