Community Corner

Microbrewery Coming to Hatboro

Crooked Eye Brewery is expected to open on East Montgomery Avenue in a few months.

Jeff Mulherin started making beer in his Upper Southampton kitchen seven or eight years ago. 

“I got bigger equipment,” Mulherin said of its evolution. “I started researching it.”

Fast forward to now and Mulherin, a respiratory therapist who works nights at Doylestown Hospital, along with his father, Paul Mulherin, a tool and die maker, and uncle, Paul Hogan, a lighting salesmen, hope to brew their beer-making hobby into a side job.

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“Right now we’re doing this as a sideline,” Paul Mulherin said. “Hopefully my sons will be able to run it and we can sit back and relax.”

The Upper Southampton family have set up shop at 13 E. Montgomery Ave., in Hatboro and plan to begin selling kegs to local bars, as well as 64-ounce and 22-ounce bottles of beer to customers in the next three or four months once a brewery license is obtained, according to Paul Mulherin.

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For now, beer enthusiasts “can come in and have samples,” he said.

By the end of September or beginning of October, he said Crooked Eye would be open more regular hours, likely every other Saturday and Sunday from 4 p.m. to midnight, as well as one weeknight for tastings.

The Hatboro community got its first taste of Crooked Eye’s offerings during the July 27 Moonlight Memories Car Show when the trio dispensed roughly 1,800 samples, or about 35 gallons of beer. 

From “grain to glass”

In all, the beer-making partners brew eight different styles of ale, including, brown, blonde, Scottish and Belgian white.

A medieval-fashioned beer called gruit­–which uses chamomile flowers and spices in the brewing process–earned recognition in a Keystone Home Brew Club competition, Paul Mulherin said.

A pumpkin porter is planned for the fall, he added.

“They’re not quite as strong and high octane” as craft beer, he said, adding that their variety has a lower alcohol content.

The family built a 30-gallon system, which is housed at their Montgomery Avenue property adjacent to Davidian Tattoo Studio. Currently the trio make three barrels of beer per week, with their eyes set on expanding to nine barrels a week.  

“The whole process takes 15 to 16 days,” Jeff Mulherin said of beer making, which involves primary and secondary fermentation, each taking up to seven days depending on the type of brew.

Since first donning the beer-making hat, Jeff Mulherin said he’s made “a handful” of not-so-great beers.

“We definitely learned some lessons,” he said, adding that he’s learned to “grin and bear it,” drinking the fruits of his labor regardless of taste.

Like most craft beers, which he said are not pasteurized or filtered, the “best taste” is generally within a year of production.

Building Crooked Eye Brewery

The space, which the partners converted from a CrossFit gym, affords much more room to work than the home garage where Jeff Mulherin had been brewing until two months ago.

“This basically was just a shell,” Paul Hogan said of the site, which now houses a fermentation room, a large freezer, a grain room and a bar area for sampling. “We want to make it appealing for when people come to the tastings.”

Paul Mulherin said the family has spent about $15,000 so far building and transforming the site.

A larger brewing system, which would provide more capacity, could cost between $15,000 and $20,000, he said.

“Volume is what we’ll be looking at,” he said.

Jeff Mulherin said the existing smaller system would still come in handy when trying out new recipes though.

At least for the time being, Hogan and Jeff and Paul Mulherin plan to run Crooked Eye Brewery. But, expansion of the family-run business, like plans to upgrade to a bigger brewing system, are envisioned for the future.

“I have three other sons,” Paul Mulherin said, adding that Hogan has two daughters. “All the kids will help out whether they like it or not.”

For more information

Crooked Eye Brewery, 13 E. Montgomery Ave., Suite No. 2 in Hatboro, is expected to open more regularly in late September or early October for tastings. Click here to visit the business’ Facebook page.


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