Pork roll in a bottle ... Will miracles never cease?

The first batch of Exit 7 Pork Roll Porter was officially tapped Thursday.

Gene Muller, founder and president of Flying Fish Brewery, says it has aromas of the cooked New Jersey breakfast staple.

"There's a little bit of a smokey aroma" when a bottle is opened, and it's in the taste, according to Muller, who said real pork roll was used in the kettle to make the beer along with pork roll spices.

The Flying Fish website describes the beer as "dark brown, caramel porter featuring aromas of cocoa with hints of maple and smoke from the peat smoked barley. Flavors showcase chocolate, maple, toasted nuts and a bit of spice from the pork roll."

As for the great Taylor ham vs. pork roll debate, Muller said they had hoped to create a Taylor ham beer and a Exit 7A, "but Taylor Ham is a trademark and by the time we got that idea we'd have to start dealing with lawyers approval for trademark. Ao we went with just pork roll instead."

 

After deciding to create the beer, Muller said there was not a lot of trial and error is coming up with the brew.

"We just went for it. When you know your equipment. We did the calculations and went in there," Muller said.

"Everybody here's happy with it," he said of the brewers who tasted it before Thursday's tapping.

The beer will go to the Somerdale-based company's distributors and be available in stores next week.

Flying Fish, the company behind the "Exit" beers, is introducing two other new brews. Exit 5 Pinelands Sour Forage Ale features actual ingredients from the Pinelands, like wintergreen and goldenrod and pine needles that brewers found on a hike.

Exit 14 Imperial Pilsner honors "that big brewery off the Turnpike so we made a lager," which is reminiscent of the beer's intense hop bitterness, Muller said.

 

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