Hamilton native John Companick pours a beer in the tasting room at Spellbound Brewing. (Staff photo by Meagan Douches.)
Spellbound Brewing co-owner John Companick stands with stacks of his brewery’s canned beers. (Staff photo by Meagan Douches.)
By Meagan Douches
When Hamilton native John Companick began homebrewing beer more than 20 years ago, the thought of opening a brewery was a distant dream. He never imagined, let alone that less than one year after opening Spellbound Brewing with his two business partners, their beer would receive a silver medal at the country’s most prestigious beer festival.
In late September, Companick and brewery co-owners Mike Oliver and Scott Reading found out that their Palo Santo Porter beat out some of the country’s best breweries as it took silver in the wood barrel-aged beer category at the 2015 Great American Beer Festival.
“We were blown away,” Companick said. “We were competing against 70 breweries across the country, and we figured nobody would even see us.”
The owners were busy working at Spellbound while the festival live-streamed from Boulder, Colorado, in the background. When the first few messages came in congratulating them on social media, the brewers couldn’t believe it.
“At first we thought it was a joke,” Companick said. “We were like ‘Yeah, sure, very funny.’ Then, as more messages kept rolling in, we checked and saw that our beer was listed as a winner on the festival’s website.”
Located about 30 minutes from Hamilton in Mount Holly, Spellbound Brewing was one of only two breweries in New Jersey to receive a medal out of 6,000 total entries. The other New Jersey winner was Flying Fish Brewing Company, a craft brewery based in Somerdale which has been around since 1995.
Having known each other since elementary school, Companick and Oliver began studying beer at Brewers Apprentice in Freehold before participating in local homebrew competitions. It was at these competitions that the pair was able to connect with local, likeminded beer lovers, some of which have helped pave the way to their success with Spellbound. The two partners met Reading at a competition in 2008 and from there the idea to start a brewery became a reality.
They had already spent years working to save money, and the crew began meeting in June 2011 to create a business plan and file the necessary paperwork to open Spellbound Brewing. They filed for inspection, federal permits and had to submit over 55 documents to have the brewery approved.
“Our goal was to offer standard and delicious solid beers,” Companick said, “but we also wanted to create something that’s really unique for other beer geeks like us.”
The group says they took inspiration from pioneers in the craft beer movement Dogfish Head Brewery and Cigar City Brewing based in Tampa. Oliver says that he was personally inspired to get into the craft beer scene after he tried a holiday beer called Pete’s Wicked Winter Brew.
“It really caught my attention,” Oliver said. “Before trying it, I didn’t know that beer could be good. It had a really interesting flavor with spices and berries.”
Going off of these sources, the trio began creating their own signature brews. Companick, Oliver and Reading had a little help from some friends in the local craft beer scene. They got their first pitch of yeast from Neshaminy Creek Brewing Company while they bought the hops from Kane Brewing and other New Jersey suppliers.
“The craft beer scene is very tight knit,” Companick said. “We like to support the local places and our friends in the industry as much as possible.”
In October 2014, the brewers were able to officially launch the business and host a grand opening event to welcome the community. Over the past year, the brewery has been well received in town and through distributors across the state.
“The local community has been fantastic,” Companick said. “We spent about eight months looking for the right place, and Mount Holly embraced us with open arms.”
Reading said the town was the source of inspiration for the name of the brewery.
“We wanted a name that ties into the history of the town,” he said. “There are a lot of ghost stories about the area, and there’s the Witch’s Ball every year, so we thought Spellbound seemed like a good fit.”
The crew is constantly coming out with new styles which they test through pilot batches in the tasting room. Recent brews include a Maple Bacon Pepper Coffee Porter, a Cherry Belgian Triple, a Peach Citra Pale Ale and What Were We Thinking Barleywine—aged in Heaven Hill bouron barrels—in celebration of the brewery’s one-year anniversary.
Rather than bottling their beers, Spellbound uses a canning process which they say is more environmentally friendly. While there is a stigma in the beer world against canned beer, Companick says that the polymer lining of the can prevents the beer from touching the aluminum container and interfering with the taste.
The crew says that after one year in operation, they’re 10 times ahead of where they imagined they would be. By connecting to the New Jersey craft beer scene, they’ve been able to distribute in Burlington, Mercer, Camden, Ocean and Monmouth counties including through Robbinsville’s Ritchie & Page distributers.
“We all try to help each other out when we can,” Companick said. “The New Jersey craft scene has been going really strong for 20 plus years, and it’s not slowing down at all. It’s really cool to see.”
Spellbound is currently producing 24,000 barrels of beer per year with just the three partners completing all of the brewing and canning work. Companick said a good week means working around 50 hours at the brewery, which is in addition to their full-time jobs as a senior account executive at the Hibbert Group (Companick), an engineer at Dow Chemical (Reading) and a mechanic at PSE&G (Oliver).
“Our reward is seeing the beer going out and having the distributors keep asking for more,” Companick said. “For us, it’s been nonstop increase. We’re at max capacity, and we’re working to get more fermentors to increase production.”
While plans to expand beer production are currently in the works, Spellbound is happy to serve their beers to the New Jersey market for the time being.
“For me, the coolest thing was going down the shore and drinking our beer on tap at The Sawmill in Seaside Heights,” Oliver said.
The brewmasters are always serving up something new for guests to taste in the Mount Holly brewery located at 10 Lippincott Lane, Suite 12. The tasting room is open on Thursday and Friday nights from 5 to 10 p.m. and on Saturdays from 12 to 8 p.m.
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