Flying High: The Steady Ascent of Icarus Brewing

Greek mythology includes the story of Icarus, a son imprisoned with his father, a master craftsman named Daedalus. Icarus escaped by building himself wings. Before he left, his dad warned him not to fly too low for the risk of getting his wings wet and not to fly too high for the risk of burning his wings from the sun. Icarus ignored the latter, singeing his wings and plunging to his death.

Most people view this story as a cautionary tale. Think you’re better than Mother Nature and can only soar higher and higher, and you’ll end up falling to your fate. But Icarus Brewing Owner and self-proclaimed Greek mythology lover Jason Goldstein has a different view.

“I love this story,” he shares with me, mentioning that people often ask him why he named his brewery after someone who died. “You can look at it that way, but he and his father were left somewhere to die. So their option was to just do nothing and die or at least try.”

For Goldstein, the story of Icarus fits because at the brewery, which we named to our list of the “11 Best Breweries of 2024,” “we always try to do something new, to be creative with it,” he says. “But at the same time, we never go too far, too crazy, it’s all a part of our balance.”

I’d argue then that Goldstein actually learned from Icarus.

At the brewery, he’s willing to soar, but he knows if he flies too close to the sun, he will fall.

Instead, he stays rooted in science with fermentation as the rock-solid foundation that keeps him grounded.

And so far, with that approach, Icarus is flying high (just not too high).

From Food Science to Fermentation

Photography courtesy of Icarus Brewing

Goldstein’s path into beer started earlier than most. While studying food science at Ohio State University, Goldstein took an internship at Elevator Brewing Company. He began on the bottling line, “possibly the lowest entry-level job you can get at a brewery,” he jokes. “But I sort of fell in love with it.”

Goldstein spent hours bottling in the hopes that one day he could spend hours cleaning tanks in the hopes that one day he could spend hours learning how to brew.

After graduating, Goldstein went all in, moving to England to study at the Brew Lab at the University of Sunderland. In Northern England, thousands of miles away from home, he learned from the brewmaster for Heineken and Newcastle.

The experience was invaluable.

“You’re going to make mistakes,” he says of working in or opening a brewery. “Don’t you want to do that on someone else’s dollar?!”

Eventually returning to the States, Goldstein bounced around to a few different breweries before finally opening his own spot in, of all places, New Jersey.

Sure on the Jersey Shore

Photography courtesy of Icarus Brewing

When Goldstein launched Icarus in Lakewood, NJ, in January 2017, it was the first brewery in the area.

A New York City native who went to school in Ohio and spent time in the U.K., Goldstein chose New Jersey because he felt that he could open a brewery like no other in the state.

“I like to think we always do something a little bit different,” he says. “We’ve done a lot of styles before anyone else.”

For instance, Icarus didn’t open with an IPA (“much to the chagrin of my friends,” laughs Goldstein); instead, they released a French saison, doppelbock, and red ale.

Icarus’ Director of Sales and native of Lakewood, NJ, Shane Gertner, says he was shocked to learn there was a brewery opening in his hometown.

With a substantial Hasidic Orthodox Jewish population, Lakewood isn’t exactly known for its bars, breweries, and nightlife.

Icarus respectfully filled a void in the neighborhood.

“It was something to be proud of in my hometown,” shares Gertner, who mentioned a lot of Lakewood High School alumni and former residents of the town started coming back just to visit Icarus. “People saw supporting us as a way of supporting the legacy of the place they came from. Our patrons in Lakewood really took our success as a point of personal pride, much in the way folks might support a local high school team.”

Gertner says even the local Lakewood Jewish community became regulars.

“In some ways, our Lakewood tasting room was a true cultural melting pot (mash tun, if you will!?),” says Gertner, “with our beer bringing together people that might not normally cross paths.”

Gertner, who visited Icarus within a week of its opening, fell in love. “I kept going back,” he says. When a job for a sales rep opened up, he diverted his plans to move to Detroit. “I knew that was my job,” says the photography major who worked in B2B sales for Apple after college.

But Goldstein’s goal wasn’t just to become a point of pride in Lakewood.

He always wanted Icarus to be a household name around the state. Much like many folks know the mythology of Icarus, Goldstein hopes the brewery’s story will someday be one that everyone remembers.

“The breweries that are successful nowadays are the stars shining over the community,” posits Goldstein. “We’re bringing everybody together and building up that local crowd in our own little market; that was always our goal, our dream.”

Even when the brewery moved from its original location to Brick, NJ, in 2024, they brought the communal party with them.

At Icarus, Honestly, It’s a Party

Photography courtesy of Icarus Brewing

Goldstein says that, pretty much by day two, he realized Icarus would eventually outgrow its Lakewood space.

