Where to Enter:  So Hurricane Sandy has temporarily relocated the entrance to Convention Hall and Grand Arcade to the Paramount Theatre, which is cool because the Paramount Theatre is pretty great. You can either enter up the steps through the doors facing McLoone’s or you can enter on the Ocean Avenue doors to the Paramount (the southwest side of the building).

Coat Check: There will be a coat check available in the lobby of the Paramount Theatre…you’ll pass it as you come in the building. There is a $5 charge to check your coat and you’ll want to make sure that if you are looking to check, you do so BEFORE you enter Convention Hall, since there is no re-entry.

No Reentry: That pretty much sums it up….there is no reentry on this event, but then, why would you leave anyway?

Designated Driver Tickets: These can be purchase the day of the event for $10 at the Paramount Theatre box office (just a heads-up, but the DD must be 21+ as well in order to enter the event, even though they are not drinking). The Designated Driver must be accompanied by a ticketed attendee

IDs Required: Sure, it’s obvious, but it’s worth saying - make sure you have your ID on you as well because an APBeerfest ticket must be accompanied by a valid ID (21+ only).

Sampling Glass: Upon entry to Convention Hall, you will receive an Asbury Park Beerfest sampling glass (except for the Designated Drivers, of course). Hold onto this glass. Enjoy this glass. Drink from this glass. Clean this glass. Drink from this glass again. Try not to break this glass. The replacement fee for a broken glass is $15.00. The crash of a beer sampling glass is a sad noise.

Smoking: Convention Hall is, of course, a smoke free environment. There will be a designated smoking area upstairs and outside on the southwest Paramount Balcony.

Fun Outfits: Want to dress in lederhosen? No problem. Team t-shirts for you and your friends? Go for it. Just keep in mind that it is cold outside and you’ll want to dress appropriately for the weather. The building is heated but we are right on the ocean and surrounded by giant windows and its January. Layer.

What to Expect When Expecting to Sample Beers: Upon entering Convention Hall, all Beerfest attendees will receive a sampling glass. You’ll notice that there is a 2 oz. marker on the glass. That is the amount of each sample. There’s no “grabbing a sample for my friend”, no “this line is short, give me a second sample”…no back to back and no passing glasses. Enjoy a great beer and then head to the next table and do it again. You have enough time to cover a lot of ground and taste some phenomenal beers and ciders. There will also be food vendors as well as merch. You’ll start upstairs in Convention Hall and work your way around. There are beers and vendors on both levels. The Retro Bar and Cider Bars are located upstairs.  For those of you who know the venue, that’s where the beer gardens are typically located. For those of you who don’t know the venue, don’t worry…you’ll be given a map as you enter listing all the beer and vendor locations. There will be glass rinsing stations you can go to inbetween samples. There will also be contests on the stage from the WRAT, so keep an eye on that because it’s a good time. It’s all a good time.

Food: There is lots of great eats to be had at Asbury Park Beerfest. There’s Pop’s Garage, Windmill, El Lechon de Negron, Doc Popcorn, Jerky Hut, Hangover Pretzel Company, Maurizio’s Pizza and porkroll sandwiches!

Merch and More: In addition to amazing craft beers, ciders, retro beers and great eats, you’ll find the following very cool vendors and great charities: Smoke on the Water Cigar Lounge, Monmouth County Rugby Club, Third & Ocean, Beerheads, Posh Den, Thirst Quencher Necklaces, Fukitt Clothing, Lifestyles, Power Home Remodeling, Lakewood Blue Claws, Jersey Shore Roller Girls, Vacation Getaways, Circle Hyundai, LaPlaca Pottery beer steins, Dr. T Shirt, Shore Tap, Verizon Fios, AP Chamber, Brewers Apprentice, Maloney’s Pub, Court Liquors, Night & Day, The Aquarian and Experience Asbury. For charities, you have: Clean Ocean Action, Best Day Foundation, Office Down, Restore the Shore and PBA Local 6.

Drink Responsibly: We want you to have a great time AND we want you to be safe.

Taxi Service/Rooms: Here is the number of three local taxi services (there are more): Super Cab 732.988.9201, Surf Taxi 732.774.5500 and Tops Taxi  732.776.7711. There will also be a concierge / taxi stand at the Paramount Theatre (where you entered) and they can call for a taxi on your behalf as well. If you are looking to stay in the area overnight,  book a room at the Holiday Inn Express in Neptune, NJ 1-888-465-4329 Mention Beerfest when you book your room and receive 10% off! You can also check with The Berkeley Hotel across the street from Convention Hall at 732.776.6700 for availability.

For info on more upcoming events, visit http://apboardwalk.com/ and https://www.facebook.com/TheAsburyParkBoardwalk

Come join the the competition at the Asbury Park Beerfest and show your “beer muscles”. Below is a little history on Masskrugstemmen from Beer Universe.

