Time flies when you're making great beer.

Backward Flag Brewing Co. of Forked River marks its fourth anniversary this fall, a landmark the Ocean County craft beer operation will celebrate with a party kicking off at noon on Saturday, Sept. 21, in its Challenger Way taproom.

"It's a little surreal sometimes," said owner Torie Fisher. "I don't think I ever knew how far we would go, and I still don't know how far we'll go."

It was just about two years ago that Backward Flag, with Fisher's wife Melinda Gulsever as head brewer, expanded its production capabilities from a one-and-a-half-barrel system to a 10-barrel system.

Subsequently, the company's beers — at one time only available in the tasting room — have found new fans in bars, restaurants and liquor stores across New Jersey, and even in select Pennsylvania locations.

"We're still constantly learning that new dynamic of bigger production and distribution, keeping people in our tap room happy and keeping outside accounts happy," said Fisher. "It's just a constant juggling act."

Backward Flag's steady growth also serves the company's community engagement efforts. Fisher is a U.S. Army veteran who served two tours of duty in Iraq, while Gulsever serves in the Army National Guard.

The vast majority of Backward Flag's employees are either veterans or first responders or family members of one, and the brewery also launched the charitable organization Arms 2 Artisans to help post-Sept. 11, 2001, veterans transition to artisanal trades.

"We've gotten a lot more exposure and for us, one of our biggest goals is the outreach to the veterans community, the first responders community, and so we've gotten to do a lot more with that," said Fisher. "Having that bigger capacity has allowed us more stability to be more involved in that community in the way that I want to be."

Backward Flag launched the Forward Assault series of canned beers to support veterans' charities last year, and Saturday's anniversary party will include a bazaar of veterans' businesses.

This summer, the brewery celebrated LGBTQ Pride Month in June with a Pride Month social, special rainbow-colored merchandise and a donation to the American Military Partner Association, an organization of LGBTQ military families and their allies.

The event also included representatives of Garden State Equality and a speech from retired Sgt. Maj. Jennifer Long, an advocate for transgender troops. Fisher said Backward Flag plans to host more events in support of the LGBTQ community in the future.

"That was a fairly new thing for us. That's something that in the past we didn't really talk about much, so that was, I want to say, a growth process personally for myself as well as the brewery," said Fisher. "We tend to not talk that much about the personal foundation of the brewery. It took a long time before I really started promoting the woman-owned aspect of the brewery, and then also that aspect of the brewery.

"And honestly, it was one of those things where between customers and staff coming to me and saying, 'Look, these are things that people want to hear about, people want to talk about,' (we know) we're kind of in a position to put an different face to those things, and so we started promoting that a little bit bigger."

Backward Flag Brewing Co. fourth anniversary party, noon Saturday, Sept. 21, 699 Challenger Way, Toms River; 609-994-0422, www.backwardflagbrewing.com.