“Customers were sitting under pallet racks, and we’d be milling in with a customer five feet away,” he laughs.

The new 22,000-sq-ft building gives the brewery breathing room.

“It’s the tasting room we always dreamed of,” says Goldstein. A large beer garden has become an event space for the community, while the production space has enough room so that the brewing team isn’t working on top of each other.

On a Friday night, it’s not uncommon for cars to pack the parking lot.

“Honestly, it’s a party,” says Gertner, who often has trouble finding a parking space himself after a long day on the road visiting accounts. “I walk in and it takes me longer to get to the bar than to actually get a beer because there are usually twenty different people just saying hello.”

Gertner echoes Goldstein’s dream. “We just wanted to build a space where people could come and enjoy their time in our tasting room, checking out as many beers as they like.

Of course, it helps that they make fantastic beer, too.

I’m on a Boat and, It’s Going Fast And

Photography courtesy of Icarus Brewing

Daedalus warned Icarus of flying too close to the sun and the sea. If there is one beer at Icarus that encapsulates the entire brewery, it has to be Yacht Juice, an extremely balanced hoppy beer that probably strikes that Goldilocks zone Daedalus would approve of.

The second beer they ever canned, Yacht Juice, stands out from other Northeast-style IPAs “because it’s so simple,” says Goldstein.

Yacht Juice isn’t super crazy, but it is super crushable even at 8% ABV.

With a hop bill of Citra, Mosaic, and Columbus, you might think “that same combo has been used in a thousand-plus IPAs across the country,” says Goldstein. And while you’d be right, Icarus brings this combination into harmony with a medium-bodied hazy that drinks much easier than its alcohol content belies.

“Some people want triple or quad IPAs; they want nectar; they want it to be over the top,” says Goldstein. “Yacht Juice isn’t that.”

But casual drinkers and hardcore hop heads alike love this hazy.

Out of all of Icarus’ beers, Yacht Juice sells the best by far, according to Gertner, noting the brewery made this IPA its flagship for a reason. Although initially resisting core beers for its first six years, Icarus now has a solid lineup of flagships, with Yacht Juice at full mast.

“We’ll never own a yacht,” says Goldstein, “So drinking one is the closest we’re gonna get!”

Photography courtesy of Icarus Brewing

On the other side of the pond from Yacht Juice, Gertner says that Icarus’ Italian pilsner Furio has gained a lot of momentum over the last two years.

Named after a character from the iconic New Jersey-based show, “The Sopranos,” this lager “speaks to who we are as a brewery,” says Gertner, “and where we’re from.”

Icarus Head Brewer Dave Menges starts with a floor-malted Czech pilsner malt and a little bit of dextrin malt before decocting and hopping with Saaz and Tetnang.

“We want it to be clean, simple, and aromatic,” says Goldstein. “[Furio] is just so crushable.”

Balance, drinkability, and crushability are words that Goldstein and his team use again and again.

Photography courtesy of Icarus Brewing

Even when they do venture a little bit closer to the sun, like with a Japanese rice lager called Ichi for the Michi with Szechuan peppercorns, they keep those three words in mind.

“It’s super light and crushable,” says Icarus Marketing Director Marissa Sacca, who counts the lager as one of her favorites.

And she’s not the only one. Although not a part of the core rotation, Ichi for the Michi is one of the most requested beers from fans to come back into the rotation.

“We get lots of comments and DMs from people anxiously waiting for that beer to come back,” says Sacca. “They just can’t get enough of it.”

A Fable for the Future

Photography courtesy of Icarus Brewing

At Icarus Brewing, Goldstein isn’t afraid to take flight—but he’s just as committed to landing safely. In a craft beer industry where trends can tempt you to chase the next big thing at breakneck speed, Icarus thrives by knowing when to push boundaries and when to pull back. It’s not about avoiding risk; it’s about taking the right risks.

Goldstein says they want to grow, but only intentionally, “a bit aggressive yet at the same time conservative,” he says, “growing when we feel we truly need to rather than when we just want to.”

And while they’re always looking for the next thing, the gleam in a eye, whether that be a new hop or a new yeast strain, they’re also staying grounded.

“We’re always trying to find something fun and different to do,” says Goldstein, “and just excel at it.”
The myth of Icarus might have ended in a fall, but here, the wings are holding steady. Eight years in, Goldstein and his crew are still climbing—carefully, intentionally—charting a course that lets them soar without losing sight of the ground beneath them.
Because at Icarus Brewing, flying high isn’t about chasing the sun. It’s about building wings strong enough to keep the journey going.