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].
Wallenpaupack Brewing is a full production brewery based in Hawley, PA. Owned and operated by Becky Ryman, who got the idea to start a brewery after a visit to a relative in Florida who had just started his very own. A homebrewer herself, Becky opened Wallenpaupck back in 2017 and has built the location as one of the largest, most well recognized breweries in the area.
The man behind the beers? Logan Ackerly who we recently spoke with. As you’ll see from our conversation with Logan, his career in craft beer didn’t take the traditional route. As he describes it; “he drank his way” to where he is today. (Not bad, huh?) Read more about Logan’s story below.
What was your introduction to craft beer?
I guess my introduction to craft beer would be from the Saranac variety packs my dad would get for family holiday parties. But it really wasn’t until college when a buddy and I picked up a bottle of Arrogant Bastard that I started paying attention to craft beer. Everything about that beer – the flavor, high ABV, packaging – was unlike any beer I’d ever seen or had up to that point.
How did you get started as a brewer?
My start was pretty much just a right place, right time kind of situation. Abandon Brewing Company opened two miles from the college I went to. I quickly became a regular so when they were looking for help behind the bar, they asked if I was interested. Of course, I jumped at the opportunity. I worked behind the bar for a while, then when our saleswoman left, I took over for her. After doing that for a while, our assistant brewer left to go into distilling, and I took over for him. No homebrewing or formal education, I just drank my way into it.
What style allows you to be the most creative, and why?
If I had to choose one, I guess I would say IPA just because of the quantity and variety of hops you use. But I really don’t see any one style allowing for more creativity than another. You can do whatever you want with any style of beer. All my recipes start as a blank page in a notebook. Every new beer we come up with is unique. We don’t do “cookie cutter” beer where all you do is change one ingredient and call it something new, so every beer requires creativity.
What was the first beer you ever brewed, and what did you learn from it?
Wild Mustang at Abandon Brewing Company. It was a farmhouse IPA brewed with classic American hops and fermented with Brettanomyces Claussenii. I quite literally learned everything from that brew. Up to that point, I was just milling grain and cleaning kegs. I didn’t really have any understanding of the brewing process. I learned the basics of brewing that have allowed me to make a career out of this.
Where do you see the craft beer industry heading in the next few years?
I personally hope we see a return to classic styles. Clean lagers, refreshing weissbier, etc. While American craft beer has always been about pushing the limits of what beer can be, I think we’ve lost sight of what got most of us interested in beer to begin with. I think we’ve gotten too gimmicky. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a good sour or hazy, juicy IPA but some of these “beers” on the market are just ridiculous. Whatever happened to beer flavored beer? You can keep your quintuple dry hopped sour glitter milkshake lager brewed with Lucky Charms and tomato sauce aged for a fortnight in Scrooge McDuck’s money pit. I’ll take a well-executed, crisp, clean Pilsner. But I’ll step off my soapbox now.
Describe what it’s like to be a brewer in Pennsylvania
Brewing in PA has been awesome. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I moved here from the Capital Region of NY. After living and working here for about two years, I’ve seen how great it is. Breweries have a ton of support here. Between groups like you guys promoting all of our breweries, Brewers of PA, industry trail-blazing brewers & owners being cool enough to have a beer with you and let you pick their brain, and of course our customers, PA is a seriously great place to be a brewer.
What is the inspiration behind your beer names?
Most of our beer names are inspired by the area surrounding our brewery, like Paupack Cream Ale, Hawley Hefeweizen, and our Lake Haze series. Other names come from all over the place. Some ideas come to us in staff meetings, others while sharing a beer after a long day. It’s really a collaborative effort so the inspiration can come from anywhere. We recently started talking about designing different beers for/around our staff members. Mine was the first one – a series of fruit beers called “Logan’s Tears” because it hurts me to take a perfectly good beer that never did nothin’ to nobody and dump fruit in it. We’ll see where that idea leads us.
What is your favorite beer to drink right now?
Right now, I’m drinking a lot of our Hawley Hefeweizen. It’s just so easy to drink. That and our Coffee Cream Ale on Nitro. I don’t always drink coffee, but when I do, it’s beer.
What is the most important lesson you learned in the beer industry so far?
Think a few steps ahead and don’t sweat the small stuff. You learn to think ahead in this job both for safety and efficiency. As for not sweating the small stuff, that’s not really my forte, I get pissed off at a lot of little stuff. But after I’m done swearing, I remind myself that at the end of the day, it’s just beer. No reason to get angry.
And then I grab a beer.
A big thanks to Logan for talking with us! Make sure you visit Wallenpaupack Brewing for all the latest beers, news, information and special events. And also follow Wallenpaupack on Facebook, and Instagram!
