Couple Toasts Beer
A New Jersey town that has banned alcohol since 1871 welcomes a new business to the community: a brewery. IBT

For more than a century, in Pitman, New Jersey, if you wanted a beer you had to leave town. That's because Pitman, founded by the Methodist Camp Meeting Association, is a dry town. For 145 years, Pitman has allowed no alcohol, and certainly no breweries.

But one day it occurred to Justin Fleming that liquor licenses are awarded by the state, not by the town. That loophole allowed Fleming a chance to open his new brewery and bar, the Kelly Green Brewing Co.

And the people of Pitman seem pretty happy about it.

"It just excites me to see people out and about where we haven't seen people out and about," one woman said as she stood outside Kelly Green with a pint.

"We can't even accommodate all the people in this dry, thirsty town," Fleming said amid an overflowing crowd of customers.

Local businesses have expressed appreciation of the new establishment, too.

"We get a later crowd, and a happier crowd," said the owner of Dea de los Burritos nearby.