Yes, Ash Can!

This weekend Steve Ashton, Donna Ashton, and their group of Bad-Ash Brewers are celebrating their 3rd Anniversary.  

When you have the courage, the temerity, and frankly the balls to pursue your dream in the face of a pandemic, you automatically become impossibly easy people for whom to root. 

NJ.com (March 2020) 

I have had the great good fortune of knowing Steve Ashton for close to forty-five years.  We first met when I transferred into Wardlaw-Hartridge for 5th grade in September 1977.  We played soccer together in high school.  We graduated from W-H together in 1985.  Then, four years later we graduated together from the University of Colorado, Boulder.  

Having lived in Middlesex Borough for thirty years, when Steve told me he/Donna were going to open their brewery in the space on Lincoln Boulevard formerly occupied by the late but-never-great Demented Brewing, I honestly questioned the wisdom of their decision.  Middlesex Borough is not now - and has not been for quite some time - at the center of economic development.  Trust me.  I have spent enough years logging miles running through its streets to know that a significant percentage of our businesses and commercial endeavors are in fact empty spaces.  

Ashton Brewing opened for business in late March 2020 on a Friday roughly two weeks after Governor Murphy issued the Public Emergency Order that locked New Jersey down in COVID's early days.  To purchase beer, you had to go onto their website, confirm you were of legal drinking age, and then include in your order the make and model of the car in which you were picking up your beer.  No one was permitted inside of the building.  Instead, when you pulled up in your car, your order was delivered to you.  Looking back, it was the best drive-thru window ever! 

I was working remotely back then, which meant that I was only about one mile away from the Brewery on Opening Day.  I was Customer #4.  I bought two growlers (one each of two different types of beer), a chalice, and a car magnet.   

Ashton Brewing Growlers 

(March 2020) 

Margaret and I still have the growlers in our garage. I still have the chalice and the car magnet but the beers were in my belly shortly after I opened the growlers.  Thankfully, in the three years since, Ashton Brewing has just kept making more and more types of great beer, a number of which have also found their way into my belly.

First-ever Ashton Brewing beer 

(March 2020)

Happy 3rd Anniversary, Ashton Brewing and thank you for the Kick-Ash Beers.  Middlesex Borough is better for your being part of its community.  

Cheers! 

-AK