Good catch
By JENNIFER KELLEY
Cherry Hill Sun
12/11/2006

Cherry Hill-based brewer of Flying Fish beer finds success going with the grain

While, 75 miles to the north, the Anheuser-Busch Co. churns out nearly 10 million barrels of beer a year, Cherry Hill’s Flying Fish Brewing Co. produces just 150,000 cases of painstakingly crafted ales annually – and that’s exactly the way they want to keep it, according to company President Gene Muller.

Of the 20 craft breweries in the state, Flying Fish is the largest, having tripled in capacity since its inception in 1995. It also boasts the benchmark of being the first microbrewery to set up shop in South Jersey, in addition to being the world’s first craft brewery started on the Internet, according to its Web site.

After dabbling in home brewing while employed as creative director for an ad agency, Muller decided to drum up funding for a start-up brewery via the World Wide Web. The site he created targeted beer lovers, giving them a chance to help build a brewery with him online. Visitors were able to help select and name beers, design T-shirts and labels – even volunteer to be a taste-tester.

The Web site also generated significant press coverage, Muller said, which, in turn, attracted investors, who would eventually help him transform the virtual brewery into a real one.

Over the next 10 years, the fully operational Flying Fish Brewing Co. – which leases a building in an industrial complex on Olney Avenue – not only grew by leaps and bounds but also earned a number of accolades from the world’s beer-judging elite. Flying Fish brews were the first in the region to be featured at the Great British Beer Festival, the Oregon Brewers Festival and Canada’s Biere de Mondial Festival. In addition, the brewery has won numerous medals at Chicago’s Real Ale Festival, the World Beer Championships, and it is also the only New Jersey brewery to be featured in the 2000 edition of “Best American Beers.”

But despite its continued success, Muller is content to keep Flying Fish a local catch.

“I think we have a great location, and this town has been great to us,” he said. “Everyone knows where Cherry Hill is, and it provides us with easy access to the South Jersey and Philadelphia markets.”

Currently, Flying Fish’s craft beers can be purchased throughout New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Washington D.C., serving within a 100-mile radius of the brewery, Muller added, noting, “I enjoy being local – it allows me to build a relationship with customers. People want to be able to see where the beer is made and meet the brewers, and I like being able to offer that.”

Muller chose his business’ home base while watching an Eagles game years ago.

“I originally wanted to open a restaurant/brew pub in the (Philadelphia) area, where I could make and sell beer on the premise, but I couldn’t get all the financing required,” he said. “After I decided to go with the brewery concept, I wasn’t sure where to open one. Then, one afternoon I was watching an Eagles game and they did an aerial shot of South Jersey, and it looked like the perfect place for it – and Cherry Hill was right in the center of things.

“Plus, “ he added, “there’s such a huge market here – it’s the fifth-largest in the country. As long as we can keep selling beer in our own backyard, we’ll do so. It allows for quality control, and we can offer a product that’s fresh.”

The beer breakdown

Flying Fish beers are designed to complement food, much like wine is, Muller told The Sun. A key attribute of the beers produced is balance – full-flavored but highly drinkable.

It all starts with base malt, and the Flying Fish brewery has about 50,000 pounds of it on the premises at all times, housed in two towering silos, in addition to eight different kinds of specialty malts, which add various flavors to their ales, according to Assistant brewer Tim Kelly, who left a career in physics to pursue brewing.

For a typical batch of beer, the malt is weighed and milled, cracking the grains open so water can penetrate when it is funneled into a mash tub. There, the milled malt, or “grist,” is sprayed with boiling water, yeast is pitched in, and the enzymes created begin converting the starches to sugar. Once the liquid is drained, the newly formed “wort,” as it is called, is flowed into a giant stainless-steel kettle, where it is boiled and stabilized. At this point in the process, hops are added to the brew.

“The earlier you add the hops, the more bitter the beer,” Kelly said, noting that the difference between an India Pale Ale (one of the most bitter of beers) and a Belgium Ale (one of the most sweet) is the timing of said hops.

Once it’s boiled, the beer is cooled down and sent into a fermentation vessel and, later, filtered. After that, the beer sits for a day and is later bottled.

As a way to support the community and its staff, Flying Fish uses mentally challenged workers provided through a local Goodwill and a group of autistic people in South Orange to construct the cartons where the beer bottles will eventually reside.

“We help employ people who might not easily find work, and it helps us because it’s hard to perform that particular task with the space we have,” Muller said.

Succeeding against the odds

Flying Fish began hooking fans at a time when the initial mid-’90s momentum of the craft-beer industry was dying down.

“When we opened up, it was kind of like when the dot-com bubble burst – lots of breweries had opened and many quickly collapsed,” Muller said.

But, he added, those who stayed on are now enjoying a major upswing.

The Brewers Association recently reported that the volume of craft beer sold in the U.S. during the first half of 2006 rose 11 percent compared to the same period in 2005.

“The rate of growth in the craft-beer segment appears to be accelerating,” said director of the BA’s professional division, Paul Gatza, in a release.

“This is the third straight year we’ve seen an increase in the craft-beer growth rate.”

And major distributors, such as Anheuser-Busch, have taken notice of the trend, putting out their own versions of craft beers. For instance, Anheuser-Busch launched Michelob Maple and Michelob Spiced Ale in recent years – though, brands like these tend to flounder and disappear due to a lack of consumer interest in major breweries’ encroachment on the market niche, the BA notes on its Web site.

“There’s definitely been a rise in ‘faux brands’ of craft beer,” Muller noted. “But, (that’s indicative of) our target demographic changing. It used to be mostly better-educated, higher-income people who were interested in craft beers. Now college students and the like are part of our market base.

“It comes down to the fact that, generally, those who like different flavors and actually think about the food they’re eating are attracted to craft beers.”

Indeed, due to their quality ingredients and mutually beneficial relationship with food, Flying Fish beers can be found in a number of high-end restaurants in the Philadelphia region as well as at the Flying Fish Café in Florida’s Walt Disney World.

The company also regularly hosts beer and cheese tastings throughout South Jersey and the Philadelphia area. This Friday, for instance, the brewery is hosting happy hours at both Philadelphia Fish & Co., in Old City, and at Cork restaurant, in Westmont.