Flagships
The American IPA named for America’s Oldest Seaside Resort, Cape May IPA is loaded with floral and citrus notes, slightly bitter with a zesty finish. A West Coast-style IPA brewed at the heart of the East Coast, it’s the beer that’s Crafted on the Cape.
Coastal Evacuation — it’s a phrase that’s everywhere at the Jersey Shore. This West Coast-style Double IPA is as big and bold as hurricane season itself, with Centennial hops serving up hints of orange citrus and honeydew melon. It’s time to evacuate. Are you prepared?
A Belgian beast, fruity and light, the complexity and character of Devil’s Reach comes from a robust Belgian yeast. Deceptively simple, caution is demanded because, before you know it, Devil’s Reach has swallowed you whole.
Here’s a taste of South Jersey, better known for farms than fist pumping. Roasted and dark crystal malts shine through in a smooth and light-bodied porter that is balanced by a hint of sweetness thanks to the local Jersey Fresh honey. Welcome to the Garden State, bro.
Apiology is the bee’s knees!
Say What!? Yes, this beer was designed to taste just like the description. This wheat beer is brewed with bready and biscuity malts and steeped with loads of fresh apples. It’s a tart twist on tasty tall tentacles. Say that ten times fast.
Our flagship beer with a twist. Served on nitro, you’ll notice a creamier and fuller mouthfeel, with the bitterness seemingly toned down due to the lack of carbonation. Very much the same beer at heart, but with a refreshing spin, this is a decidedly hoppy and slightly bitter American IPA. We load it with a blend of hops that provide floral and citrus notes, focusing on the quintessential American west coast hop profile. Which has become our style, this India Pale Ale emphasizes the hop aroma and flavor, while muting the hop bitterness by back loading the hop additions. Dry hopped with almost a pound per barrel, the hops come bursting through – encapsulating your senses to the point where you’re not sure where the rest of the pint went by the time you’ve put down your glass. You should’ve just ordered two.
What’s better than our beloved flagship Honey Porter? A nitrogenated version! With a creamy and rich texture, the roasted and dark crystal malts shine through in a light-bodied porter that is balanced by a hint of sweetness thanks to the local Jersey Fresh honey. Welcome to the Garden State, bro. Apiology is the bee’s knees!
Seasonals
Welcome to summers at the Jersey shore. Citrussy and refreshing with notes of orange peel and tropical fruits, Summer Catch — a crushable Belgian-style wheat ale — is sure to be your go-to beer all summer long.
This oft-forgotten beer style is perfect for the chilly late-Winter months, when the wind howls and snow drifts as high as your nose. Don’t let the color fool you, this is no stout: it’s a crisp lager with a splash of dark and roasted malts that lend a touch of chocolate and coffee notes and a beautiful tan-colored head. And to top it all off, you’ll be left with soft herbal notes on the finish from the East Kent Golding and Saaz hops used in its light dry-hopping. So, grab a tall, dark pint of this lager and let it warm your frigid bones.
You may have heard about the IPA craze going on in New England these days — where the beers are coming out hazy and juicy, devoid of bitterness and yet bursting out of the glass with tropical fruit flavors like papaya, mango, stone fruits, and ripe citrus notes. A softer mouthfeel with a pillowy head and good body, White Caps is our stab at this approach to crafting an IPA. Featuring Mosaic and Citra hops and brewed with a hefty portion of oats and wheat in the grain bill, White Caps is absurdly drinkable.
For the past three years, if you stopped by the Tasting Room on Thanksgiving Eve, you may have been able to catch our Apple Pie. One of our favorite One-Offs, we take our beloved Apple Bomb and infuse it with the spices from our favorite fall classic, Mop Water. Since the One-Off keg is usually kicked in record time, we’ve decided to treat you to an entire batch of this delectable holiday favorite. That’s right: 60 kegs of this spicy, apple-y treat. Sweet from the Apple Bomb, savory from the spices, and all-around deliciousness — Apple Pie is your favorite food coma pairing.
