{"id":18352,"date":"2024-02-22T10:54:13","date_gmt":"2024-02-22T15:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/?p=18352"},"modified":"2025-05-15T15:01:55","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T19:01:55","slug":"brewing-beers-bonds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/brewing-beers-bonds\/","title":{"rendered":"Brewing Beers & Bonds"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

To say that craft beer has played a significant role in Chelsey DeMarino-Ziolkowski’s adult life might be an understatement. As a young, 20-something working in the Jersey City, New Jersey restaurant industry, her knowledge of and appreciation for microbrews sparked a connection between her and her now husband, Michal Ziolkowski.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Little did she know that their initial conversations were laying the foundation for a journey that would eventually lead them to establish not one, but two breweries just a decade later. <\/p>\n\n\n

The Brew Bug<\/h3>\n\n\n

Chelsey discovered her passion for craft beer in her early 20s. She \u201cloved everything about it\u201d\u2014so much so that she acquired certification in the craft beer industry and began organizing trips to local breweries for friends and acquaintances in the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was around that time that she and Mike\u2014one of the regular customers at the bar she worked at and a fellow craft beer lover who\u2019d recently started home brewing\u2014often found themselves discussing the splendor of a perfectly brewed pint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe was the one customer I thoroughly enjoyed talking with about tasting notes, limited beers, and the love we both had for craft beer,\u201d says Chelsey, who admits that she initially turned down Mike\u2019s request for a date. A few months later, she reconsidered. \u201cWe went out to dinner, drank some good beers together, and haven\u2019t left each other\u2019s side since.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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A few years later, the couple welcomed twin daughters, turning their lives upside down. They moved to the Jersey Shore to be closer to family, but Chelsey\u2019s aspirations to climb the ladder in the restaurant industry came to a halt, propelling her in a new direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYour career kind of stops when you have kids, especially in the restaurant industry, but as soon as [the twins] were born, I wanted to get back into something; I\u2019ve always had this desire to create and build things and do more,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen you have a baby, you realize how hard it is and how much support there is lacking, so when they were three months old, I went back to school to be a doula.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chelsey started working as a postpartum doula for twin moms and, soon after, entered Monmouth to pursue her bachelor\u2019s degree in health sciences to bolster her growing expertise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a 28-year-old mother of two who worked part time, Chelsey recognized she wasn\u2019t the traditional undergraduate student, but she \u201cloved everything\u201d about her time at Monmouth. She made friends, interned in the athletics department, and feels that being older enabled her to form closer connections with her professors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was during this busy time in their lives that Chelsey and Mike\u2019s love of beer started to flourish into something bigger. They had occasionally home brewed in their Jersey City apartment, but now they started testing out new beer recipes almost weekly at their home in Wall Township, New Jersey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re randomly pillow talking one night and we\u2019re like, \u2018What if we open a brewery? Who says we can\u2019t do this, we make really good beer at home,\u2019\u201d she laughs. Looking back, she realizes they were being a bit naive\u2014typical \u201chome brewer\u2019s thinking,\u201d Chelsey says. But given her experience in the restaurant industry and Mike\u2019s experience in the corporate world, they decided to give it a go.<\/p>\n\n\n

Bradley Brew is Born <\/h3>\n\n\n