Hillsborough's first brewery's flagship brew, Hill Street Honey Ale.
HILLSBOROUGH — Somerset County is about to get its first nanobrewery, and Hillsborough's first brewery of any kind.
Jeremy 'Flounder' Lees, chief brewer of the Flounder Brewing Company of Hillsborough, is putting the finishing touches on what will be the only currently operating brewery in Somerset County.
"We are certainly the first of any size brewery in Hillsborough, and the first nano in Somerset," Lees said. "One tried starting in Franklin but never got off the ground, and they cancelled their license."
The Brewers Association defines a craft brewer as having an annual production of less than six million barrels. A microbrewery produces less than 15,000 barrels a year, with 75 percent or more of its beer sold off-site.
The brewery is named after Lees' namesake, Flounder, from Kent "Flounder" Dorfman in the movie "National Lampoon's Animal House."
Lees said he first got he idea for getting into the beer business around 2007.
"We'd been home brewing around the house and became obsessive home brewers," Lees said. "Then we started hearing about nanobreweries opening up and we decided, hey, why don't we give it a try."
Flounder's flagship beer is called Hill Street Honey Ale, a tribute to the location of Lees' old apartment in Morristown, where he first started experimenting with home brewing.
"When my wife Melissa first came to visit the apartment, it was filled with bottles and brewing equipment," Lees said. "We used to lug kegs up and down from the fourth floor."
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The idea behind the honey in Hill Street Honey Ale goes back to Lee's grandfather, who was into keeping bees and harvesting honey. Lees had fond memories of his grandfather's place in upstate New York where the grandkids used to chew on the fresh beeswax.
Lees said he and his brothers Dan and Mike took over his grandfather's garage in Lyndhurst when they outgrew the Morristown apartment.
"Brewers add hops at different stages of brewing, so if you can do that, why can't you do it with honey, " Lees said. "Honey is wild, so I had to put it in at a certain time to keep the flavor of the honey, but still had to kill the bacteria in the honey."
Lees said the brewery is using a south Jersey honey supplier now, but he would like to find something closer to home.
"We get a lot of flavor from the flowers the honey was harvested from," Lees said. "We hop it up and smooth it out with the smoothness of the honey."
He said that with a lot of his own favorite craft beers, he can remember who he was with and where he was the first time he tasted them, and that's the kind of environment he'd like to create at Flounder Brewing — where people experience the brews, enjoy themselves, and create memories.
Lees and his partners quickly found out the one of the legal requirements was that the business couldn't be run out of a residential dwelling, so they started looking for a light industrial area. They signed a lease on their Hillsborough building in 2010.
"We didn't realize we needed certificates of occupancy and use, engineering drawings, you have to go before planning boards, and when it's not done right that leads to delay," Lee said.
Lees said they had to apply for a change of use since their building was originally meant for storage but was now moving into light manufacturing.
"The process didn't goo too smoothly for us," Lees said. "It took about a year to put in the floor drains and slop sink."
Lees said he chose Hillsborough because he was familiar with the area, having lived with his wife Melissa in Bedminster, and because it was central to Princeton, Somerville and Morristown.
But most importantly, the quality of the local water supply is essential to the brewing process, and affects the flavor of the beer. They took some water from the new building back to his condo and did a test brew.
"That batch came out great," Lees said. "It was right where it needed to be."
Hill Street Honey Ale is what Lees calls an 'American ale' — it's unfiltered, so there's a remnant of the yeast in the beer, which means the beer is still 'alive' and changes over time, Lees said.
"In the craft beer world some people argue it should be filtered," Lees said. "We like it unfiltered because it gets a little richer and smoother and tastes different, better, after six months."
Lees also said Flounder uses all premium grains such as pale malt, not cheaper corn or rice filler like the bigger breweries.
Flounder is also experimenting with other brews, including Saison, a Belgian farmhouse-style ale, and a Pumpkin Ale for growler fills at the brewery. For the Saision, Flounder has partnered exclusively with Al Buck's East Coast Yeast in Hillsborough.
"I'm also hoping to do a gingerbread for Christmas," Lees said. "And I'd like to do a cranberry-honey or blueberry-honey beer eventually."
Lees said that what he tried to do with Hill Street Honey Ale was to come up with a 'gateway' craft beer that those people would like as much as drinkers who already appreciated craft beers.
The brewery doesn't have a full liquor license, but does have what's known as a limited brewery license, which allows Flounder to self distribute to bars and restaurants, and to have a tasting bar on the brewery premises.
Lees said he plans on having twice monthly Saturday tasting tours starting in the fall, and will spend the rest of their time brewing beer. But first he and his partners will hold a grand opening at a nearby restaurant or two to let the public taste their beers for the first time. Tour and opening announcements will be made on the Flounder website or the Flounder Facebook page.
In addition to Lees and his two brewing brothers Mike and Dan, his wife Melissa, a cousin
"It's a real family operation," Lees said. "That's what our philosophy is all about. We're the Flounder family, and we want people to come in and be part of the family."