A truly classic style, the English Special Bitter is all about balance. Four different specialty grains, including traditionally floor-malted Maris Otter, a hefty dose of Biscuit and Honey Malts, and Carmunich Malt lay the foundation of this refreshing brew, leading to a medium bodied and highly quaffable ale. A traditional English ale strain is used, lending a dry fruity note to the finish, with East Kent Golding hops bringing us home. Like all great English ales, the carbonation is on the lower end of the spectrum allowing the complex grain bill and mild hop character shine through without being masked. Biscuits and Honey is an easy drinking 5.5% ABV, with a beautifully copper-colored shine and a complex variety of flavors.
Sometimes we’ll create a beer because we’ve always wanted to make a certain style, other times it’s to fill a hole in our lineup, but what happens when we’re making our Cranberry Wheat and accidentally add too much cranberry making it too tart? We embrace it and turn it into a Shandy. What was supposed to be a one-off batch has turned into one of our top-selling and sought after beers. The Bog has become the definitive South Jersey summer beer, a tart cranberry wheat beer blended with lemonade to create an uber-drinkable summer shandy. Designed to enjoy on those sweltering days, this beer is light and refreshing while still packing tons of flavor.
A blend of five different grains make up the flavor profile – three different base grains included – to lend a toasty, almost caramel-like nuttiness. Sweet and medium-bodied, this big lager clocks in at 6.2% ABV and goes down smooth due to the cool fermentation temperature and extended lagering times.
Originally brewed for the fall Exit Zero Jazz Festival, King Porter Stomp hits you with an assertive chocolate presence, the smooth notes of natural chocolate in perfect syncopation with the five different malts that make up the bass line of this robust beast. Medium-bodied with a chocolate milk-like aroma, we created an adventurous brew that’s as satisfying and complex as your favorite toe-tapping jazz tune.
If an IPA, a wheat beer and a Belgian Tripel had a baby we would name it Saison. Complex and refreshing, with a predominantly yeasty flavor profile this medium bodied ale is the perfect beer to change seasons with. A distinctive orange leaning copper color sets Misty Dawn on its journey, bringing strong fruity notes – compliments of an estery yeast, which are accented by a peppery finish. To make this seasonal trip we push the yeast’s profile front and center with the addition of coriander and sweet orange peel in the kettle, with a boat load of noble Saaz hops rounding things out. The days are getting longer and the temperature is rising, drink Misty Dawn Saison while eagerly anticipating the warmer months ahead.
CMBC’s Chief Mop Man mandated a beer brewed with cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, and a s-load of whole-bean vanilla. Combining all these spices with the flavors of German malts creates a brown ale perfect for cool autumn evenings and bitter winter nights. Come visit and meet the man, the myth, the legend. In his words: “Don’t over-think it – just drink it!”
This rich and complex amber-colored lager is the perfect beer for changing seasons. Smooth and clean due to a cool fifty-degree fermentation and allowed to mellow out while lagering for a few weeks, this traditional Marzen style lager is all about balance. Enough hop presence to show up in the background, Oktoberfest is focused on the grain bill. Comprised of a blend of Vienna, Munich, Caramunich, Pilsen, and Melanoidin malts to lend a toffee and caramel-like sweetness with a nutty note, Oktoberfest would feel right at home being guzzled out of das boot or out of a solo cup on a beach overlooking the sunset.
Expect a dank and bitter hop bomb on your tongue, like a snag rig cast into the mouth of an unsuspecting bunker fish. At 9.5% ABV, Snag and Drop is a big, badass Double IPA. We doubled down on the hops, cramming 100 IBUs worth of hoppy goodness into this boat to balance out the boozy nature. A blend of Cascade, Centennial, Amarillo, Simcoe, and Apollo are waiting to lure you in and snag you a trophy fish. Don’t let this be the one that gets away.
Multi-Seasonals
Back in 2015, we decided to bring back our Employee Series for a hot minute, but this time around we had the Brew Crew work in teams instead of on their own. The Tasting Room team brewed up a super crushable, bone-dry pale ale. Hopped up with Centennial and Amarillo, these hops naturally bring forth notes of grapefruit and citrus, but since this beast is fermented entirely with Brett, these hops take on a wave of exotic and tropical aromas of papaya and pineapple. With oats in the malt bill for a greater head retention and a creamier mouthfeel, it’s the fluffiest, pillowiest, softest brew ever to be called a Crusty Barnacle.
