USA, NJ: Readington Brewery and Hop Farm eyeing launch of brewing facility in May

Readington Brewery and Hop Farm, one of the largest hop farms in New Jersey, plans to open a beer production facility and tasting room in May, making it New Jersey's first brewery on a hop farm, MyCentralJersey.com reported on December 16.

It's located on a 25-acre farm with a 3,700-square-foot “farm chic” brewing facility and tasting room, said co-owner Braun Kiess, a Bedminster resident. By doubling the hop fields from its current acre-and-a-half, Readington Brewery and Hop Farm will also become one of the largest hop farms in the state.

“Beer in many ways is starting to become like wine from a tasting and brewing perspective and here, you will be able to taste the terroir in the styles that we make,” Kiess said. “People will see the crops in the field and the ‘bine to stein,’ as we like to say.” A bine is the stem of a hop plant.

The brewery will focus on quality, classic beers made with local ingredients and yet true-to-style from different regions — for example, a pilsner reminiscent of German style, another of the Czech Republic, and a third from the U.S. There will also be other styles of beer there, such as lagers, porters, stouts, bocks, ales and IPAs.

Warren Wilson, the former owner of University Homebrewing in Hackettstown, a former Readington Hop Farm client, will be head brewer.

Besides hops, other beer ingredients — such as pumpkins for pumpkin beers and raspberries for raspberry beers — will also be grown on the farm.

“We view what we’re doing as a way keep farming alive in New Jersey,” Kiess said. “If it wasn’t for this project, this could have become a housing development or office space.”

Kiess and co-owner and Dan Aron, of Washington, who also both co-own Pleasant Run Structures in Parsippany and Flemington, broke ground Dec. 8 on the new building.

It will feature a wraparound porch overlooking the hop fields, making for “an interesting aesthetic since hop vines grow up ropes, about 20-feet high, on telephone poles with steel wires between them,” said Kiess.

At full capacity, the porch and tasting room will be able to accommodate about 100 people.

The brewery will also have an outdoor patio and large lawn area for lawn games and other activities. Inside, the tasting room will include cathedral ceilings, exposed wood details, the brewing facility, a large bar area, a wood burning stove as well as couches and high-top tables “for a relaxed farm environment that goes with the feel of Hunterdon and Somerset counties,” Kiess said.

Similar to traditional breweries, tours of the farm and brewing facility will be available.

Before starting Readington Brewery and Hop Farm and Pleasant Run Structures, Aron and Kiess were high school friends who liked to homebrew for fun.

“We were making 'bathtub beer' in my studio apartment in Summit circa-1998,” laughed Kiess.

Aron continued home-brewing through the years, although both men continued to enjoy craft beer as the industry evolved in New Jersey.

When they discovered the property for sale that would eventually become the home of Readington Brewery and Hop Farm three years ago, the pair initially planned for it to be a new Pleasant Run Structures location. But then, they started talking about New Jersey lacked farm breweries, despite their more common existence in other parts of the United States.

Although right now Readington Brewery and Hop Farm is the only one of its kind in New Jersey, Kiess sees that changing.

“The craft beer laws were relatively late to change in New Jersey, much later than some other states, so they’re just ahead of us in that sense, but I think it’ll certainly go that way,” he said. “Right now the brewery formula is in an industrial park with some folding chairs and I think that’s the infant stage of the industry. As it matures, you will see more of these sorts of bespoke-types of breweries.”

E-malt.com, the global information source for the brewing and malting industry professionals. The bi-weekly E-malt.com Newsletters feature latest industry news, statistics in graphs and tables, world barley and malt prices, and other relevant information. Click here to get full access to E-malt.com. If you are a Castle Malting client, you can get free access to E-malt.com website and publications. Contact us for more information at marketing@castlemalting.com .