A RED BANK BREWMASTER FLEXES HIS SKILLS WITH A VARIED AND EXCITING PORTFOLIO OF BEERS

BY ERIK SCHONING PHOTOS BY ALEX BARETTO

If you’ve ever savored a beer be it a light, crisp Pilsner on a sizzling summer afternoon, or a chocolatey porter on a brisk winter eve thank a brewer. While sipping suds at Triumph Brewing in Red Bank, you’re appreciating the work of Matthew Agpaoa, head brewmaster.

Agpaoa came to brewing, as many do, through a happy accident of sorts. After college he was working front-of-house at River Horse Brewing in Ewing. When a coworker’s departure turned into an opportunity to get more involved on the brewing side, he never looked back.

“The longer I did it, the more I realized I liked doing it,” Agpaoa said. “Brewing is a good mix of working with your hands and thinking at the same time.”

All along, he was a fan of Triumph. He lived in Lambertville, and he and his coworkers would often venture to the Triumph location in New Hope; it was their local bar. After spearheading a few collaboration beers with Triumph, Agpaoa got the opportunity he was looking for: the chance to run a brewery of his own.

In many ways, Triumph was the perfect fit: the brewery has made its name in lagers since its launch in 1995, a bold choice in a craft brewing space that has long been dominated (at least commercially) by IPAs. But, as Agpaoa pointed out, the first beer a brewer will try at a new brewery is typically some kind of pale lager. That’s because they are technical beers that rely on the skill of the brewer and not on the intensity of the ingredients to make an impact.

In recent years, as the IPA trend has slightly slowed down, breweries like Triumph, with well-balanced portfolios of beers, are more valued than ever.

“We want our consumers to have options, whether they want something a little more classic or something new school,” Agpaoa said. “We’ve started to see lagers tick up, which I think most industry magazines will tell you is happening. And that’s great for us, because Triumph has always built its reputation on classic styles and lager brewing in particular. It’s really cool to see re-engaged interest in lager as a class of styles. When that happens, when the microscope is down on it a little bit more, you can explore styles in a way you might not have.”

For example, Agpaoa and his team brewed a lager that clocks in at 60% rye. This doesn’t really dovetail with any classic style, but because of the trust and enthusiasm of his customers, Agpaoa is able to try new things and put out new and unfamiliar lagers.

In a small brewery, the balance between experimentation and consistency is always tricky. Smaller breweries like Triumph don’t typically have small-batch or pilot programs, in which you can put out test batches of a new beer; as Agpaoa explained, a risky experiment can often lead to a beer sitting on tap, untouched, for up to three months. So in brewing, as in baking, it’s a matter of finding your recipes and tweaking them. For Agpaoa, empowering his employees to constantly develop better versions of their beer is an important piece of his role.

“I don’t necessarily want to work with a group of guys where we have a corporate recipe book and I say, ‘This is what you brew, this is when you brew it, and this is what it has to taste like,’” Agpaoa said. “To me, it’s always about how we put new tools in the toolbox over and over again. So we sit around and talk about this current batch of Bengal Gold IPA, so next time we are brewing it even better.”

This push for greatness shows up in every part of the brewing process. Agpaoa spends a lot of time trying to source the best ingredients, whether that’s smoked malt from Germany or the latest hop varietals coming out of Oregon. He tries to think seasonally, and every beer has different strengths; you want something different out of an Oktoberfest than you would, say, a Czech lager. Knowing your goals in each batch helps Agpaoa and his team drill down on how to make a beer special.

And these are, indeed, special beers. Agpaoa has an exciting fall planned for the brewery. He’s debuting his annual Oktoberfest, a classic festbier just shy of 6%. There’s his rauchbier, a smoked amber lager with smoked malt from Weyermann Maltery out of Bamberg, Germany. And, this year, he’s bringing back Triumph’s prized pumpkin ale.

What’s striking about the taps at Triumph is the sheer variety: hazy IPAs, saisons, German-style Schwarzbier, smoked lagers it’s an impressive roster of the best beer the world has to offer. And Agpaoa is always looking to push the envelope; lately he’s been experimenting with smoking malt in-house, as well as with a barrel aging program, using neutral oak barrels, wild yeast, and souring bacteria to develop interesting new beers. He is always working with the front-of-house team at the brewery to make sure the people selling the beer Triumph’s bartenders and servers are armed with the tasting notes and have the vocabulary to talk about each brew. (At the time of writing, Agpaoa is working to get the management team at the brewery Cicerone Certified, the beer equivalent of somm training.)

From sourcing hops to training servers, the brewer’s work is comprehensive. Every step in the beermaking process has to be perfect, and great brewers are always striving to improve. For Agpaoa, that may mean a lot of work, but for beer fans, that’s nothing but tasty news.

SIGNATURE BREW

One of Triumph’s signature brews, and Agpaoa’s personal favorite, is the Keller Pilsner. Described as “a pet project to continuously improve upon since just about day one,” the beer ultimately claimed the bronze medal in its category at the 2022 Great American Beer Festival. Brewed with pilsner malt from Weyermann and Tettnang hops, the beer is heavily hopped then fermented cold and slow to preserve its delicate aromas. After a process called spunding, in which the beer is carbonated by its own fermentation process, it’s cold conditioned for only a week. This is a young, unfiltered pilsner with a strong hoppy aroma: light lemon, a little grassy, dashes of herbal and floral notes, but fresh and delicate overall. On the palate, expect light bready malt, a kiss of sweetness, and that classic Pilsner bitterness. At 4.6%, this is a refreshing, dry beer, delicious on its own yet pairs perfectly with food.

Triumph Restaurant & Brewery

1 Bridge Avenue, Red Bank

732. 852.7300 / triumphbrewing.com/red-bank