Planning Jersey 2018

On November 2nd, Evan Watson of Plan Bee brewing came down to Atlantic Highlands to shepherd Carton through our edition of his Barn Beer concept. This brings together a couple of Carton projects quite nicely.

The yeast is born and built of a honeycomb from the Locust, New Jersey area we got from King Sorenson’s hives. The comb and raw honey was passed to Evan, who built a large enough culture from it to ferment 30 barrels of Barn Beer.

The hops for Planning Jersey Barn Beer were grown on Oasis Farm on Navesink River Road in Locust, New Jersey, from rhizomes given them by Hopsteiner. Oasis is a working farm and charity built around providing meaningful work opportunities for autistic adults, and Hopsteiner is a world class hop grower, developer and supplier. A couple of years ago, Carton put Hopsteiner and Oasis together knowing the former’s expertise would guide the latter in the best possible way to cultivating viable hops in Jersey’s climes.

For the dry hop, we went to our friends at The Bitter End Hops Farm in Randolph, New Jersey.

The grist for Planning Jersey was grown and malted by Rabbit Hill Malt of Shiloh, New Jersey. Plan Bee’s Barn Beer project is all about the natural flavors of a place; Rabbit Hill’s Jersey grown and processed malts are the linchpin of this Jersey edition of Barn Beer being true to Evan’s inspiration.

The water is simply the greatest water in the world, straight off the Atlantic Highlands aquifer.

Once the simmer was simmered, the resulting wort moved over Carton’s OWC space in an oak foeder we have marked for this project, and the terroir of the Bay Shore did its voodoo. Fermentation, bottling and conditioning took place through the winter & spring, with release on May 8th.