BRICK TOWNSHIP, NEW JERSEY

ICARUS BREWING has become one of Jersey’s largest and most successful microbreweries since its Lakewood inception, November 2015. Crafting at least 100 different beer recipes and now canning a large batch of best-known fare, Icarus moved into its capaciously monumental new digs during 2024. A dedicated glass-encased barrel aging room creates a fabulous spirits-derived lineup.

Inside a cavernous high-ceilinged freestanding building (shared with an established burger joint), Icarus’ cement-floored interior features 40-plus draughts at its expansive right side bar. There are several wood tables and seats surrounded by multiple TV’s. Exposed ducts complete the 5,000 square-foot open space. A front patio supplies another hundred seats. A barrel-tabled, plastic red-seated mezzanine offers further party space.

On my July ’25 journey, I take my son, Chris, to discover three worthy Heaven Hill bourbon barreled elixirs and one delectably fruited Berliner Weiss.

As a delightful aperitif, lactose-free Berliner Weiss variant, Drinking Bellinis For Breakfast – Oat Fluffed, let sour lemon curd intensify lightly marshmallow-fluffed cara cara orange and toasted coconut adjuncts in heavily oated creaming.

Conditioned on Heaven Hill bourbon, barrel-aged dessert stout, Crunchy Drippie, soaked its milk chocolatey bourbon vanilla with caramelized granola and walnut as well as molasses-sapped pecan, hazelnut coffee, sweet cedar, nutmeg and pine nut illusions.

Superfine Heaven Hill bourbon-aged Baltic Porter, Eastern Horizons, a collaborative variant with Abomination, rushed mellow chocolate sweetness thru Madagascar vanilla beans, picking up molasses, glazed hazelnut, peanut butter, anise and blackcurrant snips in a dry debittered black malt setting.

Finally, luscious nightcap, Life Unraveled Barleywine, also aged in Heaven Hill bourbon, placed Maris Otter-malted rye and ‘aggressive’ Chinook hops atop subtly smoked dark chocolate, gaining sweet caramel, toffee and dried fruit serenity.

Back to Icarus early July ’26, sucked down a wide variety of previously untried suds with hard drinkin’ friend Dan Smith.

Laidback Italian pilsner, Furio, let honeydewed German melanoidin malts, barley-honeyed Belgian pilsner malts and white rice softly glide by delicate floral herbage.

Peculiar Citra-hopped blonde ale, Private Beach, brought mild lemon-oiled bittering to black-peppered chamomile, chrysanthemum and lavender illusions before peachy nectarine-honeydew sway and limey vodka boozing rose up.

Recalling a Margarita, Salty Dog and Sour Patch gummy, ultra-dry Leipzig Gose, Two For One, retained stylish coriander salting for limey white grapefruit bittering and sour green apple tartness atop withered white wheat base (and goes well with a Tequila floater).

Mild decocted pilsner floor malts girded gentle beechwood-smoked pale malting and Band-aid astringency cushioning Smoked Out Rug, a German smoked pilsner with pithy rauchbier aspirations.

Dry black malted coffee and dark chocolate overtones led Czech dark lager, Night Flight, leaving dewy peat, fennel and earthen truffle on the backend.

Conditioned on marshmallow, Japanese rice lager, Respectibull (a collab with Bolero Snort) retained light vanilla creaming for zestful lemony orange tang.

Easygoing Northeast-styled pale ale, Invincible Summer: Oats Fluffed, let coconut toasting and vanilla marshmallow sweeten brisk orange-peeled lemon meringue tang above heavily oated creaming.

Conditioned on pineapple and toasted coconut, Pin-Yacht-a-Shake: Oats Fluffed allowed Madagascar vanilla creaming to sweeten its tropical fruitedness.

A heavier malted wheat base anchored sweet hefeweizen, Nature Calls, sticking honeyed banana-clove alongside butterscotch rum, candied orange and sugary bubblegum onrush.

Soft-toned dry-hopped NEIPA, Solitude Of Space, gathered tangy orange-tangerine-clementine combo plus lemony grapefruit zesting atop heavily wheated roasted oats.

Waxy fruited New England IPA, Ella, stayed smooth as white rum sugaring swayed crayon-like grapefruit, pineapple and lemon zesting and tangy orange peel sweetness given mild floral spicing and wispy pine bittering.

For heavily oated triple IPA, Brickasaurus, a rummy white Sangria-like fruit cocktail (with 10% ABV), juicy orange, grapefruit and tangerine tanginess joined mild vanilla-honeyed peach syruping rampaging thru dank pine resin.

Distinguished barrel-aged Belgian quad digestif, Take It Ino Overtime, regaled smoothly mellow pomace-brandied Grappa sweetness and figgy raisin-prune-plum seduction contrasting dry bourbon-burgundy influence to its candi-sugared Belgian pilsner malt base.