Jersey Shore Breweries: Icarus Brewing Review

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Icarus Brewing is one of the newer breweries by the shore, which is becoming more and more popular. It’s located in Lakewood at Exit 91 on the Parkway, easily accessible after a summer beach day in Point Pleasant or Bay Head (on the West side of the highway along Route 88, close to the Blue Claws stadium). The location is nicely sized (it wasn’t very crowded when I went there, on a Sunday afternoon) and they have a ton of offerings for tasting or growlers refills.

A nice touch is that they had a food trucks right in front and you could order food for inside while enjoying the beers. It’s not common in New Jersey that you can grab a bite while enjoying tastings at a brewery.

I’m updating this post based on my latest visit in June 2019. Their standard flight went up to 5 beers, which is more appropriate given the large selection of tempting beers. Here’s what I tried at Icarus (includes some older beers that might not be available every time):

• Yacht Juice – At 8%, it’s a stronger IPA with a discrete fruit flavor, one of their best beers!
• Milking It – The slightly stronger, even slightly tastier maybe version of the Yacht Juice. A 8.1% NEIPA with lactose,
• Tropopause – A light pale ale with nice fruit flavors. Despite having only 5.5%, it is pretty hoppy. Another great summer beer!
• ChewBocka Doppelbock – Great flavors in this 7% “strong lager”. But it’s more than a lager, it has hoppiness, it’s a very gentle dark beer.
• Mesoa – A 8.2% imperial NEIPA, loaded with oats and lactose, giving it very complex aromas that also include tropical fruit. Heavy, tasty beer!
• DDH Bay Dreamer – A refreshing 5% session IPA. At 5% you can have lots of this on a hot summer day, but it still feels too light and the citrus flavor too strong.
• DDH Ella Ella – Australian IPA, light and easy even at 6.9%, with DDH standing for double-dry hopped.
• Power Juicer – An outstanding North East-style Imperial IPA! The Lactose (that I’ve started to grow fond of) smoothes up the taste, but you can still feel the strong hoppy flavors of this 7.5% awesomeness.
• We Want the Idaho Gold – This was another of my favorites, it’s a New England-style imperial IPA (8.1%), with strong tropical flavors from the Idaho hops, a bit crisper than the Power Juicer mentioned above.

There are so many others I need to try, with such a varied selection of IPAs, so I definitely have to stop there again.

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