Welcome to our “Meet The Brewer” series! Where we interview brewers in Pennsylvania, from breweries small to large. Let us know if you know anyone who should be featured, email us at [email protected].

Fourscore Beer Company first opened its doors in 2019 at 603 S Washington St. in Gettysburg, PA. Fourscore borrows its name from President Abraham Lincoln’s famous speech and operates on a 7BBL brewhouse. The brewery has become widely known for offering a large variety of craft beer options. Most notably they are home to several series of heavily fruited sour beers.

The brewery was recently listed as tied for 6th in the “Top 10 Breweries In Pennsylvania According To Untappd (First Half Of 2021)”. With a draft list full of Fruited Sours, IPA’s, Pale Ales, Stouts and so much more, it’s hard to not find something for everyone at the brewery. Ben Little is the head brewer of Fourscore Beer Co. Read more to find out how he got started as a brewer, the most important lesson he’s learned so far, and more!

What was your introduction to craft beer?

I guess my first real introduction was a Sam Adams Winter variety pack many years ago. It was out of pure curiosity and I did really enjoy it. Honestly, my taste in beer at the time mostly revolved around grabbing a beer at the store that you knew no one else at the party would bring so that you knew no one else was snagging your beers. Lol. But that quickly shifted into me really enjoying what I was experimenting with and ultimately led me to Dogfish 60 Minute IPA, which was absolutely the first real game-changer for me.

How did you get started as a brewer?

I was doing a solid amount of traveling for work in my “past lives” and would always check out the local beers wherever I was and most often I would either bring or ship some back for myself. I also formed a few relationships around the country with folks who would ship me some beer in trades. Keep in mind, this was well over a decade ago, so the trading scene is nowhere near what it is today. I got tired of the shipping, so I decided to try to make my own. The path led from homebrewing to leaving my career, to sell beer in a large Miller/Coors distributor based in Baltimore, to a sales job for Flying Dog, to a shot at being a brewer at a brewpub, to running a production farm brewery, to where I am now at Fourscore.

What style allows you to be the most creative, and why?

As polarizing as they are, it’s absolutely fruited sours. We’ve become well known for them at Fourscore, and the choices are endless. It’s much more of attacking the conception and creation from the mindset of a chef, rather than a brewer. I’m really only bound by the sourcing that I have for the different fruit choices. While they aren’t my favorite to drink, they are extremely satisfying to see them go from what I call “brain to glass”. To me, that’s taking an idea that’s been kicking around in my brain for a while and bringing that idea to the final product in the glass.

What was the first beer you ever brewed, and what did you learn from it?

My first professional beer was a West Coast IPA. The grist was 2-row barley, dark wheat malt, and light Munich malt. The hops were CTZ, Centennial, and Simcoe. The water profile was very West Coast and the finish was, as well. It was brewed in Maryland and it was brewed just in time for the annual state competition. Back then there were a solid amount of entries, but very few categories, so folks were really fighting in those categories for a win. That beer took gold in its category and silver overall. It was a good start to my career, but most importantly it taught me that nothing beats simplicity and attention to detail.

Where do you see the craft beer industry heading in the next few years?

One thing I don’t see going away is the fruited sour phenomenon. And that’s simply because it opens the doors to a whole new audience. I know a lot of brewers rebel against the idea and concept of them, but I obviously welcome them. We keep a pretty diverse lineup on tap at Fourscore and many folks who come for those are also trying other things that we have on tap.

I also don’t see hazies going anywhere. A few years back, many thought that was a fad too. It’s proved not to be. The good news is that the industry has more or less caught up and there are quite a few really good ones readily found these days. But the one thing that folks on our side keep talking about is a lager trend. It’s been talked about for years now, and while I do see steam finally really building, I think the trend is much wider than that. I think that folks are starting to gravitate back toward well-made, full-flavored, style-driven beer. But not in the way we used to know it. Between the quality of ingredients, new techniques, and pure variety of tools at our disposal, I think that brewers are in a better place than ever to take classic, well-made beers in new directions. Water profiles, hop choices, brewing enzymes, and yeasts. Things like that. They really allow us to play within the given lines, but still be creative and have fun. But not be just shock and awe/fad-driven/attention-getting. Just quality innovation.

Describe what it’s like to be a brewer in Pennsylvania.

One thing I love about brewing in PA is the quality of local ingredients that we have at our disposal. We have 3 custom-made American Oak foeders (wood fermentation vessels with stainless steel cone bottoms) that we dedicate entirely to brewing with PA-grown ingredients. So far, we have exclusively used Deer Creek Malthouse malt and River Hills Farm hops, as I have been blown away by the quality of these ingredients and also the quality of the people producing them. We recently have started a project with local fruit, as well. This has been a long time coming for us. We are just so small and sparsely staffed, that the processing and labor that goes into using local fruit was a little out of grasp for a bit. Luckily, we are now finding creative ways to make it happen.

What is the inspiration behind your beer names?

These come from everywhere. Music. Popular culture. Life. Inside jokes. Sometimes the name drives a beer creation. Tributes to things that have influenced me. To me, the important thing is to have fun with them and share a little bit about yourself. Much of what we do is one-off, so they’re in and out pretty quickly. Because of that, I try not to get stuck too much in my head on this.

What is your favorite beer to drink right now?

This is one that can make a lot of folks cringe. I love High Life and Modelo. It’s really hard for me to drink beer from our industry because my brain doesn’t turn off. It wants to dissect it and figure out what they did and how they did it, and what I would do differently, and why it’s rated like it is, and the list goes on and on. Beer should be about relaxing and community to me. That said, Troegs When In Doubt Helles Lager is easily one of my go-to’s from PA.

What is the most important lesson you learned in the beer industry so far?

I don’t think that I have one solid answer for this. But I will share a few quick ones. First, this is a business. We are here to make beer that sells. But that doesn’t mean that you have to sell your soul to do so. You can still make beer that you don’t enjoy drinking, and find a way to do so in a way that is true with you. Second, keep things simple. Building recipes, planning your workday, making names and labels. Simple always wins. And third, beer is about community. I’m very open with other brewers about techniques and recipes. We all do things very differently. Fourscore is working on collaborations in PA, MD, OR, MA, NH, VA, and ME right now. We just recently kicked out a couple from NJ and DE. We keep a tight network of folks we learn from every day. We have a loyal following all around us. We have our family and friends who were there before we opened. We are all a part of the community and we feel very fortunate that our community has welcomed us into a part of its own fabric in the way that it has.