Update: Tasting Room, Brewing, On Tap and Events

The last few weeks have been pretty hectic around the brewery.  Most importantly we opened the tasting room this past weekend and our new Belgian-style glasses showed up just in time.  First off we want to thank everyone who came out to support us for our opening.  We couldn’t really keep track of how many people stopped by but met some great people and filled over 50 growlers—so I have to say it was a good day.  Same time, same place every Saturday.   

 

We also fired up the brew house last week and brewed our biggest beer yet.  It was our take on an imperial stout.  We filled our mash tun to the top with over 2,200 pounds of grain then added 120 pounds of dark Belgian Candi Sugar to the kettle to up the gravity, add some fig, dark chocolate and burnt sugar notes to the beer and help dry it out a bit.  Our plan is to rest this beer in some fresh bourbon barrels for six to twelve months then hand bottle it when it’s ready.  

Our plan has always been to try and work in some unique and creative beers between brewing our year-round and seasonal beers and this was the first attempt at that.  Since our tanks are empty while we are delivering our first couple batches it seemed like the perfect time to get something different fermenting.

We also delivered a bunch of kegs last Friday and expect a few more to go out this week.  The list of places that either has Kane on tap or has kegs waiting to be tapped is.  Right now our kegs at The Twin Light Taphouse and Brickwall in Asbury were kicked--we hope to get more on soon.

Bars & Restaurants:

Bond St. Bar
208 Bond Street
Asbury Park, NJ 07712

http://www.bondstreetbar.com/

Fish Urban Dining

601 Mattison Ave

Asbury Park, NJ

07712

http://www.fishasburypark.com/

Main Street Bar & Grill

732 Route 35

Ocean, NJ 07712

http://mainstreetbarandgrillnj.com/

Piccola Italia

837 West Park Ave

Ocean, NJ 07712

http://www.piccolaitalianj.com/web/

Surf Taco

21 South Hope Chapel Road

Jackson NJ 08527

http://www.surftaco.com/locations/jackson/

Nip and Tuck Bar

23 Norwood Avenue

Long Branch NJ 07740-5424

https://www.facebook.com/NipBar

Maloney's Pub and Grill

119 Main St

Matawan New Jersey 07747

www.maloneyspubnj.com

Buffalo Wild Wings

# 2004A, 180 State Route 35

Eatontown NJ 07724-2014

Tap Room at the Somerset Hills Hotel

200 Liberty Corner Road  

Warren, New Jersey 07059 

http://www.thesomersethillshotel.com/

Growler Stations:

Cranbury Buy Rite

2678 Rte 130

Cranbury, NJ 08512

http://www.facebook.com/cbuyrite#%21/cbuyrite?sk=wall

Joe Canal's - Lawrence Twp

3375 Route 1

Lawrence Twp, NJ 08648

http://www.joecanals.com/lawrenceville.html

Joe Canal's - Woodbridge

489 Route 1 South

Woodbridge, NJ 08830

http://www.joecanals.com/iselin-woodbridge.html

The kegs we sent to Joe Canal’s will not be tapped for a few weeks.  We are working on an event for both locations, but we will let you know when it’s confirmed.

Speaking of events—we have a few that are confirmed for the next week or so.  This Thursday we will be taking part in the New Jersey Beer Night at Barcade in Jersey City.  This is going to be a great event and we wish there were more like this.

All operating breweries in NJ are sending two kegs and some brewery reps to Barcade for the night.  The list looks impressive and we can’t wait to try some of the other great beers being brewed in the Garden State.  If the event is half as cool as the promotional poster they created, we’re in for a good night. 

http://barcadejerseycity.com/special-events/

We are also going to be pouring beer at a fund raising BBQ in Lavallette.  It should be a great time and its for a good cause.  More information is available at the link below—if you’re going to be in the area it’s worth checking out:

http://www.lavallette.org/forms/2011events/FirecoPigRoast.pdf

We have a few more events in the works but we will post them as we get confirmation.  

Finally, the person who has been working to find a solution to our glycol issues was in to pull apart the system headers and remove and rework the mess that our first highly unqualified plumber made. It seems to be working correctly now, but we still have to re insulate the copper then we should finally be able to put the glycol problems to rest.  Of course it seems like the probe on our bright tank isn’t working now.

Where to Find Us

With our first week officially under our belts, we wanted to take a minute to thank a few of our first accounts and let you know where to find us so far.

We are grateful to Bob at Nip N Tuck in Long Branch for tapping our first ever keg, Twin Light Tap House in Highlands for hosting our first Kane Brewing event, and Maloney's in Matawan for inviting us to be part of their excellent Jersey Fresh Dinner. You can continue to find us at these great bars.

