How Cape May Brewing became New Jersey’s largest independent brewery

Cape May Brewing Co. just got some well-earned recognition. Since opening in 2011, it's grown into New Jersey's largest independent craft brewery, built from what founder Ryan Krill started as a hobby.

The numbers behind that growth are genuinely wild. When Cape May Brewing opened, there were only 28 breweries in the entire state. Today there are 251. Nationally, the industry has grown from roughly 1,790 breweries to more than 9,300 over that same stretch. Cape May didn't just survive that explosion, it came out the other side as the biggest independent name in New Jersey.

The origin story is as unpretentious as you'd hope. The very first keg of Cape May IPA was hand-delivered to a local beach bar. Today, the brewery's beers show up in hundreds of locations across New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, brewed out of a 15,000-square-foot production facility running 24 hours a day, five days a week.

Why I've been drawn to it from the start

I think my whole love of Cape May beers actually started with my love of Cape May itself.

It began simply, seeing their cans start showing up in liquor stores. I was instinctively drawn to it, the name, the crab on the can. It felt like taking a little piece of Cape May home with you, even standing in a store nowhere near the shore.

The original Cape May IPA hooked me first. But my taste in IPAs kept drifting toward hazier styles, and that's when Hazy Dawn became my favorite. The name alone does something to me, it brings back early morning beach walks in Cape May before anyone else is out there. The beer itself just happened to live up to the memory.

Most recently, it's been Follow the Gull, their tropical-leaning hazy IPA. I had two of them Friday night. Funny name for me specifically, since I'd never actually follow a gull anywhere, on the beach, I'm the guy shooing them away from my lunch, not chasing after them.

SEE ALSO: From Cape May to Waretown: The Jersey beer trail you need to try

Cape May Brewing's tasting room entrance, unpretentious and welcoming, exactly the vibe that's kept us coming back on every trip to the area | Google Maps

A tradition my wife and I never skip

Whenever we're anywhere near Cape May, we stop at the tasting room. Every time.

I'll admit, I actually miss one thing that used to come with that visit: the old requirement to take a tour before you could taste. It was quirky, a little bureaucratic, and completely, uniquely Jersey. That mandate got wiped out when a broader liquor modernization law took effect in January 2024, and honestly, tasting room visits everywhere got a lot more efficient because of it. I still have a soft spot for the old way.

Tour or no tour, if you're anywhere near Cape May, stop in and taste everything they've got. And do me a favor: grab a few extra cans on your way out. My fridge, as you can see, is in genuine need of a restock.