Insight into Tuckahoe Brewing's expansion

Jim McAfee (right) on a tour Saturday ... a growler to go

Tuckahoe Brewing put out the word awhile back that it had expansion plans in the works for its operation in the northern part of Cape May County. 

Now, here's some insight into the 17-month-old brewery's efforts to move away from its start-up brewing system and boost its brewing volume.

Founders Matt McDevitt, Tim Hanna, Chris Konicki and Jim McAfee are in the process of closing on the financing that will enable the brewery to step up to a larger brewhouse and corresponding fermentation tanks to keep up with a demand that is running well ahead of supply.

"It looks like we'll be getting this stuff in October or November, and maybe operating on it by the new year at some point," says Matt, who handles Tuckahoe's brewing duties, turning out a lineup of pale ale, Belgian wit, smoked porter and stout.

Matt and his partners are also in the process of tricking out their tasting room to add a bar.

"We're at the point where we can't brew any more than we are brewing, and the demand is such that our distributor is having to hold beer back from certain places because we don't make that much," he says. 

The plan right now, Matt says, is to remain in the Dennis Township location where the brewery launched in December 2011 and take over some adjacent space in the business park building that also houses a coffee roaster. (The neighboring roaster's Sumatran and Honduran beans were used in Tuckahoe's New Brighton Coffee Stout. The beer won best in show at the Atlantic City beer fest last month).

Exactly what size brewhouse Tuckahoe acquires to replace the 3-barrel PsychoBrew set-up now in use could go a couple of ways.

"We're probably heading to a 15-barrel brewhouse, possibly a 20 at the biggest. That kind of depends on used equipment," Matt says. "If something comes up that's 20 barrels that's used, we'll probably jump on that. But that's hit or miss. You can't depend on (finding) used equipment."

Used equipment has been a way to get start-up breweries into business sooner than later. But the market for used equipment has tightened sharply over the past couple of years, if not longer, as the number of craft brewery start-ups across the nation has risen. Additionally, delivery times for orders on new equipment have grown longer for pretty much the same reasons.

December 2011: First brew at Tuckahoe

Tuckahoe's capacity is a pressing concern. Demand last summer put a squeeze on the brewery; this summer probably won't be any different. As an example, Matt points to the Deauville Inn in nearby Strathmere (Upper Township), one of the brewery's draft accounts. The Deauville runs through four kegs a week of Tuckahoe's top-seller, Dennis Creek Pale Ale.

"Last summer was huge with the pale ale," Matt says. "We're going to have a tough time now, since we're in more places, a tough time managing that this summer. We're trying to stockpile as much as we can (but) it's really not working. We're selling everything out."

Meanwhile, work on Tuckahoe Brewing's tasting room has been ongoing.

"That's the first thing we're doing, with the money that we have already," Matt says. "We've knocked down a bunch of walls. We're hoping by Memorial Day it'll be ready."

Update: Progress on River Horse move to Ewing

Logo on floor, a little dusty now

For the folks at River Horse Brewing, the finish line for the brewery's ongoing move may include something bigger than making beer in a new location.

"It'll be time for a nap," says Chris Walsh, one of River Horse's co-owners. 

He's joking. 

Sort of. 

Moving the 17-year-old brewery from Lambertville, its founding location in the brick Original Trenton Cracker factory building beside the Delaware River and canal, to Ewing 14 miles south is no easy task and could never be accomplished over night.

Or in a month.

Or two.

Still quite difficult in three. Things move just so fast, and there's a number of modifications going on.

This is, after all, a move to meet current growth needs, plus those of the future. 

It can be exhausting overseeing the modifications and still running the brewery in the original location, paying a premium in rent there because you're out-of-lease (time is money), and pushing to wind down that location to get into the new one.

It's critical to keep your beers, like your very popular Summer Blonde Ale, flowing to draft and retail accounts and the beer fans who helped you outgrow the first home. 

For River Horse, the exit from Lambertville, a walk-around town in southern Hunterdon County that's  practically devoid of retail chain stores but laden with art galleries and antique shops, is an undertaking that got going in January. 

Back then, the hopes were that things would wrap up about now, or be wrapping up. The revised forecast is now the end of May/start of June. 

"I've accepted that," Chris says, allowing himself a laugh amid a sigh of resignation.

General floor plan of brewery space

That doesn't mean there hasn't been substantial progress at the Ewing location, 25,000 square feet on four acres at 2 Graphics Drive, around the corner from the town's police station. It just may not look like it, not like a brewery at the moment. But in fact, there's been plenty effort to that end – drains, concrete work, plumbing, company logos painted on the brick-red non-skid flooring ... 

At this point, River Horse is coming out of the backstretch and into a far turn. The homestretch is in sight, and so is the finish line. 