Here is a complete list so far:

Nip and Tuck Bar

23 Norwood Avenue

Long Branch NJ 07740-5424

https://www.facebook.com/NipBar

Maloney's Pub and Grill

119 Main St

Matawan New Jersey 07747

www.maloneyspubnj.com

Twin Light Tap House

128 Bay Avenue

Highlands NJ 07732-1732

http://www.twinlighttaphouse.com/

Barcade Jersey City

163 Newark Ave

Jersey City NJ 07302

http://barcadejerseycity.com

Brickwall Tavern

522 Cookman Ave.

Asbury Park NJ 7712

http://www.brickwalltavern.com/

Buffalo Wild Wings

# 2004A, 180 State Route 35

Eatontown NJ 07724-2014

Our Beers

We’ve been busy getting the brewery up and running but now that it is mostly done we can get back to what’s important—the beer.  Our plan is to launch two beers that will be available year round.  We also plan to brew up a different beer each season.  One of the great things about NJ is that fact that we have four distinct seasons and hope to produce beers that are inspired by each. 

We also plan to brew a few bigger beers during the year that will get either the bottle or barrel treatment—or both.  And we plan to continue to produce small run pilot batches to experiment with new ingredients and / or recipes.  These will most likely be featured in our tasting room.

Our philosophy is to keep our recipes simple, use only the best ingredients and combine traditional styles and techniques with some forward thinking.  Since we love hops, balance isn’t necessarily a priority, but flavor is. 

Finally we will do our best to try and incorporate local products and ingredients into our beers whenever possible to help make them truly local and unique.  This holds true for our names as well.  We came up with names that define certain seasons or imagery that remind us of living in coastal NJ.

Batch 001 will be called Single Fin and it will be our summer seasonal.  It is a Belgian-style Blond ale.  It was inspired and influenced by table beer traditionally brewed in the Trappist monasteries in and around Belgium.

Single Fin was designed with the hot, humid summer days in mind.  It is pale in color, low in alcohol and easy to drink.  We use German Pilsner and Vienna malts with a touch of White Wheat.  Styrian Golding hops were used for bittering and a combination of more Styrian Golding and Czech Saaz hops were used for aroma. 

Although we may have been heavy handed with the hops, the flavor is driven mostly by the unique Trappist yeast strain.  East Coast Yeast was able to provide us with a commercial amount of their ECY-13 yeast strain.  We love this strain because it produces a dry beer with a lot of fruit flavors and aromatics.  We will only brew one 20 barrel batch of Single Fin then move on to our autumn seasonal.  We plan to release this beer again early next summer.    

Single Fin Summary:

Malt: German Pilsner, Vienna & White Wheat

Hops: Styrian Golding & Czech Saaz

Yeast: Trappist Strain

OG: 12° Plato

ABV: 5.0%

Color: 3.6

IBUs: 26

There is a small town on the coast of New Jersey close to where I live now and where I spent most of my summers growing up.  Just after sunset the sky over the bay lights up with fantastic orange and red hues.  It reminds me of the color of this beer—so we named our American-style Rye Pale Ale, Afterglow.  It was the second beer we brewed and will be one of our year round beers.  

The base malt for this beer is American two-row combined with light Munich malt from Germany.  We use medium crystal malt from England to add some color and sweetness and a small amount of malted rye to add some subtle spiciness.  It’s bittered with Columbus hops, flavored with German Hallertau and we used Cascade and Centennial hops in the whirlpool and for dry hopping. 

As with all of our American-style ales we use a dry English yeast.  An English yeast for American-style beers may seem unusual but we think this specific strain ferments clean enough to accentuate the hop flavors and aromas but leaves behind just a enough malt character to add some balance.      

Afterglow Summary:

Malt: American Two-Row, German Munich, Medium English Crystal, Malted Rye

Hops: Columbus, German Hallertau, Cascade & Centennial

Yeast: Dry English

OG: 13.5° Plato

ABV: 5.5%

Color: 9.5

IBUs: 50

Our last tank was filled with our American-style IPA called Head High.  More specifically it’s closer to a west coast style IPA.  This style is typically lighter in color and drier in body then a traditional American-style IPA.  We used a mix of American two-row and German pilsner for the base malt and added a small amount of light English crystal and Carapils malt for some color and body. 

We used Columbus and Chinook in the boil, and Ahtanum, Citra and Centennial in both the whirlpool and for dry hopping.  The resulting beer is not too bitter but hoppy and aromatic.  At 6.5% ABV it's manageable enough that you can have a few pints.  

We did a lot of pilot batches for this beer.  The reason is that we were unable to get our hands on a couple of the hop varieties that we’ve been using in our IPAs for years—specifically Simcoe and Amarillo.  So we had to tweak the IPA recipe we planned to use and began playing with different hop varieties and combinations. 

We are really happy with the combination we came up with and think this is a better beer than the original.  Of course, as soon as we get our hands on some Simcoe and Amarillo hops our imperial IPA called Overhead will be the next beer in our tanks.  

Head High Summary: 

Hops: Columbus, Chinook, Ahtanum, Citra, Centennial

Yeast: Dry English

OG: 16° Plato

ABV: 6.5%

Color: 6.3

IBUs: 67

These are our first few beers and they should be ready for release sometime next week.  We’ve got a couple pilot batches going now and in the coming weeks plan to start brewing our autumn seasonal and fermenting a few surprises.  Stay tuned.