USA, PA: Three friends launching Pour Man's Brewing Co. in Ephrata by end of July

Three friends are opening a new brewery in Ephrata, the Reading Eagle reported on June 30.

Ryan Foltz, Sam Son and James Stauffer are opening Pour Man's Brewing Co. at 284 S. Reading Road. They hope to be open by the end of July.

As the brewery's opening gets closer and closer, Foltz said he and his partners are both excited and nervous

"We'll be more excited when we get through all the permitting," he said. "Now it's just more nerve-wracking than anything. There's so many hoops to jump through."

Foltz, Son and Stauffer have been homebrewing together for about seven years. Foltz and Son also used to work together.

"That's how we started homebrewing together," Foltz said. "We used to do homebrew competitions, and Sam and I would talk about brewing pretty much all day at work, and we would joke about opening up a brewery but never thought it would get too serious until some of the laws changed and you were able to get a brewery license instead of a liquor license, so it became more real for us."

Foltz is leaving his job to work full-time at the brewery, and the other two are keeping their jobs.

The brewery is located in a 1,300-square-foot building that was once home to a butcher shop and more recently a consignment store, but had been vacant for several years. It is attached to Rita's Italian Ice, with which it shares a parking lot.

The tap room will have a 12-seat bar plus seating for around 50 at tables. There will initially be seven taps. Five of them will be Pour Man's beers, one will be a guest tap for another Pennsylvania brewer and one will be a cider tap. Foltz said they will likely increase the number of taps after opening.

The brewery has a one-barrel brewing system but Foltz said they hope to upgrade soon.

"As soon as we can afford to," he said, "That will be the first to-do list item. We know ideally starting a tap room with a one-barrel system isn't necessarily the smartest idea."

Pour Man's will not bottle or can any beers, but customers can get beer to-go in Crowlers and growlers.

The brewery will not serve food other than pre-packaged snacks, but Foltz said he and his partners have reached an agreement with a pizza place across the street to deliver to the brewery. And, of course, Rita's is right next door.

As for the brewery's name, it came about as a joke, Foltz said.

"The joke was we're way too poor to open a brewery, so we entered homebrew competitions as 'Poor Man's Brewing,'" he said. "We're too poor to own a brewery so we homebrew. We then changed it to pour."

The names of the brewery's beers keep with "poor" theme, including Going Broke IPA and Pennypincher Pale Ale.

Because they are so poor, the partners are relying on friends and family to help get the brewery up and running. Foltz estimated that 95 percent of everything that needs to be done is being done by friends and family. Many of them are working for beer.

"My wife designed the logo, the contractor has been a friend of my dad's since I was pretty much born," he said. "Between the three of us, somebody knows somebody for everything."

Pour Man's will be Ephrata's third brewery, joining Black Forest Brewery and St. Boniface Craft Brewing Co.

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