At Vinyl Brewing Company, the brewery focuses on a lot of different styles.
“One of the things we have become known for since our opening is our sour beer,” said Jim Sacco, who opened Vinyl Brewing in September 2017 with his aunt and uncle, Susan and Tom Puentes.
Sacco was a longtime home brewer and when discussion about opening a brewery came about, downtown Hammonton was the place to do it.
“We are all from Hammonton,” he said. “Our families are from here. We felt what better place to open a brewery than in a town that we have lived all our lives.”
And it just so happened, they found the right location at 300 12th St. The location previously housed Perrone Door Company Inc., a garage door company.
“We wanted to be here in the downtown,” Sacco said, adding they were fortunate Perrone Door Company installed the garage doors they have in front.
Once they found the location, they started building out and getting the appropriate state licenses, which took roughly a year.
“Then we started brewing,” Sacco said.
Vinyl Brewing Company is located right smack in the middle of Philadelphia and Atlantic City. Putting flavor first and style second, Vinyl Beer is inspired by music, hard work and their farm family roots, according to its About Us description on its website.
Vinyl Brewing Company opened in 2017 and has become known for their sour beer.
The name blends Sacco’s two loves – music and beer.
“Since I was a teenager, I have been a drummer in a band, Sacco explained. “As a little punk rock kid, I wanted to blend the two loves I had in my life – music and beer into one. This was the end result.”
Sacco said their style offerings change with the seasons. All the beer is made onsite.
In the fall they offered an apple cider donut stout and had a popular thin mint mild stout – playing on the Girl Scout cookie with a little coffee in it.
“Now, with the colder weather we’ll have more dark beers on tap,” he said offering different flavored stout.
In December, they held a Christmas beer event with beers on tap inspired by Christmas including a milk stout – can you envision the chocolate chip cookies? – a gingerbread stout, an eggnog stout and a winter wonder ale.
Sacco said as a brewer, he likes to challenge himself.
“That’s why I like these events,” he said.
Usually in February/March, they have seven to eight imperial stout flavors on tap.
As spring comes along, the brewery will offer a little bit more lighter refreshing styles of beer.
“More like fruit, citrusy with fruits in them,” Sacco explained. “I always try to keep a little of something on tap all the time because even in the summer some people may wanted to drink dark beers. You have stout drinkers that are just stout drinkers, then you have sour drinkers that want sours in the winter so we try to keep a little bit of everything on all throughout the year.”
In the spring – end of April – Vinyl Brewing holds a Sour Week to celebrate the sour ale drink.
“We do 12 to15 different sour beers that we’ll tap during that week,” Sacco said. “It has sort of grown in popularity over the years. We also do plenty of different IPAs.”
A couple times a year, Vinyl Brewing joins the other two breweries in town for walkable beer crawls.
“We’re all friends,” Sacco said. “We start with a group at each brewery and take four to five hours, then we walk and rotate to each other’s breweries. Sometimes we will do a collaboration beer together on that day so people can have. It’s cool making Hammonton a destination for breweries. I think we all definitely offer something unique … we all do our own thing well.”
At Vinyl Brewing, the beers on tap rotate to keep the selection fresh.
“Our most popular IPA is called ‘My brain hurts,’” Sacco said and as for the names, he tries to be creative and a little silly. “I usually send it out to the local bars in the area. Another sour ale – ‘Glitch in the Matrix’ – a blueberry blackberry raspberry sour ale won a few awards. My personal favorite is ‘Low Life’ – it’s my take on the Miller High Life. It’s a very easy drinking nothing to it beer that has become pretty popular.”
For those who are not beer drinkers or are gluten free, the brewery also offers a selection of seltzers.
Sacco said they do take suggestions from customers all the time.
“Sometimes customers ask for beers that were on tap three to four years ago and we bring them back,” he said. “We are pretty open when it comes to the beers we have. We try to have fun.”
As the brewery rolls into its seventh year, Sacco said for the most part they have set out everything they wanted to accomplish when they opened.
“I always think it’s a work in progress,” he said. “We’re always trying to improve everything that we do here.”
With changes on what they are allowed to do in terms of events through the state, they will work on incorporating more music performances.
“We will do mainly acoustic because a full band is a little loud in here,” Sacco said.
When Sacco and his aunt and uncle set their sights on opening Vinyl Brewing, they initially really wanted to try to take some of that Philly city feel and bring it to small town Hammonton.
“I think we have done a pretty good job with that,” Sacco said. “When it’s busy in here, the vibe is really cool. It definitely has a city atmosphere. It’s relaxing, just a place you can go to. Sometimes we’ll have sports on sometimes professional wrestling on … we get a little silly in here.”
Vinyl Brewing is open Wednesday through Sunday.
Wednesday to Thursday – 3-9 p.m.
Friday – 3-10 p.m.
Saturday – 1-10 p.m.
Sunday – 1-7 p.m.
