Aquatic Brewing

Five years ago, Cape residents who wanted to try a local craft beer would consider brews made anywhere in the state. Now, it’s possible to refine the search by zip code. The newest brewery on the block, Aquatic Brewing, quietly opened its doors on Main Street, Falmouth, in the fall of 2020. Nestled into a newly-renovated plaza on the eastern end of Falmouth’s main thoroughfare, the brewery has an industrial, start-up feel. Shiny metal brewing tanks and sacks of barley provide a backdrop to the bar, where a dozen or so beers are on tap. From a hibiscus-infused saison to coffee-oatmeal stout, Aquatic has a brew to quench any thirst. And if the beer was any fresher, you’d have the slap it.

“There’s nothing boring on the menu. Every beer shines on its own and has a story to tell,” says co-owner Alex Bergan, who began brewing beer with his then-roommate, Greg Horning, as a hobby. The pair lived together in Somerville, MA, while embarking on a PhD program in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) joint program with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). When they moved to Falmouth to begin their research, they simply continued the home-brewing tradition.

That hobby became a passion, and then a plan: even before completing their doctoral program, Bergan and Horning had decided to open up a brewery. While some might consider a career in beer an unconventional choice for two young scientists, Bergan says a lot of their academic training applies just as well to the brewing process. For example, the pair create a weekly “profile” of the tap water – beer’s main ingredient – and after it goes through a carbon filter, they adjust the brewing salts and chemicals necessary to remove chlorine from the water.

“We take notes, run experiments, and keep things clean, just like you would in a lab,” Bergan says. “We also kept the disciplined work ethic and never take shortcuts, same as in science.”

After spending a couple years learning the ropes of the service industry through jobs at Independent Fermentations in Plymouth (Bergan) and Falmouth oyster company Ward Aquafarms (Horning), the beer afficianados were ready to bring their home brewery out of the closet. They clinched a downtown location, but building renovations delayed their opening for a year. Launching a public-facing business during the Cape’s off-season – in the midst of a pandemic – might not seem like a blessing, but Bergan and Horning decided that a “soft opening” would help them get their feet wet (literally) as they worked out kinks in the brewing process.

Since September, Aquatic Brewing has been serving take-out beer, poured to order in growlers and cans ($10-21), and the tasting room opened to the public in time for Memorial Day. While no food is prepared on the premises, the owners plan to invite food trucks and encourage a kind of reverse-BYOB: bring your own bag (of food from an area restaurant). Aquatic beers are also available on tap at Water Street Kitchen in Woods Hole, the brewery’s first draft customer.

Beers are brewed in small batches on a rotating basis, ensuring freshness and optimal taste. Poured into a signature glass (rigorously tested to optimize drinking pleasure), each brew offers a complex flavor profile that deserves undivided attention. Even familiar beers come with a side of surprise: the Alema hefeweizen, for example, is dry-hopped to avoid the “banana bread” taste that sometimes plagues these brews.

After Bergan recommended the Highly Common lager as a good “entry point”, this taster was pleasantly surprised by the distinct chocolate flavor that complemented the beer’s sweetness without overpowering it. And even for someone who typically avoids stouts, the Pie in the Sky Coffee Oatmeal Stout – fermented with coffee beans from the Woods Hole roaster and bakery – was delicious, thirst-quenching and satisfying, without being heavy. Both of these beers are brewed with a San Francisco lager yeast – a nod to Bergan’s hometown, and the product of extensive testing to select the most complementary strain.

The Aquatic menu features several New England IPAs, a brewing style that calls for adding hops while the beer is fermenting, to maximize the distinctive citrusy taste while reducing bitterness. The rotating “Gyre” series draws on the brewmasters’ backgrounds in oceanography: each beer is named for a hop-growing region whose climate is influenced by ocean circulation. While the brewery gets most of its ingredients from national wholesalers, its barley is sourced from Stonepath Malt in Wareham.

While building up their customer fan base through word-of-mouth and the beer-oriented app Untappd, Horning and Bergan are thrilled to be part of the Cape’s growing craft brewery scene.

“Falmouth is a wonderful town with not enough breweries,” Bergan says. “The more, the merrier.”

Aquatic Brewing is open to the public for tasting and take-out at 661 Main Street, Falmouth. Hours may change, so check the website for updates at aquaticbrewing.com.