USA, NJ: Icarus Brewing planning upsizing in Lakewood

There are big plans taking shape for the future of Icarus Brewing, app.com reported on August 24.

The craft brewery, in business on Swathmore Avenue in Lakewood since 2017, is one of the power players of the New Jersey beer scene. It's planning to move just about five miles to 2045 Route 88 in Brick, the former site of Shore Restaurant Supply.

Icarus Brewing purchased the property at the end of March, owner Jason Goldstein told the Asbury Park Press. The project is on the agenda to go before township's planning board at this week's meeting, 7 p.m. Wednesday, August 25 at the Municipal Building, 401 Chambers Bridge Road.

"Brick Township has welcomed us with open arms so far," Goldstein said, "with everyone ranging from the mayor (John G. Ducey) to the residents of the town rooting for us to open and offering kind words of support."

The project is still in the early stages of the permitting process. If approved, Icarus would be upsizing from its current 4,000-square-foot facility in Lakewood to occupying just over 16,000 square feet of a 22,000-square-foot building in Brick.

Icarus' current brewing capacity is around 5,000 barrels a year, and on Route 88 they would be able to triple that with eventual cellaring additions, Goldstein said.

"We’ve been working on designing the new site — which we’ve simply called 2.0 so far — based on everything we’ve always dreamed of having in our current brewery," Goldstein said. "We’ll be upgrading our brewhouse to allow for more consistency between batches, adding lagering tanks to take our lagers to the next level and enough production and packaging space to give ourselves breathing room as we continue growing."

There also are plans for a larger tasting room, one Goldstein said would be "big enough to host large events while still cozy enough for small groups to come in and try our weekly new releases," in addition to an open-air beer garden.

Icarus' proposal would reconstruct the existing building on the 2.8-acre parcel near Midstreams Place and Jefferson Drive to also include cold storage, lab space, offices, and a private room. A mezzanine would overlook the production area and tasting room, according to architect's renderings.

The building also would include three potential tenant spaces, according to Planning Board documents.

Icarus currently plans to continue brewing at the Swathmore Avenue location until the brewhouse on Route 88 is up to speed and the tasting room is ready to open. Then, Goldstein said, they will begin the process of scaling-down and closing the Lakewood tasting room and production space.

"Whereas we’ve always referred to our current space as our 'Field of Dreams,' where if we brewed it, they would come, it was very obvious we outgrew our Lakewood location years ago, no longer having enough space for customers to enjoy beer with any amount of comfort nor to produce enough beer to meet demand," Goldstein said.

"We always hoped we would be able to expand in our current location, but it never seemed to be a possibility," Goldstein continued.

As soon as Icarus learned about the availability of the Route 88 space, Goldstein said, "We knew it was the right location for us. A stand-alone building with abundant space, a blank slate for us to build the brewery of our dreams, closer proximity to the majority of our customers — we had to try for it and hopefully expand our field so everyone could enjoy it."

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