HILLSBOROUGH, NEW JERSEY
After nearly a decade at crowded Hillsborough Business Park, FLOUNDER BREWING COMPANY moved to a huge wood-paneled barnhouse on a 19-acre Carraige Farm a few miles away (next to Bellemara Distillery), springtime 2021. Initiated by former homebrewer, Jeremy Lees, the winner of Sam Adams 2016 Brewing and Business Experienceship award, Flounder continues to grow exponentially.
Making great use of plank wood and prestigious wood columns, the stainless steel-tanked interior also offers mezzanine seating. The high-ceilinged, polyurethane-floored, repurposed microbrewery features several community tables, four-seat metal chaired wood tables and a fifteen-barrel system crafting a wide range of one-offs, recurring favorites and splendid dark ales.
Two opposing overhead side doors, one leading to back patio seating with strewn Edison lights, get utilized for outdoor quaffing.
I’d already experienced a dozen or so Flounder brews at the old business park locale before downing six more previously untried libations spanning the gamut from German-styled kellerbier to amber and pale ale to English bitter, nitro porter and spiced-up Christmas ale.
Crisply rustic Kellerbier, Sich Unterhalter, pitched musty raw-grained earthiness to orange-spiced herbal musk over bready pilsner malts.
Soft-tongued dewy peat mossing led easygoing English bitter, One And Done, placing buttery fig-dried nuttiness alongside earthen herbal licks.
Stylishly bold amber ale, Slow Roller, let the orange-peeled grapefruit zesting and dank pine resin of an IPA blend with sweetly spiced amber graining.
Brisk orange-peeled lemon zest brightened lovely floral-spiced pale ale, Almost Persuaded, a sunshiny moderation with mild piney hop bittering.
Dry nutty dark chocolate and mild black coffee bittering sufficed for nitro porter, Post Digger, leaving burnt caramel sweetness upon its charred hop backend.
Festive Christmas ale, St. Nick, plied brown-sugared dried fruiting to dainty cinnamon-nutmeg-allspice seasoning, gingerbread cookie sweetness and singed cedar-hickory wisps.