From Beer Universe

You love drinking beer. Better yet, you love playing games when drinking beer. Darts, pool, beer pong, etc. all make it into your local watering hole. Here’s a new one for you: Masskrugstemmen.

Mass-a-what? Masskrugstemmen literally means “beer-stein holding.” It’s the latest import from Bavaria and may have replaced your favorite night time activity. The rules are quite simple: Contestants must hold a 1-liter stein filled to the top with beer at arm’s length for as long as possible.

Sound easy? The contestant’s arm cannot be bent and must remain parallel to the ground and Any spilling will immediately disqualify a contestant. The winner is the individual (both men and women compete in the same round) who can keep their arm extended out the longest. And as we mentioned above, this isn’t your regular pint of beer – it’s a heavy 1 liter glass filled to the brim with your favorite brew—clocking in at approximately 5 pounds.

After a couple minutes of holding the stein, your muscles begin to burn. Just writing about it is making us thirst—but wait! You can’t drink any of the delicious brew while you are competing in this contest (that’ll have to wait after the contest has defeated you). Hopefully, by the time you finish the liter of beer you can’t remember the pain that filled your muscles and maybe you are ready to try the contest (at your own discretion) all over again.

What is the world record for this contest? An agonizing 19 minutes.Newcomers to the contest will be lucky to put up 6 minutes.

While this “sport” is hardly new—it is picking up some serious momentum. This year marked the second annual U.S. championship in Masskrugstemmen held in New York City. 

Are you strong enough to participate in this sport? Try it out at your favorite pub and see if you have it takes to be a Masskrugstemmen champion.

Your Choice. Your Beer. Drink Up.
- Beer Universe

Our special “Your Old Man’s Bar” will feature some of America’s iconic retro beers of a drinking time gone by: Pabst Blue Ribbon, Schaefer, Piels, Old Milwaukee, Schlitz and the silver bullet, Colt 45.

Autumn’s a great time to fall for apple appeal, with cooler temperatures setting the stage for the fruit to star in gently steaming pies and alongside fragrant roasts.

Or, you could drink your apple a day, the fermented way.

Hard cider, which came to the United States with the pilgrims but was lost in a sea of sweet, unfermented juice after Prohibition, has been making a comeback with increased sales and launches of new styles and flavors that have brought a bushel of options to store shelves.

“It’s the most exciting beverage category in the market,” says Jeffrey House, founder of the California Cider Co., the Sebastopol, Calif., based company that produces ACE Premium Hard Ciders, a major player among domestic producers.

Hard cider still is a small part of the overall alcoholic beverage market; sales don’t come close to the multibillion-dollar beer industry. But it is a rapidly growing niche.

According to data from Chicago-based market research firm SymphonyIRI Group, hard cider sales at supermarkets and other stores (data exclude Walmart, club stores and liquor stores) totaled about $71.5 million for the 52 weeks ending Aug. 5, more than a 50 percent increase over the same period a year before.

More sales means more products. Anheuser-Busch has a cider out, Michelob Ultra Light Cider. And Boston Beer Co., makers of Samuel Adams, this spring introduced three varieties of Angry Orchard cider —Crisp, which is a little sweeter, Apple Ginger, and Traditional Dry, a mellow, slightly tangy drink in the style of an English draught cider.

To get the cider right, Angry Orchard cider maker David Sipes and his team traveled around the world studying cider making and sourcing apples, getting their fruit from Europe, including Northern Italy. “We found just some fantastic apple varieties really well-suited for cider production,” he says. They also use traditional cider apples — bittersweet fruit that isn’t very tasty raw — from Normandy and Brittany in France.

“A lot of the same things a winemaker would be looking for in their grapes we’re looking for in cider apples. We’re looking for certain balance of tannin and acidity and Brix (sugar levels) and the cider apples really lend a lot of those characteristics,” he said. “The end result is just a cider of really uncommon complexity.”

The attention to detail includes aging some of the ciders with wood; oak staves or chips are put into the tanks to add a subtle touch of the vanilla and baking spices that come with oak aging.

And just like wine, cider pairs well with food, says Sipes, who compares the Traditional Dry cider to a sauvignon blanc or unoaked chardonnay. “We’re finding so many opportunities for pairing with foods.”

All this marks a major change in the market. As recently as 10 to 15 years ago, American consumers were lucky to find one or two lackluster national brands. These days they can choose between numerous premium options, with some bars even offering it on tap.

House, a native of England, where hard cider has a long tradition (in fact, it’s known there as cider, anything else is just apple juice), started out in the United States 25 years ago selling Blackthorn Cider and also sold British and Belgian beers. In 1994 he decided to form his own company, starting in Sonoma County.

Cider is made by pressing apples for the juice — House uses dessert apples — adding yeast, then allowing the juice to ferment. As with wine, the yeast consumes the sugar in the juice and turns it into alcohol. But not a lot of alcohol. Hard cider can range from 4 percent to 12 percent alcohol, but generally comes in at around 5 percent or 6 percent, comparable to the strength of beer (and half that of wine), but with a fruitier taste.

