Farm Truck Brewing to open in Medford this fall

When Brooke Tidswell and Jason “Jay” Kuhn met at a beer distribution chain at Tired Hands Fermentaria in Ardmore, Pa., In 2016, the two were on different career paths – Tidswell was a commercial banker and Kuhn worked as chief.

What brought them together was their love of craft beer – they were at Tired Hands to trade beer, an opportunity to sample beers from other breweries in the area – and a common idea to open a day a brewery.

Five years later, they are in the final stages of opening Farm Truck Brewing in Medford and are excited to add to the South Jersey beer scene.

The brewery is a place where the two get creative in their brewing and where guests can enjoy these beers in a cozy setting.

“It’s really great to join this great community,” Tidswell said. “There are a lot of great beers, great breweries, great people.”

Farm Truck Brewing will join the Lower Forge brewery, which opened on Main Street in 2016, and the King’s Road Brewing Company, which extends from its Haddonfield base to a second location slated to open in Medford in mid- August.

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Tidswell, who is the operating partner, has “always been a craft beer enthusiast” and started home brewing in 2010. After breweries appeared in South Jersey, he quit brewing and began brewing at home. is focused on trying local beers, which led him to the beer business. via Facebook groups and breweries – that’s how he met Kuhn.

Kuhn, head brewer andpartner, has spent his life in the food industry, cooking for restaurants and country clubs in South Jersey and Philadelphia.

His interest in home brewing was sparked by his time cooking at Tired Hands Fermentaria, the same place he met Tidswell. He learned to brew on his own through books, ending up “cloning” one of his favorite beers.

“I did a blind taste test and it turned out that it was like a beer that I liked so I was like, ‘Hey, why don’t I just go on with this and see where can i go with it? “said Kuhn.

Pandemic delays

The partners secured the lease for the space at 47 N. Main St. in November 2019. They had the design, architect and township approval, so they envisioned opening by summer 2020.

But then the COVID pandemic struck and it all stopped. With all the uncertainty, they took a step back from the brewery.

Tidswell took the time to focus on his trucking businesses, including Rancocas Logistics, saving him money and completing his initial plan for the brewery.

Kuhn, Tidswell and their other partners, father-son Chris and Aaron King, were able to purchase a new cold room with a new faucet system, upgrade to a five-barrel brewery (instead of two-and-a-half), and upgrade to 11 fermenters – three 10-barrel fermenters, three five-barrel fermenters, one five-barrel brite tank, and four two-and-a-half-barrel fermenters – all of which will allow them to produce 60 barrels of beer.

“I almost feel guilty because COVID was terrible for a lot of people, the majority, and I was fortunate to have a business back then that thrived during that,” Tidswell said. “So we took that and pushed it into the business.”

What’s on the tap? Experiments with beehives, coffee beans and more

Farm Truck plans to offer numerous IPAs, lagers, sours, stouts, porters, seasons and pilsners, as well as unique base beers made with local ingredients.

Kuhn will use his culinary knowledge to work with different flavors and tackle the science of brewing, he said. “When you walk in there will always be something new, and that’s kind of the fun part – something you’ve never tried, you can try [here]. ”

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Tidswell and Kuhn wanted to experiment with their beers, so they teamed up with Apiary Mill Creek in Medford to place beehives on their roofs.

That’s right – beehives.

The apiary provided them with beehives, management for them and bottling services for honey. Honey is used for their base beer As it Should Bee, a honey IPA.

“I actually want to get into the science a little bit more and extract the yeast from these hives and make beers out of them,” Kuhn said.

But honey isn’t the only ingredient the duo are experimenting with. They have a porter series of iced coffee called Roasted – porter staple beers infused with single-sourced beans from various local roasters in the area like Harvest Coffee Roasters in Medford.

“It tastes like good coffee,” Tidswell said. “I gave it to my beer-hating mom, and she said, ‘If I just put some chocolate and cream in it, it’s like my coffee. “

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There is also a series of lagers that will showcase the hop variety – “we just showcase the hops every time”.

Other staple beers include Farm Truck Light, an “easy-to-drink” pilsner; Uncle Roman, a double misty IPA with honey malt, and Blackout, a Schwarzbier brewed with pilsner, Munich malt, a touch of midnight wheat, hopped with Hallertau White and aged for seven weeks.

A tribute to the south of Jersey

From the outside, Farm Truck Brewing looks like a “low-key storefront,” says Tidswell, but inside there’s a lot of reclaimed wood, pieces of the building’s history as a car store, and a feel. of comfort.

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The brewery has two bars – the front bar with four taps and an old cedar beam from Chatsworth for quick service and the main room with 16 taps, a 25 foot vaulted ceiling and a 19 foot bean from Lancaster, Pa., which houses the brewing system.

There is also a living green wall that connects the front bar to the faucet room and a chalk mural with works by local artists.

You can also sit outside on the terrace in front of the brasserie. Food trucks like Groark barbecue for boys will also be available outdoors.

“We wanted the faucet room to look organic with the feeling that guests are inside the brewery area,” Tidswell said. “For me, it brings back a lot of history not just from Medford but from South Jersey and then paying homage to the area because that’s where I grew up.”

The duo wanted to showcase local artists in the brewery because “beer is an art, so we want to make sure we showcase the local people”. At first they plan to present the work of Jesse wolfron but later will turn the works of other artists.

From the finishes to the name (a tribute to New Jersey’s agricultural history), the brewery pays homage to the educations of Tidswell and Kuhn.

“That’s kind of how we want to do it,” Tidswell said. “We want to use local ingredients, collaborate with the locals and just make great beer for great people who want to have a good time. “

If you are going to

The brewery will open at the end of September or the beginning of October.

47 N. Main St., Medford, 609-318-3710; facebook.com/farmtruckbrewing

Hira Qureshi covers food and drink for the Courier Post, Burlington County Times, Daily Journal, Bucks County Times andSpy. She can be reached at [email protected] or 856-287-8106. Help support local journalism with a digital subscription.