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 info@breweriesinpa.com.

Yergey Brewing first opened in August of 2016 at 518 Bank Street in Emmaus, PA. They utilized a 2.5 BBL brewhouse, with 8 taps, and a 35 seat taproom. In September 2021, after pouring beer at the original location for over 5 years, the brewery made the move to 235 Main Street in Emmaus. The new location has about triple the space the original one had, features 20 taps, and can accommodate about 100 people. In addition to all of this, the brewery was able to double fermenter space.

Matt Yergey is the head brewer at Yergey Brewing. Read more to find out his introduction to craft beer, where he sees the craft beer industry heading, and more!

What was your introduction to craft beer?

I have to give credit to my dad, Jim Yergey, the owner and founder of Yergey Brewing. Growing up he was super into beer, homebrewing in the early 90s when craft was hard to get, and then buying lots of craft beer when it became more readily available. Since well before I cared about beer, there’s been a fully stocked beer fridge in my parent’s house, so even as a broke young drinker who mostly consumed macro lagers while at college, I always came home to a beautiful bounty of craft beer. I’m not sure I really appreciated it at the time, I recall lamenting the full/rich beers we’d end up using for beer pong, but in retrospect, it definitely positioned me to be a lover of good beer even at a young age.

How did you get started as a brewer?

Again, Dad’s mostly to blame for this one, in more ways than one. As I mentioned, he used to brew back in the 90s when I was a kid but stopped after craft beer was more readily available. Fast forward to when I was totally of legal drinking age, my brother and I were trying to find a Christmas gift idea for my dad, we decided to get him a beer kit from Keystone Homebrew when it was under Bethlehem Brew Works. That gift started a family tradition, the three of us getting together around the holidays to brew. We each got hooked, getting brew systems of our own and making beer a lot more often. The passion for brewing beer just grew from there, especially when I moved out to Oregon, consuming all the brewing information I could get my hands on, always trying to make the next beer better than the last. My roommate at the time, Will Goumas, now a brewer at Aloha Beer Company in Hawaii was a big part of that too, we brewed all the time in our garage. Then Dad retired and decided to open a brewery, and hired me to be the brewer. Here we are, five years later, in our brand new location still trying to make the best beer possible.

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

I’m not sure there is a particular style, as I can get inspired and excited to brew lots of different beers. Lately, I think doing some laid-back, low-key homebrewing with my friend Emily has led to some different and fun things that have translated nicely into the commercial brewhouse. Namely some of our recent sours and fruited beers, like our blackberry and lime Radler Blimey, or Saudé Passionfruit, a Catharina style sour with loads of passionfruit.

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

That Christmas gift kit for my dad was the first beer I ever brewed, I want to say it was a brown ale? I learned one of the most important things about brewing that day too, relax and have a (home)brew.

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

I think we’ve seen lots of new and creative beers being made the last few years, things getting more and more extreme. My best guess is we see a shift back towards classic styles, focusing on brewing the best beer possible as opposed to the most extreme beer possible, but I’ve never been particularly trendy.

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

I think it may be more universal than just PA, but my experience in the industry here, in particular in the Lehigh Valley, has been such a great community. People are always willing to share experience, advice, last-minute ingredients, and even labor, whatever to help each other out. That’s awesome. I also think our customers are great, people excited to enjoy some good beer without it becoming too onerous, I mean it’s beer after all.

What is the inspiration behind your beer names?

Our names come from all over, some the result of groupthink/texts, others are old homebrew recipes and we keep the name, occasionally we’ll brew a beer to match a name, like our upcoming ‘No Tanks, Trainwreck’ which was inspired by the tanks we ordered for the new location getting hit and totaled by a train about a few blocks away from being delivered, after a 20 week lead time, mind you. The only rule we have for beer naming is that our Belgian style beer names are all somehow related to the Grateful Dead, and that comes from the early days of those Christmas family homebrews, and our first Belgian style – Friend of the Devil.

What is your favorite beer to drink right now?

I get asked this question a lot, the answer is (almost) always – the beer in my hand.

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

There is always more to learn, from troubleshooting equipment to dialing in a recipe, there’s always a next step, always something to improve on. I said earlier, we’re still trying to make the best beer, and we’ll never stop trying.