Tag: Mercer County

Hopewell Valley Vineyards

Checked in at Hopewell Valley Vineyards.

The vineyards lie at the base of the Sourland Mountains and in close proximity of the Delaware Valley with heavy soils of clay and shale agriculturally classified as clay loam.

Bhavna and I decided to treat ourselves to an outing to the Hopewell Valley Vineyards. Her treat was a bottle of Pinot Grigio and my treat was listening to our friend, Matt, play classic rock and pop in their band, Acoustic Road.

We dined on a rustic pizza, Pizza Pinot Grigio, which was suggested as a good pairing with the Pinot Grigio wine, while listening to the band play U2's Where the Street Have No Name, We Can Work It Out by the Beatles, and many other billboard hits.

As the evening moved on and the sun went down, Bhavna pointed me to the left side of the open courtyard, toward the grape vines and the evening sky. I was treated to a fabulous evening sunset.

Stones

What is a stone?

It’s a unit of measure. The stone or stone weight is an English and imperial unit of mass now equal to 14 pounds (6.35029318 kg). My bodyweight (Earth) is approximately 11.4 stone.

Stone also refers to a solid aggregate of one or more minerals or mineraloids. Rocks are stones.

It may also refer — in the plural — to the assemblage of English musicians into a rock and roll band or the collection of pages and images into weekly periodically about music and popular culture. Was that a pun?

Stone silence on that question. Wait, that was a pun?

My town of Skillman in Montgomery Township lays at the base of the Sourland Mountain, a 27km long ridge extending from the Delaware River in Lambertville to the western end of Hillsborough Township, through Montgomery Township, and into Hopewell Township.

The Sourland Mountain and the area around it are full of hard igneous rock called diabase. The diabase is a highly erosion-resistant stone known as trap rock.

In the sixteen years that I have lived in Skillman, I have photographed many various sections of the Sourland Mountain, including my favourite spot, the Rock Brook. But there are other areas that I wanted to explore for this photo challenge.

Stones, Sourland Mountain Preserve

NIKON D5100 24mm f/4 ISO-5600 1/250sec Khürt L. Williams

On private property along Rileyville Road in East Amwell Township, Hunterdon County, a series of three large rocks sit on top of another boulder large enough to hold them. Legend claims that many years ago three brothers decided to meet the Devil, overcome him and rid the area of his presence once and for all. But, as it turned out, they were no match for the Evil One who surprised them, turning them into stone on the spot where we still see them sitting today at Three Brothers Rock.

The European’s who settled the area shared a penchant for naming areas after the Devil himself, for example, the boulder fields called Devil’s Featherbed and a collection of huge boulders along the hiking trails in the Sourland Mountain Preserve called Devil’s Half Acre.

Bhavna’s was tired of attending the Bruno Mars concert last night. I was hoping she’ll join me in hiking the eight-kilometre (~ 5 miles) Ridge Trail from the trailhead at Eastern Mountain Road in Hillsborough Township, along Maple Flats and up the boardwalks into Montgomery Township toward Roaring Rocks, then continue along the Roaring Brook trail over the Texas Eastern Pipeline toward Devil’s Half Acre before heading back down to the trailhead.

Instead, I contacted my friend Prasanna, who was happy to get out on a hike with me. We hike hikes for just over two hours. We didn't stick to the planned route. We skipped the outbound trail to Devil's Half-Acre and instead returned to the trailhead via the pipeline. It was just a bit too warm and humid for us. We were sweaty and sticky.

Stones, Sourland Mountain Preserve

NIKON D5100 24mm f/4 ISO-4000 1/250sec Khürt L. Williams

Created by photographer Frank Jansen, the Tuesday Photo Challenge is a weekly theme-based challenge for photographers of all kinds to share both new and old photography.

Sourland Ecosystem Preserve Trail Map
Sourland Ecosystem Preserve Trail Map

The Referend Bier Blendery

Bhavna and I had a tour of The Referend Bier Blendery hosted by Melissa Ducommun who is a PhD candidate at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

Name: The Referend Bier Blendery
Location: Pennington, Mercer County, New Jersey
Recommended Beer: Berliner Messe
Notes: Taproom open for pints, flights, growler fills, merchandise and bottles & cans to go. Upstairs taproom and deck open during weekend hours. Outside food allowed. Only service animals are allowed. Parking lot located next to the brewery.

This fall, The Referend Bier Blendery in Pennington opened its doors to the public. Twice a month, on the first and third Saturday, The Referend Bier Blendery will offer a public tasting of two or more Berliner Messe ales and Alleluiavers ales aged on New Jersey peaches and nectarines, and Gloria, which features an American dry hopping.

The Referend Bier Blenderyy specialises in the production of spontaneously fermented beers. This is a style of beer making used by ancient beer-making cultures and popularised by the modern lambic brewers of Belgium's Pajottenland.

The Referend Bier Blendery, beer, blendery, brewery, people[exif id="23711"]

The Referend Bier Blendery, beer, blendery, brewery, people[exif id="23714"]

My wife and I took a short tour of the brewery hosted by Melissa Ducommun, a PhD candidate at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

Melissa took us outdoor and showed us the stainless steel fermentation tanks into which The Referend Bier Blendery will be pumping wort obtained from local New Jersey beer brewers. The fermentation tanks are large, shallow pans called a "cool ship", where wild yeast and bacteria will settle on overnight. The "cool ship", which was custom fabricated by Trenton Sheet Metal, sits in the back of a truck that will be driven from location to location.

The Referend Bier Blendery, beer, blendery, brewery, people[exif id="23716"]

The Referend Bier Blendery, beer, blendery, brewery, people[exif id="23717"]

The cool ship is outdoors to reduce contamination to the breweries where Referend obtains wort. Most beer is fermented by commercially cultivated yeast. However, spontaneously fermented beer depends upon the unpredictability of the wild yeast and microflora's presence to impart a singular aroma and flavour profile. The presence of wild bacteria would be disastrous for any commercial beer batch infected by it.

Melissa explained that after the wort has cooled, it is put into aged oak barrels and racked in the blendery, at which point fermentation will begin. The wild fermentation process is lengthy. The Referend Bier Blendery has used Chardonnay oak barrels for the long ageing process.

The Referend Bier Blendery, beer, blendery, brewery, people[exif id="23712"]

The Referend Bier Blendery, beer, blendery, brewery, people[exif id="23715"]

This winter, The Referend Bier Blendery will be brewing 500 barrels of wort to be 100 per cent spontaneously fermented and aged in oak barrels, gradually coming to maturity between four months and four years, depending on the style of beer. Melissa told us that the first bottled offerings would finish conditioning in early 2017 and be sold in traditional corked and caged, 750-ml green glass bottles.