On tap at Plank Pizza, festive golden cleared lager celebrates Octoberfest with spruced-up wintry spiced dried fruiting and musty apple rot angling towards crisp leafy hop astringency over raw-honeyed sourdough malts.
Another soft-toned double dry-hopped IPA. Mellow yellow grapefruit, lemon cake and navel orange tang fortified by cannabis-oiled pine lacquer over honey-spiced pale malts. In the distance, light rum sweetness counters redcurrant vodka snip.
Exotic pinkish amber sour ale utilizes tart dragonfruit adjunct as lemon limed zesting and moderate vinous acidity allow briny passionfruit, kiwi and guava tropicalia to enter the hard-candied center.
Dry puffy white-headed golden-bodied moderation retains crisp barley roast, light perfumed spicing and gluey starching. Pleasantly sweet summertime lager.
SOMERSET, NEW JERSEY
Open May 2019, JERSEY CYCLONE BREWING COMPANY operates a light modern Industrial-furnished 2,500 square foot tasting room in the middle of a professional office mall in Somerset. Local proprietary homebrewers Jan Chwiedosiuk and Brian Teel began working together a few years back and now they specialize in wholly expressive IPA’s and stouts plus worthy pilsner-lagers and fruity kettle-soured Uncharted Waters variants.
Jersey Cyclone’s brick-based, wood lacquer-topped back bar draws 14-plus brews from the stainless steel draught station. Twisted metal-designed cyclone-webbed tap handles occupy the repurposed fire hydrants (previously used as water fountains) and caged Edison lights hang from the ceiling. Community-tabled benches fill out the pristine interior and an outdoor beer garden provides further space.
I hung out with owner Jan Chwiedosiuk at Plank Pizza one Friday night in early December ’21 to down eight proprietary 5-ouncers. Then, a week hence, my wife and I dropped by Jersey Cyclone to down a few more diversified suds.
Soft-toned Eye Of The Storm, a sunny tropical flagship India Pale Ale, combined lemony grapefruit zesting, brisk orange peel sweetness and spicy peach-mango-tangerine sugaring above crystal-caramel malts – leaving dank pine tones on its candied citrus finish.
Easygoing tropical-fruited IPA, Microburst, gathered orange-peeled grapefruit zesting, peachy lychee-pineapple-mango tanginess and wax-candied cherry blip to contrast juniper-embittered currant tannins.
Lightly lactic Imperial IPA, Harbor Of Refuge, contrasted tangy citrus spicing and sweet caramel malts against mild red-peppered jalapeno heat as earthen pine resin and celery-watered herbage scurried below.
Pleasantly fruited kettle sour, Uncharted Waters Cranberry Orange, plied salted berry-citrus tartness and pithy orange juicing (plus white peach tartness) to lactic acidulated malts.
Toasted amber graining and dewy peat mossing (reminiscent of a red ale) picked up mild dried fruiting and dainty nuttiness over biscuity malts for Touchdown Lager, an offbeat Dunkelweizen.
Tarry black patent-malted dark chocolate syruping greeted Baltic Porter, Storm Surge, bringing ancillary coffee-stained maple oats and dark toffee spicing to dewy brown-leafed hop astringency.
Luxuriously detailed Imperial Stout, Barrel Aged Flood, steeped in rum, rye and bourbon barrels, let creamy dark chocolate and bourbon vanilla richness propel molasses-sapped nuttiness, dainty raisin-plum-prune subtleties and brandied burgundy wining above recessive charcoal hop sear.
Decadent confectionery dessert, Back For S’More, a bold lactose stout with cocoa nibs, vanilla beans and cinnamon, received chewy marshmallow-honeyed Graham Cracker sugaring and sneaky almond-praline-toffee illusions latently contrasted by a subtle wood-singed hop char. its fudgy brown chocolate overtones and creamy vanilla richness enhanced the fulsome finish.
The above beers were consumed at Plank Pizza, but the suds below got imbibed at Jersey Cyclone early December ’21.
Brisk clear golden Czech pilsner, Clear Skies, combined raw-grained oated wheat with musky floral herbage.
Lively NEIPA, Pole Reversal, brought orange-peeled peach, pineapple and grapefruit tanginess to salty pine needled hop bittering above sugary pale malts in a stylishly straightforward way.
Lactic kettle-soured fruited gose, Uncharted Waters Passionfruit, let mildly acidic lemon-limed Himalayan pink salting embitter its dry passionfruit-pureed gooseberry tartness.
A spicier Baltic Porter, Storm Surge engaged its caramelized dark chocolate base with cinnamon French toast illusions plus spiced coffee, anise and toffee atop molasses-smeared brown breading.
Coffee-stained dark chocolate malting saddled Flood, a dewy Imperial Stout with soily compost-wafted nuttiness.
Bold lactic vanilla beaned Imperial Coffee Porter, Snowtoberfest, graced its roasted coffee frontage with holiday-inspired cinnamon-spiced brown chocolate, gingerbread, Amaretto, glazed hazelnut and dark cocoa regalia.