"The drains system is completely in; the floor is epoxied. So that part is done," Chris says. "The two internal rooms are built for the mill room and the mechanicals. The piping is probably 75 percent done; electrical is probably 35 to 40 percent done. We have to get it insulated, all tested, and a couple tweaks here and there. Then we're good. But that takes some time."

When it's ready, the 25-barrel brewhouse and some fermentation tanks will be brought down from Lambertville, connected to waiting support components and fired up. (Over time, the brewhouse will be replaced with one double the its size; larger fermentation and bright beer tanks will also be swapped in for the 40 barrel tanks that River Horse now has. Overall production is expected to increase 30 to 40 percent.)

"We've put in all the vital organs. They're already going to be here," Chris says. "There's going to be a new chiller, new boiler, new air compressor. We don't need to move any of that, so we can get going here ... So it's the brewhouse and some fermentation, and away we go.

However, it's a different story right now, Chris notes, for grain silos that will go outside. A tasting room is also on the back burner, a lower priority as far as immediate needs go. But the brewery expects to still conduct tours as it resolves that addition. 

"The silos ... we're still working on that. We may need to continue with bagged grain and a manual process of getting rid of spent grain and that kind of stuff for a short amount of time, just to get in here and get going," he says. "But that will eventually all go over to a spent-grain silo ...

Exterior of building

"The tasting room, we haven't even started. We want to continue to have tours and tastings, but what we'll probably do is something makeshift out here (on the brewery floor), with the tap system that we have now, put some wheels on it, bring it out here with some picnic tables, that kind of stuff. Then we'll start on a remodel, something more formal, more settled. We just don't have the resources now to take that on as well."

The tasting room, Chris says, needs to be developed with the brewery's current and future fans in mind.  The new home won't be like Lambertville, where a lot of people stopped by because they were already in town for something. It's also not a matter of just having dedicated space for brewery special events; tour visits of all walks need to be meaningful experiences.

"It's a concept we have to figure out, how we want to use it, what kind of theme we want to have," he says. "In Lambertville, we were a stop-by. We were still a destination for a lot of people, but a lot of it was, 'I can't take antique shopping any more,' or whatever it was, using the (canal) towpath, or whatever you were doing. 

"But here it will be more of a destination, so it has to be more accommodating ... Friday tours, how are we going to get people here? When they walk in the door, what's the experience going to be like?"

Maybe a good rest, that nap, will yield some ideas on that.

But for now, River Horse has a few more miles to go before anyone sleeps.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Find the January post on River Horse's move here.

Seriously, Cape May ain't so little anymore

New brewhouse. Next up wiring and plumbing

The previous brewhouse is now in Michigan, its stay in New Jersey quite brief.

The original brewing set-up is in pieces, its frame and other bits converted into a keg washer, while another more recent component sits on an overhead ledge, looking like a giant, unlabeled soup can on a shelf.

Cape May Brewing Company is growing – again.

Cape May's 2nd kettle

New Jersey's southern-most brewery has begun yet another expansion, taking delivery of a 15-barrel brewhouse from G.W. Kent of Michigan, on Friday morning, promptly proceeding with an initial installation that saw the mash tun, kettle, heat exchanger and brewhouse scaffold freed from their packing and, by early afternoon, standing in place along a freshly cut drain trench.

Now, the spanking-new brewhouse is just days away from striking a mash for Cape May IPA, followed by a honey porter, both in the biggest batch sizes ever for the 19-month-old brewery. 

Righting the kettle

On Thursday, a crew from Rare Bird Brewery and Taproom in Traverse City, Mich., came for the 4-barrel brewhouse Cape May had used since late last summer, a brewing system the folks at Cape May had hoped would help them keep pace.

That it didn't is a success story framed in a problem many breweries wouldn't mind having, meaning steady demand for the beers.

The new brewhouse is a familiar brewpub-style arrangement of a mash/lautern tun atop a hot liquor tank, with the kettle situated to the right of the scaffold. The brewery will add a pair each of 15- and 30-barrel fermenters, expected to arrive in a month. Rectangular wine fermenters the brewery has been using, in what became an intermezzo basis (to borrow a music term), are being sold. The wine tanks were being used in addition to some conicals, by the way.

Danny Otero clears some rough edges

Cape May decided to triple its brewing capacity when it became clear that the demands of their draft accounts and tasting-room retail sales after tours would seriously stress their output by this summer, if not by spring. 

The order for the new system was placed in December. Delivery in early February represents a fast turnaround, given the number of brewery start-ups in the U.S. these days has translated into a seven-month waits for new equipment orders. (Meanwhile, prices on the used market make new equipment, minus the wait time, attractive for start-ups and capacity upgrades.)

Mash tun and kettle after delivery

Original brew stand now keg washer

"It was perfect timing," says co-founder Ryan Krill. "They (Kent) already had one in the process, and it was one that we wanted. In this small space, this combi system works really well for us."

The new equipment marks the second major – but by far the biggest – step-up in size for the brewery in Lower Township, beside Cape May County Airport.

