Brew Ha-hah

After years of talking about it, today we finally did it. We stopped at a brewery.

We decided on a little place in Jersey called Climax Brewery, which turned out to be the oldest micro-brewery in the state. The owner swears that the name has nothing to do with sex, though their T-shirt design is dominated by a scantily clad cartoon woman straddling a keg, holding a foaming mug, and showing no remorse for the carefully drawn nipples poking through her shirt.

When I spoke with Dave, the owner, he was conflicted about our stopping. He seemed torn between meeting the demands his busiest season and sharing with us what he referred to as “a shit load of Oktoberfest I have laying around.”

When we asked to do a tasting, Dave warned us that Climax was more like a factory than a vineyard. German yet hamish, his operation was a nice balance between science and art. Dave spoke with clarity about his complicated machinery while betraying a truly emotional commitment to his craft. We developed a great respect for him and his work as we got drunker and drunker.

I was surprised to find that most if not all commercial beers are force carbonated, since natural carbonation is too unpredictable and can result in either a flat beer or shards of glass in your face. I was not surprised by his diatribes against what he calls “The Big Three.” Like most small businesses, his was severely limited by competition from the giants of industry and by bureaucracy. In other words, by red tape and Red Stripe.

Both Dave and his beer had real character. He was full of pithy observations about brewing and life in general, and told us several different things that were the number one thing a brewer would say if you asked them about beer. A passionate man, his love of beer was matched only by his hate for a strain of yeast called “Pugsley.”