New Brewery Brings 'Unique, High-Quality' Beers To Edison

EDISON, NJ — South 40 Brewing Co. opened in Edison in October 2020. And within a span of a few months is already rated as one of the best breweries in Central Jersey by Bestofnj.com.

“What's funny is I don't even know, until somebody showed me,” said owner and brewer Kevin Pacansky.

South 40 Brewing Co., is a small craft brewery located at 110 Newfield Ave in Edison – a quick walk from the NJ Convention and Exposition Center. “We have a wide menu and we try to make a little bit of everything,” said Pacansky, a self-taught brewer.

The brewery prides itself at creating beers that “tastes distinctly different.”

“We intentionally use a different strain of yeast for every beer, trying to make each a different style,” said Pacansky. The Pilsners and IPAs are “great”, said Pacansky. “And we are constantly trying to keep rotating new beers on the menu.”

The brewery opened on Oct. 24, 2020, at a time when most small businesses were struggling to stay afloat due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Pacansky said he “relied heavily” on the state’s craft beer fans. “When a brewery opens, there's quite a lot of people that show up. And that's what you don't want during a pandemic. But for us, just the right amount of people showed up,” he said.

“People keep coming in, telling us they were here on opening day but there were so many people that they left and came back like a month later. So that kind of helped us out a lot.”

He had initially planned to open in May, but plans were delayed due to the pandemic.

“I was putting everything in line to be able to open in May-June. But what ended up happening was the permitting with the state got held back a lot. And it just took significantly longer to get a permit.” he said.

As a small business owner, Pacansky’s biggest challenge right now is making his customer “feel safe.”

“We don't have a very big space. So, we can't really have too many people here at one time,” he said.

(Pic: Alexa Payesko)

But the location near NJ Convention, right off the Garden State Parkway has proved to be advantageous.

“It’s a pretty good location, because we have every single major highway in the state right outside. We have the Expo Center right around the corner as well, so normally we would be getting quite a bit of people on the weekends.”

Currently, the brewery is staffed with just three people — Pacansky, his girlfriend and his brother. He said they’ve been managing "pretty well so far." Originally from Monroe, he moved to Edison to be closer to the brewery.

Pacansky had originally planned to open the brewery in Long Beach Island, but soon realized the Edison location would be better for business.

But he decided to stick with the name South 40 Brewing Co., which pays tribute to the name of the road leading on and off Long Beach Island.

“Not everybody's going to immediately know what it means. So, it forces a lot of people to come in and ask. It’s a great conversation starter,” he said.

The brewery has quite a few new beers coming out in the next couple of weeks. “I'm going to try to hit our experimental line of beers very hard.”

Pacansky’s vision for his business is to “keep it small” and focus on quality.

“Literally every batch right now it's getting better. What’s on the menu is pretty high-quality beer. I think it'd be better for us to stay small and focus on quality,” he said.

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