With high anticipation of opening up in time for the summer rush, local craft beer brewery, Ross Brewing, recently earned the Best Brew Award at the New Jersey Beer BBQ Bacon Showdown. It’s an accomplishment for sure, considering how many brews were vying for the prized award.
Ross Brewing Company Wins Best Brew Award at the New Jersey Beer BBQ Bacon Showdown
Morris Plains, NJ – Ross Brewing Company of Middletown, NJ has won the Best Brew Award at New Jersey’s Beer BBQ Bacon Showdown. Their limited edition Brux Royale Belgian Chocolate Stout topped the more than 100 beers from the dozens of breweries in attendance to emerge as the winner.
The Showdown took place in Morris Plains at Mennen Arena Field on an absolutely beautiful day this past Saturday May 15. The Beer BBQ Bacon Showdown is New Jersey’s first festival featuring only New Jersey Beer, coupled with restaurants, gourmet food trucks & chefs, offering a delectable array of mouth watering
BBQ & Bacon creations. The hundreds in attendance were able to sample no end of NJ craft beers, hard seltzers, and sangria, in additon to truly creative and delicious BBQ and bacon dishes. Live music throughout the day kept the good times rolling, and a great time was had by all.
Alongside such longtime New Jersey Breweries such as Cape May Brewing, Spellbound Brewing, Cricket Hill Brewing, and Bolero Snort Brewing, Ross Brewing made their debut at the festival in a big fashion.
”We were really shocked at the overall win for Best Brew,” said John Ross Cocozza, Founder and President of Ross Brewing. ”We just wanted to come up here and share our creations with the New Jersey community. There are so many breweries here that make really amazing beers, beers we ourselves enjoy, competing for an award wasn’t even on our radar. We love Brux Royale, we think it’s amazing, but it’s definitely cool to see that other people think so too.”
Little Silver resident Cocozza continued, lavishing praise on the Ross team. “This win is huge because everybody took part in it. From the initial concept, to the base recipe, to the adjuncts used—event to the specific style of yeast!—everyone pitched in. Coming up with the right name, label, branding, and of course our amazing events team—this is a win we can all be proud of, and it’s one our hardworking group is going to savor for a while!”
Judges for the day included Deborah Smith, Executive Editor of the popular website jerseybites.com, Al Gatullo, radio host of the Al Gattullo Craft Beer Cast, Jenna Intersimone, award-winning food writer and editor for Courier News, Home News Tribune and MyCentralJersey.com, Christopher Masey, chef and managing partner at SubUrban Bar& Kitchen, Randolph, Mike Kivowitz, founder of the New Jersey Craft Beer, a club and community that is the ultimate resource for all things New Jersey beer, and Peter Culos, editor of Beer Bites at Jersey Bites.
The Beer BBQ Bacon challenge, founded in 2015, is the first festival to feature exclusively breweries from New Jersey’s burgeoning craft beer scene. Portions of proceeds benefit the Chester First Aid squad.
Ross Brewing Company is currently under construction in the Port Monmouth section of Middletown, and is New Jersey’s first craft brewery to feature a working dock that can support multiple boats attending their tasting room and gift shop on site. They produce bold handcrafted ales and lagers using local ingredients whenever possible, and are committed to the preservation and restoration of our Monmouth County rivers and shorelines. Ross beers are currently avaialable both on tap and packaged throughout New Jersey and New York at over 250 locations, as well as online at taprm.com.
Instagram @rossbrewing
Facebook Ross Brewing
Twitter @rossbrewing
Needless to say, it goes to show how well Monmouth County is represented when it comes to breweries. While there are already a handful of them, there’s no denying that local are eager to check out the upcoming brewery in Middletown, NJ.
source: Ross Brewing








































