Forgotten Boardwalk Brewing Takes Up in Old Flying Fish Location

Written and reported by Bryan Littel.

Cherry Hill is getting its brewery back.

A year after Flying Fish moved out of the township, Forgotten Boardwalk Brewing has officially signed a deal to move into the Cherry Hill Business Park, one of the final steps in what’s been a yearlong process before the company gets down to brewing in 2014.

With an eye toward breaking down barriers and finding new interpretations of traditional beer styles, Forgotten Boardwalk CEO Jamie Queli said the business comes out of a decade of brewing experience and a desire to go beyond what other brewers have done.

“We’ve always been more extreme brewers,” she said. “What we’re trying to do is put out some beers that amaze your palate.”

That might involve bringing in hops from New Zealand, or finding an interesting combination of spices to add to the line—but the goal, Queli said, is to have five or six beers in distribution in the company’s first year, with an eye toward dozens of varieties in the brewery’s tasting room.

Besides great beers, the new brewers also want future customers to get a great experience on a visit to the site.

Drawing on their name, Queli said they’re creating the tasting room to have the look and feel of the turn-of-the-century Jersey shore, adding a bit of history to the overall experience.

“We want to transport you back into time,” she said.

Forgotten Boardwalk is moving into the same spot where Flying Fish, which has shifted to bigger digs in Somerdale, got its start, which makes it slightly easier to get things going, Queli said, especially since there’s little bureaucratic red tape to cut through.

While the building had been restored to its pre-brewery state, Forgotten Boardwalk’s crew knows the basics of what worked previously, and can build on that—and maybe most importantly, they know there’s a good water supply, a key element in brewing.

Of course, there is a certain amount of pressure in moving into another successful brewery’s spot, Queli said, but one of the company’s goals is to make people realize they’d missed having a local hop shop.

“We hope to carry on the tradition,” she said.

Right now, the building is essentially a shell, but construction should ramp up in the early fall, Queli said, with brewing operations getting going some time in the first half of next year.

“We’re shooting for early 2014, but you never know,” she said.