It's part of a local, boozy trend. Watch video
EDISON -- Jason Kijowski, a co-owner of the Cypress Brewing Company in south Edison, wasn't sure what would happen when the business launched.
"Our biggest concern when we opened was that we were going to be sitting on the kegs of beer and drinking it ourselves," Kijowski said. "But it's really, really exploded."
Tom Zuber, the owner of the Demented Brewing Company in Middlesex Borough, also took a risk, leaving behind his career in software engineering to make a go of it.
"I come to work happy every day," Zuber said.
Kijowski and Zuber, whose breweries are 12 miles apart, took the leap within weeks of each other last year, becoming the first and second of their kind in Middlesex County: the production beer brewery with a tasting room. Both establishments were launched by craft beer enthusiasts who took their recipes from their kitchens or garages into places more associated with heavy industry than light beer.
New Jersey legalized such establishments in 2012, allowing distribution breweries to sell samples of their products on site. The new law has led to a big increase in taprooms like Cypress and Demented as more and more people want good, local beer.
"People are starting to care more about what their beer tastes like," Zuber said. "I think in New Jersey, there's a lot of room for growth."
Double chocolate imperial oat stout, Imperial vanilla porter, Double IPA, and Seventeen mile IPA beer .Owner and brewer Charles Backmann brews up a batch of beer at Cypress Brewing in Edison.(Ed Murray | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com) The two new breweries are part of a new trend, fueled by interest in locally-sourced goods, that is playing out statewide. In the three years since the law passed allowing beer-makers to offer samples, the number of such breweries has tripled, according to Gene Muller, the treasurer of the Garden State Craft Brewers Guild and founder of the Flying Fish Brewing Company in Camden County.
That figure now stands at 51, Muller said.
Another two dozen breweries are in the works, Muller said. In 2014, craft beer makers brewed 16.6 million pints of beer, with an estimated $1.2 billion economic impact in the state, according to the beer guild, which advocates for brewery-related laws in the state.
"It's a good time to be a beer drinker in New Jersey," Muller said.
On a recent Thursday night, the Cypress Brewing Company, on Nixon Lane in the Heller Industrial Park, was filled with customers in a main tasting area while workers brewed the product just a few feet away in giant metal vats.
A tour of the facility is mandated by state law, and some take it more seriously than others, peppering brewer and co-owner Charles Backmann with questions about everything from the health code -- they boil and disinfect as part of the beer-making process anyway, so the health inspector is happy -- to the amount of recipe experiments that go awry (an occupational hazard). Other tour-goers take a peek in the production room and, with a nod, head back to the bar for pints, take-home growlers, or "flights" of four-ounce samples.
The three co-owners, Kijowski, Backmann, and Bill Lutz, were all home-brewers, Kijowski said. Kijowski and Backmann also worked at a different brewery together, until they decided to make something of their own.
"We just decided to give it a go," Kijowski said. "And here we are."
Mayor Thomas Lankey, for one, is a fan, saying that it's a "genuine hyper-local success story."
"Besides being offered at their own tap room, it's terrific to see Cypress Brewing's products becoming available at more and more Central Jersey restaurants," Lankey said.
Cypress has a dozen accounts, including Hailey's Harp and Pub in Metuchen and Charlie Brown's in Edison. Many local bars rotate out the brews, so you won't find it there all the time. But it's always available during business hours in the taproom, which has a bar and stools along with a few tables.
Beers on offer Thursday included the 17 Mile IPA, the Northern English Nut Brown and the Double Chocolate Imperial Oatmeal Stout, all brewed on site. Cypress focuses on ales and other higher-gravity beer, meaning it's stronger and has more alcohol by volume, Kijowski said.
Like other production breweries, Cypress is not allowed to sell food and doesn't even have a kitchen, but there are a few bowls of pretzels on offer. That sharpens the focus on the brews, which is all anyone is really there for anyway. The customer base -- those who want a good, local beer -- is growing, advocates say.
"In general, craft beer has just exploded," Kijowski said. "There's a lot of new faces, a lot of new companies."
Although Middlesex County has brew pubs, which brew beer and serve food on site, Cypress Brewing Co. and Demented Brewing Co. are the only ones that can both distribute their product and offer samples on site.
On a recent Saturday afternoon, Demented Brewing was also crowded with customers. Open since August, the brewery is nestled between train tracks and an industrial row at 600 Lincoln Boulevard.
Zuber was a software engineer with a beer hobby when he decided to open a business. It took him years to come up with a plan, and zoning presented unexpected delays, but he's glad to be in the sudsy world of brewing.
On Saturday, the taps included Der Wolf, Beowulf and Belladonna.
On a tour, Zuber shows off every step of the process -- milling the grains, boiling them, adding hops, putting the product in huge tanks for days-long fermentation. Special flavors, everything from cocoa to pecans, can be added at different points in the process.
Tom Zuber shows barrels aging booze at Demented Brewing Co. in Middlesex Borough. (Brian Amaral | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com) Demented employs 10 people and has about 150 accounts with bars, restaurants and liquor stores, Zuber said. The name Demented is an homage to all the strange things that have happened in New Jersey -- that famous devil, for example, is on the company's logo and painted on its walls.
The motif extends to the product: Demented is releasing "seven deadly stouts," named after the sins. The most recent is "gluttony," a coffee stout.
By the middle of this year, Zuber said, he's hoping to have his product available for sale packaged in cans. Right now, it's available as a take-out in 32-ounce or 64-ounce growlers, but like everything else about the business, the distribution is expanding.
That's the story statewide, said Mike Kivowitz, the founder of New Jersey Craft Beer, a sort of clearinghouse for New Jersey beer news and resources. Like in any business, challenges remain, everything from clearing regulatory hurdles to securing loans to clarifying the law about whether customers can do a reverse BYOB -- bring your own food. But the future, advocates say, looks bright.
"We're going to have pretty substantial growth in two to three years," Kivowitz said. "I don't think it's going to stop anytime soon."
Brian Amaral may be reached at bamaral@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @bamaral44. Find NJ.com on Facebook.