Bordentown City joined the ranks of New Jersey’s multi-brewery towns when Fox House Brewing opened in March.
The new microbrewery joins Tindall Road Brewing as a potential stop on a Farnsworth Avenue pub crawl.
Fox House, from city residents Chris and Abby Campbell, has been two years in the making. The cozy, sedate tasting room looks and feels like it’s been there forever.
“I’ve wanted to do this for years, for a long, long time,” Chris Campbell says. “But the opportunity arose when this space became available. It just all happened to fall into place at the same time. I made the leap of faith.”
Like many people who start up a production brewery, Chris Campbell started out as a home brewer. Saison-style ales have always been his favorite to brew, but he also enjoys experimenting. “I always liked making odd things. Like an orange zest and raw ginger pale ale. I did that with lemon and ginger a few times too.”
Not every experimental beer Campbell has dreamed up has made it onto the Fox House taps. At least, not yet. But an orange and ginger ale is one that may find its way into the rotation soon — and the tap list as of late March already stands as evidence that Campbell can be a quirky brewer.
Among the first beers tapped at Fox House have been an India pale ale brewed with lavender, a Japanese-style lager brewed with rice, and a beer called Presque, which Campbell describes as “almost a sparking pinot noir.”
“I did a durian fruit pale ale once — it wasn’t as poorly received as you might expect. I thought nobody was going to drink it but me. But everybody seemed to like it. I’ve always liked putting interesting things in recipes just to see what’ll happen,” he says.
Opening in March, Campbell may have felt all but obligated to tap a few Irish-style ales, which he did with Kneecap, an Irish red ale, and a dry Irish stout going by the name of Some Words to the Close and Holy Darkness.
“Many of the names of the offerings that we have are inspired either from music or from books,” Campbell says. “Along the River (a cider-style ale) is part of the sentence that begins and ends the loop of James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake. ‘Some words to the close and holy darkness’ is a fragment of a line from a Dylan Thomas poem.”
Also on tap in the early days was a farmhouse ale called The Garden Party. At 11% alcohol by volume, it was nearly twice the strength of the average Fox House brew. Campbell does not expect such heavy hitters to be a regular feature.
“In general, I want to have easy drinking stuff, things that you can have more than one of,” he says.
Porcelain, a 6.3% IPA, has been one of the most popular beers on tap in the early going. Fox House also usually has a variety of hard seltzers available, in flavors such as blueberry, raspberry and mango.
Campbell had a law practice before deciding to make brewing his full time job. Technically he still has the law office, but he does not have much time for it these days. “This takes up way too much of time,” he says.
Abby, who works as a sales director in the hotel business, also does Fox House’s social media. The couple lives just blocks away from the brewery with their two kids, Harrison, 8, and Alexis, 10. Tyler Conetta is the Fox House taproom manager.
Chris’ parents, Linda and Tom, also live in the city. “My mother apparently was the first children’s librarian here in town,” he says. “My parents got married just up the street.”
Fox House is currently open three days a week: Fridays from 4 to 10 p.m., Saturdays from noon to 10 p.m. and Sundays from noon to 6 p.m. Campbell says he can see expanding those hours at some point.
The brewery does not offer Crowlers, but does have a limited selection of canned beer to go in its beer fridge. All beers and hard seltzers are available for consumption at the brewery, either in the taproom or, as the weather warms, in the secluded courtyard out back of the brewery. “It’s a really nice space, unique in Bordentown,” Campbell says of the courtyard. “I don’t think there’s any other enclosed space like that in the city.”
The craft brewing industry tends to be a fairly tight-knit community, and Campbell says that has been the case here. Tindall Road Brewery’s Marci Warboys and Dan Pogorzelski have been helpful resources as he has prepared to open. The staff of The Druery brewery in Lawrence has also stopped by to welcome Fox House and to try the beers.
“One of the bigger drawbacks in my life is now that I’ve opened this brewery, it’s going to be a while before I can drag myself out of here and take my son to play chess at Tindall Road on Sundays,” Campbell says.
The Bordentown City business community has also been welcoming, he says, as have the many beer drinkers who have stopped by to check out the new place.
“People are coming from all over the place just to see what we’re all about. Luckily, response has been overwhelmingly positive,” Campbell says.
