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].

Bloom Brew first opened in 2014 at 100 Riverside Dr. Ste A in West Newton, PA. The brewery operates a 2BBL brewhouse with 24 taps of their beer, and local PA cider, mead, and wine. Since the day Bloom Brew opened, they have been specializing in barrel-aged sour beers. Jeffrey Bloom is the head brewer and owner of Bloom Brew. 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?

My first craft beer was in 1994 and was an Anchor Steam I drank with a friend that sat in the trunk of his car in the dead of summer, not exactly a fan that day but it eventually got better.

How did you get started as a brewer?

My wife bought me a Mr. Beer kit right around 2008. Back then it didn’t turn out half bad but I knew I could do better. It took a while but I slowly started to build my brewing equipment. I started with kits initially, then started to learn recipe formulation and switched to partial mash, and finally all-grain.

In 2011 my former business partner and I were being asked to participate in beer shows. They started small with maybe only 30 people at the first show, eventually we were the only homebrewers in shows with hundreds of people. Well-respected business owners in the craft beer industry were drinking our beers and suggested that if we opened commercially that they would fully support us. I had a full-time daylight job already and said we were having fun but didn’t want to go that direction. 2 more years went by and the offers to carry our product grew, and we finally made a decision to open a small production facility on our own terms. We filed the paperwork in 2013 and opened our doors in 2014.

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

Long-term barrel-aged sours. I have been a fan of sour beer from the early 2000s and dabbled in my homebrew days. One of the first beers we made was our Shake & Stutter, barrel-aged Kriek. Very few breweries were making legit barrel-aged sours in 2013 and that is where my passion was and still is. I love playing with all of the sour yeast strains and pairing which ones work best with all of the different fruits. It’s a labor of love to fill a 59-gallon wine barrel and wait to pop that bung 12-24 months later. the combination of yeast strains and fruits is almost limitless, not to mention working with fresh fruit, the fruit changes year to year.

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

That would be Mr. Beer cherry wheat. I learned that having the right equipment makes all the difference.

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

I hope it’s going back to focusing on some classic styles like lagers and more traditional IPA’s

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

As a brewer/owner, the biggest drag is dealing with paperwork and archaic PLCB laws dating back to the era of prohibition. Trust me when I say great strides have been made since 2013 but we have a long, long way to go.

What is the inspiration behind your beer names?

I actually come up with all of the beer names. Most of the time we make a beer and the name just comes to me. some of the names are a local reference, some are inside jokes pulled from colleagues, friends, and family. It was never intended for customers to get the reference for all of the beer names but that’s cool.

What is your favorite beer to drink right now?

That changes every week or two. We usually put 3-4 new beers on tap every week. When I come in to sample, one just hits me right and I plow through that beer all week. It’s usually a lager or an IPA but sometimes it’s not.

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

This isn’t necessarily a lesson learned but one I went into opening a brewery. Everyone operates their brewery as they see fit. Some people are in it strictly for the money. When I opened the brewery it was because I LOVE TO BREW. It was never about the money. I wanted the creativity to make whatever we wanted when we wanted. It’s been slow steady growth for us. We strive on improving our beers with different processes and formulations.

We have some of the best customer service in the industry, A GREAT VENUE, and our customers love the social connectivity. Pair that with food trucks and live entertainment and it’s a win, win, win. It’s been 8 years since we first opened our doors and it just gets bigger and better every year. JUST DO IT BECAUSE YOU LOVE IT, everything will fall in place after that.

Thank you to Jeffrey for talking with us! Make sure you visit Bloom Brew’s website to see all the latest beers, and what they have going on! Also, follow Bloom Brew on Facebook and Instagram.