Seven generations of the Cartons have been born and grown up within five miles of where you can today find the Carton Brewing Company on 6 E. Washington Avenue. Augie Carton, his cousin Chris, and friend Jesse Ferguson opened the brewery 14 years ago, with a simple mission: making great beer for their friends and neighbors.
“We didn’t have to stress out about making craft beer people happy, we needed to make all of our neighbors happy,” Carton says, calling Carton Brewing Company: “of the community, by the community, for the community.”
He wants the diversity of beers to reflect the diversity of the town, which Carton attributes to how Monmouth County brings in people from all walks of life.
“I don’t think you can follow your creativity if you’re just making for people who have Untappd accounts,” Carton says. “In our tasting room, we try to have something for everyone.
We try to make beers for the neighborhood who was on a construction site and the guy getting off the ferry from Wall Street.”
Yes, Wall Street. The Atlantic Highlands is only a pleasant 50-minute Seastreak Ferry ride to NYC. And since the ferry docks four blocks from the brewery, Carton also caters to the extremely rare commuting regular who either head straight to the brewery or stop by after enjoying Sandy Hook Beach.
“I have an old friend who has been coming for 13 years, commuting from Brooklyn,” Carton says. “Only recently did he buy a condo for summer living in the highlands. I always just assumed he was a neighbor. There are definitely regulars in our tap room that don’t live anywhere near us.”
When they first opened, you weren’t allowed to sell in the tap room directly. You could give a free taste and then sell growlers. As those rules changed, so has Carton’s approach.
The brewery’s tap room is on the second floor of the larger building they brew in. It’s cozy - so cozy that they dole out one glass at a time and “tasting cards” when someone orders a beer tasting. Otherwise, they won’t have space.
“It’s decorated with big leather couches and weird tables out of my basement,” Carton says, calling it a perfect third space for residents.
That doesn’t mean they don’t find unique uses for the space. Yoga instructor Katie Littlepage came by 1.5 years ago and asked if she could throw yoga sessions there, as she did in a brewery out West. Thus, on Sundays, you can show up hours before the tap rooms opens for Yoga on Tap and then chat and sip a brew with your fellow yogis afterwards.
“Every now and then I’ll meet someone who said, ‘Oh, I’ve been to your brewery doing yoga,” Carton says. “That’s all [Katie] being great at what she does.”
Carton says not much changes during the summer, despite roughly doubling sales in July compared to January. They have a couple of lower-alcohol or lighter summer-themed beers meant to be taken to the beach, such as a sour Monkey Chase the Weasel and session ale Beach.
When he’s not working, he’s out cycling - either outside or with the Carton Peloton Cru. Or enjoying some of the wide range of restaurants abutting Carton, of which he named many, while worrying about not naming them all. See our Atlantic Highlands town guide for all his recommendations.
As for the future, Carton Brewing Company will continue to do it their way. “We don’t have a giant marketing team, don’t do research,” Carton says. “We make the shit we want to drink when we want to drink, and hope it appeals to the community,”