Besides keeping up with a growing demand, the upgrade likely will enable Cape May to make a move toward widening its distribution reach farther north and west. (The brewery self-distributes.)

"This is going really to take us to a whole new level," Ryan says. "This is probably what we should have started with."

That Cape May Brewing didn't brew 30-barrel batches when it started putting its beers into the market on Independence Day 2011 probably spoke more to the business need for caution while becoming a beer producer at the Jersey shore.

Compared to the west side of the state, and the northern end for that matter, the shore region, especially in South Jersey, has embraced craft beer at a much slower pace in the near 20 years since better beers have been available in the Garden State. 

Mark McPherson at the 4-barrel system

Shore-area brewpubs Basil T's (Red Bank), Artisans (Toms River) and the Tun Tavern (Atlantic City), plus a few beer bars, were oases in a region where Coors Light long held sway (and still does in some stubborn pockets) until two or three years ago.  

But Cape May, like Monmouth County beer-makers Kane Brewing (Ocean Township) and Carton Brewing (Atlantic Highlands), have been marketplace reinforcement for the established home-grown craft brands that knocked on the shore's door a decade before. (It wasn't until last year – its seventh – that the Atlantic City beer festival did a Jersey-themed beers section. Incidentally, Carton, Cape May and Kane all launched around the same time in 2011.)

So in deepest South Jersey, the otherwise traditionally seasonal market that is Cape May, it's no surprise that Cape May Brewing would start with batches the size of a 15-gallon keg – what a dedicated homebrewer would likely brew. 

Righting the mash tun

What followed was some baby-stepping up to a barrel and a half more than a year ago, and 4-barrels in late summer 2012, after acquiring a brewhouse from a Maryland brewpub.

What also followed has been the fortunate surprise of a market that met having a local brewery like a gold rush. Weekend tour crowds have continued to be heavy. In fact, as the new brewhouse was being moved into place in early afternoon, people braved a nasty cold rain outside to show up for tours and samples in the tasting room.

Setting the scaffold

"We were shocked," Ryan says. "Even this time of year, it's been so busy – the taproom and the accounts. We needed this just to be able to keep up with what we (expect) from this coming summer. Cape May County has been so supportive of us. All the folks around just really seem to embrace having us, having us in their backyard."

4-barrel brewhouse for Cape May

New Cape May brewhouse

It looks like Flying Fish isn't the only New Jersey craft brewery that's getting bigger.

Cape May Brewing is living larger these days. Not quite like the new brewhouse and that bunch of 150-barrel fermenters installed at Flying Fish's new digs in Somerdale, but it's nonetheless a healthy jump in size for New Jersey's southernmost beer-making enterprise.

For just shy of a year, Cape May Brewing has been making a splash in its corner of South Jersey, with a range of beers produced in batch sizes of a barrel and half or less. The brewery and its beers have been well-received; check out one of their Saturday afternoon open houses to find out for yourself. (See their Facebook page for hours.)


In light of that reception, owners Chris Henke and Ryan and Robert Krill saw that it was time to grow again.

This time, the jump is a big departure from the capacity tweak they made around last fall, when they stepped up from their tiny initial brew set-up (a trio of repurposed half-barrel kegs) to a 1.5-barrel system that Chris, an engineer, created.

Even with last year's size change, Cape May was staying quite busy, with Chris brewing four times a week.

Now, buoyed by a $68,000 economic development loan from their host town (Lower Township), Cape May Brewing is now stepping up to a 4-barrel Pub Brewing system acquired last November from a Maryland brewpub. The brewery is backing that up with a half dozen 15-barrel fermenters.

To make room for all of this, Chris, Ryan and Robert have taken over two adjacent units in the business park-like building on the Cape May County Airport property where the brewery launched last summer.

But wait, there's more.

Cape May is retiring its start-up Cornelius kegs more common among homebrewers, switching to sixtels and half barrels, for which the brewery is adding a kegger and a keg washer. (It pays to have an engineer on board: Chris is building the keg washer.) Supportive draft accounts accommodated the Corny kegs, but the new industry-grade ones will give Cape May a wider reach.

Meanhwile, the floor drains have been dug and concrete was expected to be poured this week. Ryan forecasts Cape May Brewing version 2.0 will be up and running in June.

Floor drain work

Licensed in May 2011, Cape May's draft beers began hitting the taps at its first account, Cabanas, a nearby oceanfront bar, a couple of months later.

Since then, the brewery has produced a dozen different styles, including a wheat beer, a stout, a honey porter, a brown ale, and a flagship IPA that took a first place in judging at last month's Atlantic City beer festival.

In the pipeline now are a saison and a kölsch, plus a re-release of their cranberry wheat.

"We started out on a shoestring budget, but we're getting more sophisticated as we go. Our licensing happened quickly, our popularity happened quickly, and now our expansion is happening quickly," Ryan says.