The Owners
Chris Reigrut and Chris Garner, the two owners of Halfpenny Brewing Company, have been best friends since high school and share a love of beer that goes back almost as far. Chris Reigrut grew up in Germany, mostly in Bavaria, an area steeped in brewing tradition. Chris Garner's great-grandfather was a brewer and distiller in Pennsylvania. The two of them have been homebrewing together since 1996-first in 5 gallon batches, and then moving up to a half-barrel all-grain system when they found that after fulfilling the requests of thirsty friends, neighbors and family they were barely ending up with a six-pack apiece! After many years of dreaming about opening a brewery "someday," they realized in 2014 that they had a brief window of opportunity between their respective families' college tuition needs and began planning to "turn pro." After almost two years, dozens of locations scouted, and thousands of hours of construction that are finally ready to open the doors to Halfpenny Brewing Company and share their love of beer with the rest of the world.
The Name
in 2014, the two of them realized that they had a short window of opportunity to try to open the brewery-either that, or wait until they were closer to retirement. Â Jumping in with both feet, they committed to getting the brewery opened by the time that they turned 50. Â They worked through a bunch of names, finding them already taken by breweries, beers, or sometimes wineries or distilleries. Â At one point they liked "Half Century Brewing", which eventually was shortened to "Half Cent" before becoming "Halfpenny," and they knew that they had found the right name. Â It was slightly old-fashioned with a nod towards their love of English beers, and could also be used for their German beers as "Halbpfennig." Â Most importantly, it wasn't taken!
