Two Rivers Brewing Company

Chef Jeremy Bialker and Co-Owner Troy Reynard

“When are you going to open? When are you going to open? When are you going to open?”

Almost every person who encountered Troy Reynard last year is guilty of asking this question about Two Rivers Brewing. That's the brewpub he and his wife, Kathy, opened in December 2012 with their good friends (and fellow craft beer lovers) Brad and Judy Nelson after purchasing the building in July 2011. A palpable fever-pitch of anticipation buzzed at the Cosmic Cup, his College Hill coffee shop, around Easton and, undoubtedly, among brewpub enthusiasts throughout the Valley.

The Reynards and Nelsons have clocked many miles together traveling to brewpubs and breweries, so the genesis of Two Rivers comes from a place of real love and experience. There was no question about who would run the kitchen, as they'd been following Chef Jeremy Bialker from Porters' Pub to Vintage Restaurant (and back and forth again) and always ordered his specials; that's where chefs flex, daily. They secured Bialker early on, followed by Wayne Milford, brew master. You may have heard of his former employer—the award-winning craft brewer Dogfish Head? The idea? Serve farm-to-table gastropub fare with a French flair (have you seen those turrets?) alongside craft beers brewed onsite with nomenclature to honor the city's history. Preserving as much of the old building's interior, including the tin ceiling and the 1920s bar, was also high on the priority list for the ambitious owners.

The idea? Serve farm-to-table gastropub fare with a French flair...

The path from brewing coffee to brewing craft beer—along with flipping peanut butter bacon burgers—comes with a steep pitch. But when you buy a historic property (circa 1855) at a sheriff's sale for a mere $125,000, you have to expect the unexpected; it's a sight-unseen, as-is kind of purchase. The place had been vacant since its former tenant, the Mount Vernon Ale House, closed in 2004. Its upper floors—essential to brewing equipment, dining space and a nascent beer museum—had never been up to code, much less ready for 10 serving tanks. And then there's the delicate dance of balancing a $450,000 low-interest loan from the Greater Easton Development Partnership, and factoring, oh, the simple matter of your life savings. In comparison, securing the personnel—and local vendors such as Breakaway Farms, Primordia Mushrooms and Reeder Farms—was easy.

Fast forward to December 2012, when Two Rivers opened as a restaurant with first-floor dining only. We'll get to the beer in a minute.

Let's talk about the chef-owners' common ground; the love of locally crafted beer comes hand-in-hand with that of local, sustainable food. “Craft food to go with craft beer,” says Bialker. That craft food can best be characterized as farm-to-table dining fused with French flavors: from the motherland itself (mussels, duck fat frites), to Montreal (poutine, gussied up with short ribs and Klein Farms mozzarella), to Louisiana (shrimp and grits, gumbo). In the past year, the restaurant has purchased corn from Twin Maple Farms in Bath, and other local produce from Stout's Valley Farm, Blooming Glen, Salvaterra's Gardens, Scholl Orchards, and Apgar Farms. Bialker has tweaked the menu and made the customary seasonal adjustments, but he says these signature items are sticking around for the foreseeable future.

It makes sense that the 36-year-old chef would end up favoring this kind of fare. The Forks Township native spent his teenage summers picking corn at the now-closed, but fondly remembered Upstream Farm and tossing watermelons onto the back of pickup trucks; slowly working his way toward its kitchen as he got older. During college, he worked at Cafette (Chestnut Hill) and the Blue Comet Bar and Grill (Glenside); at the latter, he started doing more “cuisine stuff, as opposed to sandwiches,” he says. Even given this experience, his path to full-time chef was somewhat indirect. At Two Rivers, dishes are plated beautifully, with a balance of color, texture, flavor and so forth. Chalk that it up to Bialker's fine art background: he was working on his B.F.A. in painting from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia in between all that cooking. Ultimately, he found painting too isolating and kitchen work far more suitable—and social.

At Two Rivers, dishes are plated beautifully, with a balance of color, texture, flavor and so forth.

Eating sustainably has its challenges across the board and first-time restaurateurs are no exception. The challenge isn't necessarily just about the difficulty of finding an extensive supply of fresh local food in the dregs of winter. It's more about managing costs while serving a superior product. “We're still figuring out the whole farm-to-table thing,” Reynard says. “I don't think the Lehigh Valley is 100 percent ready for farm-to-table, in terms of what it would cost,” says Reynard, and that's assuming a restaurant around here could consistently pull off completely local sourcing (we can't; we're not California).

Maximizing partnerships can make a big difference, though. Two Rivers connected with Breakaway Farms as the menu was developing; see the “pork board.” Together, Two Rivers and Breakaway combine to make Two Dudes Grill at the Easton Farmers' Market, and they've been cooking up delicious breakfast sandwiches and then some. But perhaps most notably, the restaurant uses Breakaway Farms' grass-fed beef. It costs just a dollar more per pound than the second-best option, but the cost adds up. The proof is in the sales, as burgers are their biggest sellers, whether it's the half-pound bacon cheddar burger or the peanut butter bacon cheeseburger, a surefire conversation starter. “If I took that off the menu people would riot,” jokes Bialker. (FYI, the black bean and lentil burger suffers not a bit; hands down, it's the best veggie burger in the Valley).

