Showing Off Breweries in New Jersey

One thing I have in common with several of my dearest friends is our love of craft beer. Whether we're out grabbing a pint or two after work (at least when I still worked in Delaware anyway!), sharing special beers that we found in our adventures, or visiting new breweries, it's something that we all always have a great time doing. 

If you haven't picked up on it yet, I'm the planner of the bunch and have a tendency to take an idea we have and run with it to get it organized and planned. 

Since moving back to New Jersey, I've been anxious to introduce our friends fro mDelaware to a few of the (nearly 80!) breweries in Jersey. A visit to Double Nickle (in Pennsauken) has been at the top of our list for a while now, so I decided that would be one of the breweries I focused on when I started to plan everything.

After doing my usual BeerAdvocate.com research (and reading reviews of other area breweries), I narrowed the list down to 7 or 8 breweries, then mapped them. Knowing I definitely wanted to include Double Nickle, seeing the breweries mapped out made the decision pretty easy: we'd start with Double Nickle, then move on to Tonewood Brewing in Oaklyn. The next stop would be Lunacy Brewing Company in Haddon Heights and our last stop would be Forgotten Boardwalk Brewing Company (so we could grab dinner at The Farm & The Fisherman, a quick 4 minute drive from the brewery). 

Double Nickle Brewing Co. is located in Pennsauken. I was pleasantly surprised to see the number of beers on tap at the brewery in their tasting room. Their 5 Core Series beers (Belgian Golden Ale, Pilsner Style Lager, Vienna Style Lager, IPA and Session IPA) were all available during our visit, plus FIFTEEN smaller batch beers. Flights of 4 beers only set us back $6 each - a price well worth have the opportunity to a range of the beers they had on tap. 

Eric's flight included Lawn Surfer IPA, Cascara IPA (DNA Series Batch #3), DNA #5 - West Coast Style IPA, and Mega Dank 420 Kush Daddy Supreme. 

For me, I went with a few darker brews: Marbled Buffalo: Barrel Aged Rye, Buffalo Nickle Aged in Bourbon Barrels, Double Shot Coffee Stout, and A Certain Shade of Green Double Dry Hopped NE IPA. 

Damn find choices. 

Next on the brewery tour adventure was Tonewood Brewery in Oaklyn. A bit of a contrast from Double Nickle, Tonewood is a 15 barrel brewing operation, putting out some very cool beers in the process.  While at Tonewood we sipped on Improv Double IPA and Pulverized Dry-Hopped Kettle Sour. 

Tonewood is a fun brewery to visit. The tasting room is smaller, but they have a killer outside area that is perfect to take advantage of right now. 

A quick 7 minute drive from Tonewood is Lunacy Brewing Company in Haddon Heights. As soon as I started running down the beers they had on tap, something immediately caught my eye - the brewery's Gose on the Randall through watermelon. I'm a sucker for watermelon on a warm sunny day, so that was an easy decision for me. I really liked Eric's choice too, Beautiful Baby's Belgian Blonde Blonde Ale. 

Lunacy also had a great outdoor seating area. We all grabbed a picnic table - and our snacks - and decided to have little mid-day nosh session.

Our final brewery stop of the day was Forgotten Boardwalk Brewing Co. in Cherry Hill. 

For me, when we visit Forgotten Boardwalk, I feel like ordering the Funnel Cake Cream Ale is a must. I decided to go a little crazy when I offered to order Eric's beer for him. Initially I was going to order him the Double IPA, but then I saw Spiced 1916 Shore Shiver iPA - with ginger, anise & chili peppers. Talk about unique! 

One thing I'll always love about Forgotten Boardwalk are the skee ball machines and their plethora of board games available. Between the two (especially Trivial Pursuit 1990's edition), a darn good time was had by all.  

After four brewery visits throughout the afternoon and into the early evening, it was time to head over to The Farm & the Fisherman for dinner. 

In keeping with the drink local theme we had going on all day, Eric and I both wanted to stick with that trend - he ordered Kane Brewing Company Head High IPA and I checked out Brotherton Brewing Company IPA. Both beers were fantastic.

Our beers paired really well with our dinner choices: The Astoria Burger (local lamb, feta, cucumber, grilled onion, tahini ketchup) for Eric and the Grilled Chicken Panini (kale pesto, sweet & sour greens, roasted red pepper spread) for me (though I had the hardest time deciding between the chicken panini and the Cauliflower Panini. How good does pickled carrots, arugula, jalapeno, ricotta salata and citrus aioli sound?!) 

I want to continue to show New Jersey off to our friends every chance we can. I'm sure if we sweeten the pot with a brewery (or four) brewery visits, it will continue to help!