Separating good breweries from great: the hang’s the thing.

After a productive day of work, we were enjoying happy hour beverages and banter with Steve and Donna Ashton, owners of Ashton Brewing in Middlesex, N.J. That’s the night the concept of hangability crystallized in my mind. It’s one thing for a brewery to make great beer. It’s something else entirely to craft a space where people want to hang while drinking it.

Ashton is one of those rare breweries batting 1,000. The beers are absolutely spot on. They’re passionate about getting them right—no matter the style. Be it their three percent ordinary bitter or their 12 percent imperial stout, each is dialed in. Clean, flavorful, well aged and balanced. Sublime.

Then, you sit in that cozy tasting room, ensconced in 19th century red brick. Donna’s art is all around — she’s the brewery’s lead designer, an artist with mad skills. And if you’re lucky enough to have Steve and Donna’s company, well, you’re in for a great evening.

Hangability, personified.

It’s a well-worn tenet of business 101; the organization takes on the personality of its leadership. Good boss, good place. Bad boss … well, that’s the source of the expression, the fish stinks from the head. I observed the Ashtons closely that night. They weren’t just being nice to us because we have video cameras. They treated everybody who came through the door like regulars—just as Donna had, on our first visit. Rock solid.

As Steve and I geeked out over the minutiae of fermentation, specific gravity and enzyme conversion—it dawned on me. This is my why. This singular experience sums up what drew me to craft beer and keeps me coming back. Good beer. Good place. Good people. The craft beer triangle, a three-legged stool.

Cut off any leg, it can’t stand.

For decades, an elusive quarry in the States. The American tavern of my youth was a party. Smoke and television, a blaring jukebox, debate and braggadocio fueled by shots all around. Like the nation that spawned it, it’s loud, frenetic and larger than life. It’s marvelous, if you’re into that kind of thing. I never have been. I felt way more at home in the understated calm of the English pub.

England was where we fell in love with the idea of interesting conversation over superbly good beer. You’ll find it in just about any pub in the United Kingdom. If there’s music, it’s not so loud that you must shout to be heard. And there’s rarely if ever a battery of TVs blasting the day’s games. We first experienced it in the mid-80s and it was culture shock. A stark contrast to the American bar, a wholly novel way to enjoy the barley beverage. And it’s how you experience beer in the best craft breweries.

We’ve been to a lot of craft breweries. A boatload. We started homebrewing in ‘94. Since then, when a micro or brewpub opened within a day’s drive, we made it a point to get there. It’s what we do. When we travel, we seek them out. Over craft or homemade beer, we met Michael Jackson (the beer Michael Jackson), Charlie Papazian, Carol Stoudt, Bert Grant, Fritz Maytag, Garrett Oliver, Steve Dressler, Michael Lewis and a dozen other pioneers whose names we can’t remember. The first time we met Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head fame was at his nascent brewpub in Rehoboth Beach—toiling away on his first brewery, a three-vessel, half-barrel homebrew contrivance. (It’s still at the production brewery in Milton, a museum piece and homage to Sam’s humble beginnings.)

In other words, we’ve been at this a while.

The best of the best tick all three boxes. Good beer, good place, good people. Without any hesitation, I can tell you that many if not most are missing one leg of the triangle. If not missing, an inch or two short. I can cite big, famous names here. (I won’t.) We’ve had near perfect beer—11 on a scale of 10—in places we wouldn’t hang even if we lived five minutes away. Some are just too big, too cold, too touristy. Countless others are warm, friendly, comfortable places serving crappy, insipid beer-like fluid. More rare, the cozy place with good beer where none of the staff talk to you or make eye contact. We’ve experienced it all, every variation of one leg short.

The triangle is the pixie dust that separates good from great. Places like Ashton. Or Belleflower in Portland, Maine. Bissell Brothers in Milo, Maine. Dogfish Head’s original location, the Rehoboth brewpub. Dock Street in west Philly. Fainting Goat in North Carolina. Adroit Theory and Wheatland Springs in Virginia. The hop vine-festooned beer garden at Sierra Nevada in Chico, California. The Seed in Atlantic City or Ludlam Island outside Sea Isle City, N.J., where owner Billy Topley sets the tone—like the Ashtons, greeting each visitor like a regular.

Whether they know it or not, the best of the best in craft beer aren’t just making amazing beer. They’re creating an entire ecosystem—places where people gather in pursuit of interesting, flavorful, well-made beers in the company of others who share that passion.

That’s beyond beer, another thing entirely. It’s special and worth the effort. It’s why we do what we do. You’re coming along, right?

=S

TO BE CONTINUED

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