Coming Soon: Ringing Rocks Brewery

Listen up beer fans: Riegelsville will soon be home to a new Brewery. Long-time friends Phil Adams and Stone Gahagan (“PS” in the interview) are all set to open the Ringing Rocks Brewery. Their passion for beer and small business turned brewing from a hobby into a startup in only four years. We recently had the chance to talk beer and friendship with the two owners. Judging by their sense of humor, the brewery will be a lot of fun.

BH: How did you two meet and what made you decide to create a brewery?

PS: We have known each other for 13 long, grueling, exhausting, tiring, hectic, last but not least epic years. We met in middle school, both wearing Flyers jerseys and from there the “bro-mance” started. Since then we have played many different sports together. We both have always wanted to own our own business. We probably have a little too much drive to be our own boss – but we got together and, since we had been home-brewing for about a few years (and people seemed to like what we made), we decided to try and start a brewery. After reading the laws and government guidelines associated with starting a brewery we decided to go for it and, well, here we are!

BH: Friends since middle school – wow. I'm impressed. How did you guys get into brewing?

PS: It was something we had an interest in. Neither of us had any culinary skill, but brewing just seemed to make sense to us. I have been doing it for a long time, about 4 years to be precise. I was just so intrigued by the fact that you could adjust one little thing with a brew and change the flavor ten fold. So from there I started with a kit beer and just tweaking one or two small things with it to see how it impacted the flavor. I would maybe add some fruit or herbs to the beer to see where I could take the taste and style. Stone got into it about 2 years ago under my guidance. Together we try to pursue the philosophy, “The evolution of brewing.”

BH: What drew you to Riegelsville, and how did you decide on the name of “Ringing Rocks”?

PS: Well, we have lived our whole life in the Upper Bucks County area and we really wanted to keep everything local. I love the area, being so close to the river, and all the hiking trails – which is part of the reason we chose to have the brewery in the area – even though Stone went “Benedict Arnold” and moved to Exton PA. We picked “Ringing Rocks” as the name for the brewery because we wanted it to reflect something that was local and loved but also known by people from all over. We are really into the “Keep It Local” movement. I have talked to a few local farms to see if they would be willing to grow different ingredients for our beers.

BH: Yeah we're really excited to see such a strong local movement in this area. It's one of the great aspects of Bucks County. We have heard that you have a number of different brews that will be available at RR. Do you plan to offer the complete variety year-round?

PS: We plan on offering 3 to 4 main beers year round and another 3 to 4 seasonal beers. One of our main beers will be a honey lavender wheat that will be brewed using only local honey and lavender from the near by area.

BH: That is excellent. It sounds like you will have a great variety. We have also heard that you have plans to distribute, have you starting talking with any local/regional establishments? Where can we hope to see RR Beer in the future?

PS: To start out, we will be selling gallon growlers out the door as well as 1/6th & 1/2 Barrels. We do plan on having our beers on tap in at least 2 establishments for when we open in mid-June. We are hoping to get a lot of exposure in our backyard (Upper Bucks, Northampton, Montgomery). Also, look for us in some places in Chester County.

BH: We look forward to hearing more. Do you have plans to open a pub/restaurant around the brand?

PS: Not at this time but you never know what the future may hold. Plus we want to focus on brewing before we move on to other projects. After all we're men and men can only do one thing at a time.

BH: Haha, well said. OK, so when can we try your beer???

PS: Well, like we said, we are hoping to officially open mid-June but as soon as the tasting room is open (which should be in a few weeks) we will have a few of our beers on tap. They will be available for a free taste if I am there. We will also have T-shirts and other things for sale to help support our brewery. Feel free to stop in and say hi and take a look. I look forward to hearing any comments you may have. Or you can go to our website www.ringingrocksbrewery.com. Go to the
“Contact Us” form, fill it out, make an appointment, and we'll give you the VIP treatment.

So there you have it. Bucks is seeing a number of new breweries opening up this year. We've heard of three since January, all in different areas of the county. We are truly excited for Phil and Stone and we wish them the best as they get started. (And we look forward to trying the brews at Ringing Rocks!)