So what happened to the beer? The restaurant opened, pouring regionally produced beers from Fegley's Brew Works, Weyerbacher, Troegs, Victory, Yards and smaller outfits such as Saucony Creek and Doylestown Brewing. And the questions started again: When are you brewing? When are you brewing? When are you brewing?

It became clear by late summer 2012 that beer would need to come later. The tap system from the Mount Vernon Ale House days was outdated—it's a long way from tank to tap, and there was no easy way to ensure the beer's proper temperature. Plus, retrofitting an old building involves extensive planning to accommodate and support the equipment; there was some concern about the expansion and contraction of old wood among the presence of large brewing tanks. “For the short term it would have been okay, but with all the money and time we put into this place, it didn't make sense to take a gamble on that,” Reynard says.

So in fall 2012, Two Rivers did what any progressive entrepreneur does: launch a Kickstarter campaign. The brewpub surpassed its crowd-sourcing fundraising goal of $20,000 ($21,764) with 144 people backing the project to install a new state-of-the-art tap system, which has a tube of glycol, a coolant, running alongside it to keep the beer lines at a consistent temperature. (No strangers to creative marketing and community building, in early 2012 Two Rivers established the Founders' Club, whereby 20 members plunked down $1,000, redeemable in $1,250 worth of beer, to think with their thirst and invest in historic preservation.)

Once they secured the funds, construction delays kept popping up. Yet Milford hasn't been completely bored. In summer 2012, Two Rivers collaborated with Fegley's Brew Works to produce a peach wheat beer. Earlier this year, after hosting a beer pairing dinner with Free Will Brewing in Perkasie, the two created Hanami, a crisp, refreshing wheat beer brewed with cherry blossoms. “I was literally collecting cherry blossoms by climbing and shaking them off the trees at some of the parks in the area,” Milford says.

This past summer, with a one-barrel “glorified home-brewing system,” Milford created a couple of one-off special batches. (In contrast, Reynard anticipates production of 600 barrels in the first year.) Maybe you sipped the 3 Sisters (or Lenape) Ale brewed with squash, Shackamaxon beans, and maize at Easton's Heritage Day. Or taste-tested the Tomato Thyme Ale at the Easton Farmers' Market's tomato festival.

Undoubtedly, Milford's tenure at Dogfish has expanded his approach as a brewer. “I'm definitely a lot more open and comfortable with brewing and trying different ingredients, which really makes my beer fun, complex and gives people something to talk about,” he says. (The tomato–based beer smelled of but didn't necessarily taste of tomatoes).

Tomatoes, squash and cherry blossoms aside, Two Rivers will produce some “true to style beers” along with these creative examples. Most will be session beers (typically five percent ABV and under), those you can responsibly enjoy a few of in a “session.” Milford wants to honor local breweries of the past such as Keubler, Seitz and Bushkill, too.

“Easton is so rich in history it makes it easy for me to create beers around it,” says Milford. By our publication date (fingers crossed), expect flagships such as Pine Street Blond (named for the prostitutes who used to roam the nearby street 100 years ago), Bankers Brown Ale (a nod to its lenders), and Guetter's Island Pale Ale (named for a haunted island in the Delaware River), along with two yet-unnamed beers: an IPA and a pre-Prohibition pilsner using the kinds of malt, hops and yeast available at the turn of the century.

“There was definitely moonshine going on there. Why else would a hotel need steel reinforced concrete on the second floor and at least eight plumbing openings in a five-foot area?”

It's all been a long time coming. In short, all the assessments, surveys, inspections and drawings in the world can't account for every little thing that could possibly go wrong. They can't predict the honeycomb behind a boarded-up window, home to nearly 250,000 bees that were safely evacuated and repopulated elsewhere. Nor can they tell you the Discovery Channel will end up on your doorstep, roam the premises, and detect the presence of seven spirits. Or that you'll find evidence of illicit alcohol production. “There was definitely moonshine going on there. Why else would a hotel need steel reinforced concrete on the second floor and at least eight plumbing openings in a five-foot area?” Reynard queries. It's got personality, 542 Northampton Street. “I think we have a great restaurant, but to me, saving a historic building is the thing I'm most proud of.”

What's even more unusual, in the typically volatile restaurant industry, is that the executive chef and head brewer have both remained intact. From its crafty fundraising, to the Farmers' Market partnership, beer dinners and the beer tourism marketing stunt called Beermuda Triangle (including Two Rivers, Black and Blue and Porters' Pub), Two Rivers prioritizes relationships and community-building. Reynard has already upped the ante when it comes to our expectations of coffee. Why would a brewpub be any different?

“We can see the light at the end of the tunnel,” says Reynard. “You haven't realized that it's a train,” jokes Bialker.