For Villanova’s 175th year, Ryan Krill ’05, Chris Henke ’05, and Bob Krill of Cape May Brewing Company have brewed Demisemiseptcentennial Ale: a Pale Ale brewed with German Pilsner malt, our House Ale yeast for its clean and easy-drinking quality, and a hefty dose of Centennial hops in the whirlpool for a floral and citrusy hop aroma. This brew is a veritable Professor of Suds, unifying all Wildcats with its drinkability, brewed with the care that only Villanovans can provide, and leaves an echo ringing from Bartley to Tolentine.
Kettle-soured and fermented entirely with a multitude of different Brettanomyces strains, we bring you Erosion. Sharp acidity hits your palate first, with notes of over-ripened exotic fruits jumping out at the first sip, before giving way to the complexity of the grain bill of Vienna, Munich, and Pilsner malts. Rounded out with a subtle, earthy mouthfeel, Erosion is a wildly complex, yet easy-drinking American sour ale that won’t erode your senses.
We use a bunch of different hops here at CMBC. From classics like Cascade and Chinook that dominate Cape May IPA, to newer and exotic varieties like Citra and Ekuanot that make up Tide Table. How do we know what a new hop will bring to a beer? We brew with it, of course! For Geek Out 3.0, we decided to make it a bit of a hop experiment focusing by on El Dorado. A new hop for us to play around with, we kept the malt bill unobstructed and the kettle hop additions honest to let the massive amount of dry-hopping take prominence. A light, amber-hued body quickly falls to the background in favor of candied fruit and melons shining bright in center stage, letting the El Dorado hops do all the talking on this one.
Mooncussers were land-based pirates along the Delaware River who would lure ships to run aground by disabling the Cape May Lighthouse and setting a separate fire further inland, giving the impression of a false shoreline. Once the ship ran aground, the Mooncussers would pillage and plunder the booty, but if a full moon was present, their plans were foiled, leaving them cursing the moon. Our Mooncusser is a traditional Czech-style Pilsner, with a crisp maltiness and a firm, clean bitterness. Noble Saaz hops lead the way, imparting their clean, grassy bitterness with a light body and a dry, satisfying finish. Unlike the mooncussers, you’ll welcome the summer moon with this brew and cuss it once it’s gone.
Designed to bridge the gap between a classic American Pale Ale and the haze-crazed juice bombs out there, Tide Table fits the bill and then some. At 5.2% ABV, you’ll be able to give it several rounds and not get knocked out, and, thanks to a restrained grain bill, the boatload of Citra and Ekuanot hops do all the talking. Aromas of papaya and mango hit you up front, then the sudden sensation of walking through an orange grove at harvest time accents the fruits on the nose. High tide or low tide, this is one table you’ll set time and again.
Named for an old WWII lookout tower at Cape May Point, Tower 23 is a kettle-soured pale wheat beer. This Berliner Style Weisse Ale is simple and approachable – perfectly drinkable on its own but often times sweetened with woodruff syrup. Almost like a cold and fizzy glass of lemonade, it’s tart and sour, marrying a lemony-citric sharpness with little hop bitterness – a deliciously refreshing cold glass of beer.
We borrowed this name from the infamous fishing and diving location known as the Triple Wrecks, about 30 miles southeast of Cape May. Originally, we stayed true to style, so we made our Tripel Wreck simplistically elegant. We let our favorite, complex Trappist strain of yeast go to town on simple sugars, with fruity esters dominating the profile and a smooth, clean finish hiding the deceptively drinkable 10.5% ABV. This year, we decided to add a new twist to our beloved Tripel Wreck: dark, sweet cherries are added to the mix to play off the beer’s natural fruitiness. Tripel Wreck is an absolute beast, but it’s balanced and approachable. Don’t be afraid to take the dive.
