USA, NJ: The Alementary already brewing in Hackensack

It took more than a year, but the owners of the second production brewery in Bergen County have started making beer, NJ.com reported on March 2.

The Alementary received a state brewery license Feb. 17, and owners Blake Crawford, 43, and Michael Roosevelt, 38, set to work on their first beers that weekend.

They closed on their Voorhis Avenue, Hackensack property Feb. 5, 2015, and it took more than a year to clear local, state and federal regulatory hurdles. The Roosevelt and head brewer John Henry stumbled on the building in 2014.

"It was a gray, cinder-block building completely overcome by weeds, completely unmaintained for a long time," Crawford said.

"It was smelly," Roosevelt said. "But it was perfect."

It was a place only a brewer could appreciate: A brick rectangle with an 85-foot wooden beam running the length of the building. The beam now hangs over the bar, and the cinder blocks are mostly covered over with wood finishing.

With the building, Alementary had cleared one of the biggest hurdles for would-be brewers.

"Finding the right property in the right town is probably the hardest thing," Roosevelt said. "If you find a building and the town wants you there, for me that's at least 60 percent of the battle."

Hackensack wanted them there, though before they bought the building, alcohol production was illegal in the city. The City Council passed an ordinance allowing alcohol production in the zone where they planned to build.

Everything beyond that was a matter of patience, Crawford said—waiting for a license for the federal Alcohol, Tobacco, Tax and Trade Bureau, without which they couldn't apply for a state brewery license. Without those, the company couldn't brew beer, meaning they had to pay the costs of construction and brewery equipment without any product to sell.

"The elephant in the room when you're opening a brewery is you've got to float this business for over a year before you're allowed to make any income," Crawford said.

That is perhaps why there are so few production breweries in Bergen County, where high real estate prices add to a brewer's troubles. Brix City Brewing, in Little Ferry, is the only other. Bolero Snort, with offices in Ridgefield Park, farms out brewing to High Point Brewing in Butler.

Bob Olson, one of the founders of Bolero Snort, said he expected towns to become more brewer-friendly, even if Bergen County prices keep some brewers away. His company is raising capital for a Bergen County brewery of their own

"We're trying like hell," he said.

Regardless of the obstacles, Crawford and Roosevelt, both Bergenfield residents, wanted to be close to home. The two both work day jobs: Crawford works as a chemical engineer, and Roosevelt works in the pharmaceutical industry.

Two signs in the brewery denote the division of labor: Crawford works in the "Artists Studio," amid large steel fermenters, responsible for producing, formulating and sourcing the beer. Roosevelt works in the "Science Lab," where the grows yeast and plans to conduct full microbiological analyses on the beer for quality control purposes.

"Between us, we have this obsession with quality and consistency," Crawford said.

The company is aiming for a mid-April grand opening, and is planning a line of eight beers for launch.

"We don't want to rush," Crawford said. "We want to open the doors swinging for the fences, so we want all the beer to be in its best possible condition."

04 March, 2016