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Craft beers for the curious

PETER CULOS
Contributor

We’ve all done it. You’re at a party and you sneak a craft beer six-pack into a cooler, which is otherwise a sea of macro-brewed light American lager. Then you stalk that six pack just waiting to see who takes one, opens it and has an epiphany.

Maybe you have a friend who’s been listening to people prattle on about the virtue of two row malt versus six row malt or that new hop from New Zealand. Maybe that “craft curious” friend is actually you.

Summer gatherings are the perfect time to try new beers.

As it turns out, summer is a great time to introduce the uninitiated to the world of full flavored beer.

Craft beer is all about seasonal offerings and, right now, breweries are turning out beers that are perfect for bridging the gap.

If you think about it, many of these summertime craft beers have some common ground with their corporate cousins. Imperial stouts and double IPAs are just too big and bold for the noobie. Give them something they recognize, but with a twist.

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Summer is the season for lager.

The base malts in most lager styles are pretty relatable to the average light beer drinker. Victory Brewing Summer Love (Downingtown, Pennsylvania) is a great example.

Summer is the perfect time to experiment with beers.

Its Pilsner malt background is going to be very familiar to them, but the hops in Summer Love introduce subtle lemon and pine notes, which will perk up the palate.

If you think you can push the flavor front a little more, Flying Fish (Somerdale, New Jersey) recently debuted Exit 12, which is a Maibock. Clocking in at about 8% ABV, you’ll need to be a little careful with it, but the pale straw color isn’t intimidating to a light lager drinker. Hops lurk in the background but give way to a slightly sweet finish.

Another transitional style, also in the German tradition, is Kolsch. It’s sort of hybrid between an ale and a lager. That is, it’s finished off like a lager, but it’s fermented with a top fermenting yeast at higher temperatures like an ale.

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Bolero Snort (Ridgefield Park, New Jersey) has an interesting take on the style with their Kowabunga. The addition of Motueka hops from New Zealand impart a lemon-lime character that’s a nice twist on the earthy German hops usually found in Kolsch. With an ABV in the same vicinity of an American lager, it’s not too dangerous either.

There is another strategy to consider.

How about a beer that challenges the notion of what the average drinker thinks of as beer?

Enter the shandy. Shandies are basically a light-bodied beer mixed with another fruit-flavored beverage.

Try a craft beer this summer.

Citrus flavors are the most common, but Cape May Brewing’s The Bog (Rio Grande, NJ) infuses cranberry. The base beer is a feather light wheat style which, with the addition of cranberry, is a brilliant, bright pink. Yes, pink.

The tart, dry cranberries make it extremely drinkable and refreshing. At only 3.9% ABV, feel free to have a few of them.

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While it’s technically not a shandy, Carton Brewing Dune Fruit (Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey) combines a tart wheat beer with sweet local prickly pear cactus to create a beer that is just as thirst-quenching. It really will push the envelope of what you might think beer is.

This summer, you will have access to more than a few unsuspecting coolers at backyard picnics and barbecues. If you’re looking cultivate a new beer-loving buddy, all you have to do is get a little crafty. Choose wisely.

Peter Culos is the craft beer editor for JerseyBites.com where he comments on breweries, bars and good beer in the Garden State. A graphic designer by day and a lifelong New Jersey resident, Peter was first introduced to the novel idea that beer could actually have flavor during several visits to the United Kingdom. He’s been riding the craft beer bus ever since. Email him at peteculos@gmail.com.