ACE styles range from dry to slightly sweeter, with one, the Joker, in a sparkling style that House compares to Champagne. For fall, the company is introducing ACE Pumpkin, which has a dash of cinnamon, ginger and other spices that go into pumpkin pie.

Cider’s not the only adult beverage that can be made from apples. Distilling fermented apple juice creates a liquor that ranges from the classic French calvados to applejack, an American version that can be made through distillation or by concentration via freezing. Apple wine is another fermented product, but it is still, not sparkling, and generally has a higher alcohol level than cider.

One company is even combining its apple beverages. Among the half dozen cider varieties made by Dugspur, Va.-based Foggy Ridge Cider is Pippin Gold, a blend of hard cider and apple brandy. Whereas most ciders are consumed as one would a beer, Pippin Gold is considered more of a dessert cider or aperitif.

House made an apple brandy and aged it for five years in old red wine barrels. “It was brilliant,” he says modestly. But cider is his priority. “That’s our intention, to keep ACE as the premium cider in America ,” he says. “Cider’s really happening.”

From FoxNews.com

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2012/09/06/hard-cider-takes-bigger-slice-beverage-market/#ixzz272QeNkYC

Coming to Convention Hall on January 26, 2013

First Asbury Park Beerfest sold out two sessions of global craft beers and ciders. 2013 Anticipated to sell out quickly.

Cheers to Beers! The second annual Asbury Park Beer Festival is set to take place at Asbury Park’s Convention Hall on the legendary Asbury Park Boardwalk on Saturday, January 26, 2013 – the week before Super Bowl! Featuring “craft” beers from all over the world as well as the iconic retro beers of a drinking time gone by, the Asbury Park Beerfest, presented by 95.9 FM WRAT Radio and the Asbury Park Boardwalk, is sure to be a beer lovers paradise.

For this unique event, there will be two sessions for beer enthusiasts (21 and older) to partake in: 12pm-4pm and 6pm-10pm. Price per session is $30 in advance and $35 at the door on the day of the event, and includes an Asbury Park Beerfest sampling glass with ticket purchase. Both sessions were sold out last year, so early purchasing is encouraged. Tickets go on sale starting Friday, September 28, 2012 at 10:00am.

The Asbury Park Beerfest features some of the finest, high-end brews in the world side by side with the very popular “Your Old Man’s Bar” classics that were offered at the inaugural Asbury Park Beerfest. The hottest category in craft, ciders, will also be highlighted- so there is something for every taste. In additional to the exceptional beers and ciders, participants can enter beer sports, such as “Masskrugstemmen” (a beer-stein-holding contest).  95.9 FM WRAT Radio will be also have on-air talent present and will be broadcasting live for an exceptionally good time.

Some of the exceptional crafts from Belgium available at the Asbury Park Beerfest are Steenbrugge, Rodenbach Vintage, Boon and Duvel.

U.S. beer makers include but are not limited to: Boston Brewery (Boston), Brooklyn Brewery (New York), Blue Moon (Colorado), Blue Point Brewing (Long Island), Erie Brewing Company (Pennsylvania), Harpoon (Boston), Keegan’s (New York), Ommegang (New York), Peak Organic (Maine), Magic Hat (Vermont), Sierra Nevada (California), Shinerbock (Texas).
Beers brewed in the Garden State include Flying Fish (Cherry Hill), Cricket Hill (Fairfield), Boaks (Pompton Lakes) and more!

Our special “Your Old Man’s Bar” will feature some of America’s historic cornerstone beers including: Pabst Blue Ribbon, Schaefer, Piels, Old Milwaukee, Schlitz, Schmidt’s, and Colt 45.
For those who love Cider we have you covered with favorites: Woodchuck (Vermont), Woodpecker (England) and Angry Orchard (Ohio). More sensational ciders to be announced soon, as well as additional surprise beers.

Partial proceeds from the Asbury Park Beer Festival will be given to non-profit organizations that are doing great work at the Jersey Shore. These organizations are the Sandy Hook, NJ based environmental group Clean Ocean Action, the children’s organization, the Best Day Foundation and Officer Down, a non-profit organization that raises money throughout the year to assist deceased or permanently disabled NJ Law Enforcement Officers and/or their families.

Celebrate Responsibly:

The Asbury Park Beer Festival wants their patrons to be responsible and take alternate means of transportation. Tickets priced at $10 will be available for those who are “Designated Drivers” and Asbury Park Beer Festival attendees are encouraged to take New Jersey Transit trains to Asbury Park station. The Boardwalk Concierge will act as a “Taxi Stand”, where cabs will be on standby to take customers home responsibly.

Tickets to the Asbury Park Beer Festival are available through Ticketmaster.com (surcharges apply) and the Stone Pony and Asbury Park Boardwalk box offices.

For more information, visit http://asburyparkbeerfest.com  and https://www.facebook.com/AsburyParkBeerfest or call 732-897-6500.