Subtle earthy funk, malty sweetness and sharp acidity combine to give Turtle Gut its distinctive profile. Achieved by a quick souring with Lactobacillus before being fermented with our house Saccharomyces strain, then allowed to get funky with a hefty dose of Brettanomyces for a few months, Turtle Gut was our first venture into the world of mixed fermentations – and was pretty much the beer that kicked off our whole sour facility. Keeping the acidity in the more approachable range and letting Brett’s funk play a contributing part rather than taking center stage, our first born sour aims to please seasoned sour beer drinkers as well as the curious beer drinker who doesn’t yet know they’re a sour beer fan.
Since 2011, CMBC has been brewing your favorite beers, and as a gift, we’ve crafted a hoppy, juicy, and crushable brew as a reward to our faithful fans. A ridiculously drinkable Double IPA, our Anniversary Ale 6.0 is an unequaled offering, with generous hot-side additions of Nelson Sauvin and Zythos as well as a double dry-hopping of Nelson Sauvin, Citra, and Ekuanot to the tune of four pounds per barrel. Brewed with a heavy-handed portion of wheat and oats, you can expect a soft, pillowy body with a restrained bitterness, yet supplying a rich and enticing aroma. With notes of pineapple, melon, and ripened stone fruits on the nose and a subtle citrus zest on the finish, Anniversary Ale 6.0 is the ideal brew to toast in honor of CMBC’s 6th anniversary.
We take our dark, slightly sweet and full-bodied stout and condition it on locally-roasted coffee from Avalon Coffee. A complex grain bill of pilsner, carafa, caramunich, roasted barley and oats make up the heart of Avalon Coffee Stout, which pairs perfectly with the soft nutty and cocoa notes of Avalon’s Latin American-leaning house blend. Whether consumed as a delightful dessert beer or an arousing breakfast beer, Avalon Coffee Stout is one of our favorites.
Sour. IPA. Boom. A beer geek’s’ dream beer. Bitter and sour, two flavor profiles that more often clash then complement, are brought together in a harmonious blend via the guiding nature of ample amounts of Citra and Centennial on the dry hop. Opening up with a huge nose of fresh citrus and grapefruit, then hitting the palate up front with firm bitterness, before giving way to back of the tongue acidity, the dance goes on until you’re left wanting more.
Limited / Small Batch
When we get fruity, we want you to know we’re getting fruity. Our Watermelon Wheat doesn’t have just a hint of watermelon: we want you to be surrounded by fruity goodness. That’s why we chopped up nearly a ton-and-a-half of watermelons fresh from the vine, tying up our production team for the better part of a day. The effort is well worth it: you get real watermelon flavor, only available once each year. With watermelon’s soft and delicate flavor profile, we wait until fermentation has completed before adding the juiced melon, ensuring only a minor secondary fermentation. Crisp, juicy, and fresh, we brew a small batch at peak season. Watermelon Wheat isn’t around for long, so be sure to drink up the fruits of our labor.
Ah, the Holiday season. Thanksgiving feasts. Christmas decorations galore. Menorahs being lit. Friends and family around a roaring fire. And maybe the unavoidable screaming match over politics or your sister’s latest idiot boyfriend. However you celebrate, the joy abounds.
That’s what Boughs of Barley is for: celebrating the season in all its glory. This brew started off big, and then we made it massive. As a barleywine that spent a few months aging in fresh Kentucky Bourbon barrels, you can expect that classic toffee and nutty malt flavor to dominate, with wisps of bourbon, vanilla, and oak notes coming through, especially on the finish, all topped off with a warm body.
Grab a bottle while it lasts, because this limited release will be gone by the time you give up on your New Year’s resolution!
Barrel Aged American Sour Ale
Fermented with Brettanomyces
Aged on raspberry and cranberry.
Bright acidity, firm rustic funk, with a rich and luscious finish we bring you Brothel Madam. For optimum fruit character drink fresh, to play up the funk age it out.
Normally we ferment, dry hop, condition, and package the beer in two weeks time, but for this batch we spiked it with Brett. Allowing a second fermentation from the Brett to take its time to develop, we’re left with a more rustic and earthy profile, expressing a more funky finish. A second dry hop — after the Brett had time to express itself — leaves an aromatic and intriguing brew that is still the Coastal we know and love, just a whole lot funkier.
