If you’ve been eagerly waiting for our next hopfest release or traditional beer style, you’re in luck this week, because we’ve got two brews that are great for a number of craft beer lover palates!

Our original Follow the Gull may have flown on through our Tasting Room earlier this year, but Double Dry-Hopped Follow the Gull swoops in this week for a swarm of hop flavor in a brilliant can design.

It doesn’t get much better than Longliner, either, which is our newest lager in six-packs that takes the best of some of our more recent lager styles to create a concoction that combines the crispness of Boat Ramp Champ, the hop notes of Cape May Lager, and the nuance of Cin Cin to form a Captain Planet-level awesome lager.

We spoke with Brewery Operations Manager James Fox about what folks can expect with these two!

“Follow the Gull is a fan and employee favorite, and we went over and beyond for the hops for it, reaching almost nine pounds per barrel. It has some New Zealand hops in there as well,” he says.

“In the process of making that, we were trying it out post-dry hop and doing our sample checks, and smelling that beer was about the equivalent of sticking your face into a hop bag and taking a whiff,” he says.

(Ed. note: We don’t know about you, but that sounds heavenly.)

“So, it’s hoppy. It’s very hoppy, but still surprisingly drinkable for the amount of hop character it has,” James shares.

“It’s definitely a beer designed for the hop heads out there,” he says.

Double Dry-Hopped Follow the Gull features Azacca, Amarillo, Citra, El Dorado, and Motueka hops.

“There’s going to be a lot of softer notes, but it’s very fruit forward and juicy,” he says. “The two prominent hops for this one are Citra and Motueka.”

“With Citra, you get that nice little citrus character to it, and Motueka gives you a more tropical fruitiness. Those two come through the strongest, and the other hops round it out and add some of the background notes to tie it all together,” he says.

“Follow the Gull is great as a base beer for a double dry-hop because it’s simple and has a wheat and oat character to give it body,” James shares. It’s just a nice, clean base beer that showcases the hops well.”

If you’re already a fan of Follow the Gull, you might find yourself loving this one even more, as it takes a lot of what we did with the original and turns it up to 11! If you haven’t tried Follow the Gull and are intrigued, you definitely won’t be disappointed.

“A lot of times when we do double dry-hops, it’s not necessarily about doubling the same hops that are in the base beer,” he explains. “While we do typically add more of the hops that are in the base beer, we like to make it a little different, too.”

(Ed. note: The more you know!)

“The base beer’s hops are put together in a way to have a certain flavor character. By increasing just those hops themselves, a beer might turn out less balanced or less pleasant,” he says.

“In a lot of instances, we choose hops that maybe aren’t showcased as much in the base beer, or that aren’t present in the base beer entirely,” he says. “It’s essentially a double dry-hop by hop total alone.”

Part of the inspiration for the design of this can came from these extra hop notes, with not one but two gulls vying for the delicious hops.

Rest assured that no actual gulls will try to fight you for this beer, though. They don’t know what they’re missing!

Another new release this week is a brand new lager: Longliner!

Compared with our more recent lager releases, James notes that there are a lot of things to love about this newbie.

“Longliner has a little more hop character, and it’s a little drier and has a crisper finish to it,” he says. “It’s just as crushable, but with more hop character overall.”

“It’s kind of a cross between some of our few recent lagers,” he continues. “It’s an amalgamation of all of them.”

“Boat Ramp Champ was a good iteration of our Cape May Lager, which did have a little more hop character. Cin Cin, our Italian Pilsner, was really bright and crisp as well,” he says. “That’s a development that has carried on as we’ve continued to refine our lagers.”

“This one is probably one of the best ones that we’ve made,” he says.

(Ed. note: High praise from someone who knows his lagers!)

“It’s clean, balanced, crisp, and the hop character comes through nicely but isn’t overpowering. It’s really just well-rounded,” he says.

It’s not just James who’s excited, though.

“I don’t think there was a single person on the production floor who wasn’t excited for this one. All the way through the process, it was tasting wonderful, and the final product ended up fantastic,” he shares.

“Between this year’s Oktoberfest and Longliner, we have two of the best lagers we’ve made since my time at the company,” he says. “I’ll be picking this one up myself every week for as long as we have it.”

It’s pretty great timing that not only are these two new brews, Double Dry-Hopped Follow the Gull and Longliner, available starting today in our Tasting Room, but so is Oktoberfest, which is also out in stores throughout the region!

While fans will need to make a trek to our Cape May Tasting Room to snag the delicious Longliner for now, Double Dry-Hopped Follow the Gull will be available throughout New Jersey starting Monday, September 13th, and in eastern Pennsylvania starting Monday, September 20th.

If you grab some to-go packs from our Tasting Room this month, or snag some DDH Follow the Gull from your local liquor store, make sure to tag us on Instagram @capemaybrewco to share your haul!