Name: Flying Fish Brewing Company

Location: Cherry Hill, NJ

Type: Production brewery

Available in DC Market: Yes

What you need to know: Flying Fish is returning this year – here’s what we said last time around: “The oldest of about 25 craft breweries in New Jersey, Flying Fish was formed in April of 1995, and in August of 1995 it became the first microbrewery to have a web presence. They are perhaps most well known for their Exit series, which has produced a number of well-received beers in a variety of styles. The series is an homage to the famed (or infamous) New Jersey Turnpike, and the brewery will produce a beer that represents each of the exits on the Turnpike.”

Sponsorship

Beer #1: Exit 4 American Trippel (Trippel / 9.5%)

Notes: Flying Fish brought Exit 4 last year, about which we said: “The first release in the Exit Series was Exit 4, an American-style tripel. This beer also won the 2011 Washington Post Beer Madness competition. It received a gold medal at the 2009 GABF in the American-Belgo style ale category. It has a pretty traditional trippel malt base with pils and wheat malts, but adds in natural brown sugar in place of Belgian candi sugar. The hop bill is all-American though with Cascade, Simcoe, Amarillo, and Palisades. An extraordinarily tasty beer, this one pairs well with a variety of foods and also hides its formidable ABV well.”

Beer Advocate: 85 (212 reviews)
Rate Beer: 94 overall, 92 style (261 reviews)

Beer #2: Exit 8 Belgian Chestnut Brown (Belgian Strong Dark Ale/Brown Ale / 8.3%)

Notes:While Beer Advocate and Rate Beer can’t agree on what style it is, reviewers agree that it’s darn tasty.  Flying Fish’s latest stop on the Turnpike Series brings them to the middle of NJ, a strong agricultural area.  To celebrate this heritage, they’ve tossed in chestnuts, a historically important crop, and a bunch of local honey, much of which ferments out, so you get the esters without any cloying sweetness.  Nuts unsurprisingly show strong in the nose.  A complex hop schedule (Mt. Rainier, Chinook, Fuggles, and Columbus) help to clean things up, while oat flakes add a silky touch.

Beer Advocate: 87 (16 reviews)
Rate Beer: 92 overall, 97 style (31 reviews)

Summary: Two strong beers from Flying Fish this year, including a somewhat recent release.  I have to echo what we wrote last year: “Their regular offerings don’t do much for me, to be completely honest, but I haven’t been let down yet by any of the Exit Series beers.”  Kudos to Flying Fish for upping the ante.

This profile is a part of the DCBEER.COM SAVOR Brewery Profile series. For more information, follow the link to see profiles of all 2012 SAVOR participants.

Beer Review Disclaimer: The beer reviews found on Beer Advocate and Rate Beer do not represent the opinions of this site. We provide these in the hope that they will serve as a resource showing what some craft beer fans have thought of the beers. These reviews can be a helpful guideline, but are not the be-all end-all about a beer’s strengths or weaknesses.