Named for the sunken SS Atlantus, a retired WWI concrete ship visible from Cape May’s Sunset Beach, our Concrete Ship is a full-bodied badass imperial stout. With a touch of heat coming through – just enough to retain a warming quality thanks to the 9.5% ABV, while perfectly melding roasted barley and chocolate malts together to give this hefty brew a velvety smooth texture with rich notes of cocoa and coffee.
Are you crazy enough to participate in the Escape the Cape Triathlon? Made of three awesome portions, our Escape the Cape Pale Ale is ready to compete. Jump the Ferry & Swim: brewed with assertive and exotic hops but fermented with our house Lager strain, this straw colored lager-esque pale ale guides you ashore. Bike: a wake-up punch of hops hit you in the face, with a strong hop aroma yet little bitterness – helping you push a little more. Run: crisp and dry, extremely refreshing, and a sessionable ABV, our Escape the Cape Pale Ale is what you’ll be reaching for when hitting the finish line. Ready. Set. GO!
Brewed with 5.5 pounds per barrel of Citra, El Dorado, Amarillo, Cascade, and Azacca, Follow the Gull is super juicy, ridiculously tropical, ultra-drinkable, and imminently Cape May. Brewed to celebrate Cape May County’s 325th Anniversary with the Cape May County Department of Tourism.
Springtime at the Jersey Shore: where one day we’re pounded by snow and the next it’s 75 and the beaches are full. Once the cold breaks, what’s more refreshing than a sweet and tart Cherry Limeade Shandy? Inspired by deconstructing a snow cone, Foreshore washes your palate with sweet cherries then balances the next gulp with a firm lime presence, all with the refreshing finish of a shandy. So whether you’re rockin’ out to ‘NSync at your favorite beach bar’s No-Shower Happy Hour or getting in a gym sesh with your bros, Foreshore is sure to quench even the harshest thirst.
Continuing our Geek Out journey, we bring you Geek Out 3.1. For Geek Out 3.0, we took half a batch of an amber-hued base beer and hopped it with a crazy amount of El Dorado hops — a new hop for us. For Geek Out 3.1, we took the other half of that batch to our OG Sour Facility and funked it up, letting a blend of Brettanomyces and our house Saison yeast have their wild way with it. Geek Out 3.1 plays out with a delicate malt backbone balanced by an estery yeast presence.
Next stop on our Geek Out journey is a Belgian IPA, perfect for summer drinking. Geek Out 4.0 has a light body, an expressive Belgian yeast presence, and an enticing aroma. Thanks to a two-pounds-per-barrel dry hopping regime comprised of Nelson Sauvin, Amarillo, and Wakatu, Geek Out 4.0 is a beer truly worth geeking out over.
Originally brewed for the Exit Zero Jazz Festival — is everything you love about the original, only smoother and silkier. The assertive chocolate presence is still forward, with the natural chocolate in perfect syncopation with the five different malts that make up the bass line of this robust beast, its medium body more like a chocolate milkshake. Original or on Nitro, King Porter Stomp is an adventurous brew that’s as satisfying and complex as your favorite toe-tapping jazz tune.
Since Cape May, NJ, is a quick 160-mile drive south of Easton, PA, these two powerhouses came together to bring you Paradise 160 — a high-octane India Pale Lager that’s been thoroughly Americanized by dry-hopping it into oblivion with a combination of some of our most desirable hops: Wakatu and Hallertau Blanc. Eminently crushable with a mind-blowing nose, Paradise 160 is where New Jersey meets Pennsylvania, where old school meets new school, where you’re bound to find your new favorite brew.
The name says it all! Salty Lips is a Gose — which is closely related to its tart cousin the Berliner Weisse — where using local ingredients from the Cape May Sea Salt Co brings out a slight touch of salinity. This refreshingly tart ale spent 2 days souring in the boil kettle to lower the pH to a pleasant acidity, then had coriander added with the local sea salt and hops before being fermented with a classic American Ale yeast strain. The saltiness strikes your palate before subsiding to a gentle tart bite, finishing with a yeast ester profile of peaches and honeydew, leaving you with a hint of the ocean on your lips.
Captain Henry Sawyer of the first New Jersey Calvary was shot and imprisoned by the Confederacy during the Civil War. His life was spared when he was ‘swapped’ for a Union prisoner, the son of General Lee, and he survived the war and settled in Cape May. With this badass story in mind, we brew Sawyer’s Swap, an American style Barlywine with an intensely complex malt bill and an assertive hop profile. Aged for two months prior to release, Swap is the perfect beer to enjoy immediately or after aging some more… but preferably not while warding off an execution.
Beginning its journey as our Misty Dawn Saison, The Scupper embarks on a four-month voyage in French oak red wine barrels alongside four distinct strains of Brettanomyces, imparting intoxicating aromas with a rustic finish. Subtle hints of red wine aromas complement the Saison’s natural complexity, finally disembarking with a dry finish that leaves you longing for another sip. Left to bottle condition for three additional months, if consumed fresh, The Scupper is a rustic and oaken Saison, but if stowed away, a far more complex and funky journey awaits.
The sea is a harsh mistress. She’s cruel and unforgiving, taking good men before their time — mostly because they’ll spend all of their time on their boat. Can you blame them? At CMBC we love our boats, we love our time off to enjoy a brew, but we also love our IPAs. Sea Mistress Session IPA is anything but harsh — she’s loaded with hops, insanely aromatic, and bone dry, yet crisp and ridiculously refreshing. We’ve loaded this session IPA with citrus and fruit-forward hops, keeping the body strong enough to withstand the call of the sea, and dry hopped the heck out of it to make a session IPA that’ll be your new mistress.
With a namesake inspired by directional stability, The Skeg guides the Stow Away Series to a different corner of the world of sour beers. Stowed away for several months in French Oak red wine barrels, this dry-hopped golden sour features a soft touch of acidity and is far less tart than other sour beers. The Skeg leans more heavily on a softer Brett influence, complementing a mildly funky profile with a boatload of Amarillo hops. Bottled at the peak of its components, The Skeg– an ever-evolving, bottle-conditioned beer — is readily positioned to steer you to new flavorful locales.
Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, something … brewed? An old world style of beer, Saison is the perfect backdrop for a refreshing yet complex blueberry beer. Something Blue rolls out right when the weather is peaking and the summer is almost here, when wedding season is in full swing and soon enough the beach will be the place to be. A beautiful purple leaning blue color, a crisp finish with a tinge of acidity, and pleasing to the wine drinker as much as it is to the beer connoisseur, Something Blue is something for everyone.
Citrusy, snappy, bright – a decidedly unique spring Witbier. Funky Belgian yeast leads the way with a citrusy forefront, and lemon and orange peel in the kettle make this Lady dance off your tongue with a tinge of acidity.
To celebrate our rich agricultural history, we are honored to bring you Three Plows — an IPA brewed entirely with New Jersey-grown ingredients: malt from Rabbit Hill Farms in Shiloh, hops from Laughing Hops in Pennington, yeast cultivated by East Coast Yeast in Hillsborough, and water sourced from the Kirkwood-Cohansey Aquifer. Three Plows refers to the Great Seal of the State of New Jersey, honoring our strong agricultural tradition and our status in the order of statehood. Three Plows has a smooth malt sweetness, a firm and earthy bitterness, and a complimentary fruit note from the yeast, leaving an IPA that is uniquely New Jersey.
Barrel Aged Sour Blonde Ale
Expanding on flavors introduced in previous releases, The Topsail is an adventurous and intriguing sour blonde. Rustic with earthy notes and a firm lactic acid presence, The Topsail has aged for 9 months in the barrels previously carrying The Keel. Exotic fruit flavors reminiscent of peaches, mangoes, and apricots developed from the multitude of Brett strains playing off the base beer. Blended to paint a fuller picture, The Topsail is a well-rounded sour beer that will continue to develop in the bottle as the Brett and friends continue to evolve.