The genesis of Two Farms Brewing started, appropriately enough, in a winery.

Farm one is Winterton Farms, run by Kent and Erika Malmgreen. Farm two belongs to homebrewers Michael and Shana Bruestle. The couples met at a winery and became friends.

Eventually, they joined forces and created Two Farms – a local farm brewery using locally and sustainably sourced ingredients. “Farm to glass,” their website calls it.

Erika manages much of the planning and oversight of the brewery, social media, and outreach, while Kent and Michael brew the beer, continuing a process that began out of the Bruestle home.

Michael Bruestle began homebrewing about 15 years ago.

“In my house, I was brewing on a fifteen-gallon brewing system,” Michael says. “I would get fresh New York state grain. I would mill the grains myself. I would add the grain to hot water, and what that does is it extracts the sugars from the grains and you let it sit there and steep. And eventually you draw that liquid off the grain and transfer it into the kettles, and that’s when you begin the brewing process.”

The vast majority of ingredients Two Farms uses are sourced from New York, and they want to use their network of friends and other farmers in the community to increase that effort.

“We're buying ingredients as local as possible,” Malmgreen says. “We're not making a huge carbon footprint, and we're also supporting other local farms, supporting our local economy."

Local ingredients influence the flavors they craft, spurring Two Farms to experiment with inventive seasonal crafts like peach lavender and hopped cider. The lavender is grown by the Malmgreens and added to the beer to give a sweet, floral taste.

Hopped cider, they say, is sort of a cross between fresh apple juice and citrus hops – “kind of like a beer, kind of like a cider.”

They plan to create holiday-themed beers incorporating their own maple syrup into new brews.

Along with beer, Two Farms frequently hosts food trucks with different cuisines, such as Polish, Latin fusion, and Italian. They also serve non-alcoholic beverages like cider, kombucha, juice, seltzer, and sodas.

Two Farms enjoyed a successful opening weekend in the beginning of November, with beer and live music. Erika describes being “blown away” by how many people came for the ribbon cutting, entertainment, music, and community.

“We've only been open a month, but we already are seeing local customers who are coming back and keep supporting us. And we appreciate that,” Erika says. “It's giving us the opportunity to talk to them and also find out, what are you interested in? What do you like? What would you like to see here?”

Currently, Two Farms hopes to continue experimenting with new beer recipes, host outdoor events through the winter, and attract tourists while remaining connected to the community.

“I wanted the people here to have something that they could be proud of,” Bruestle says, “and say, ‘This is our brewery.’”

Two Farms Brewing is located at 689 Winterton Road in Bloomingburg. They’re open from 2 to 7 p.m. on Fridays and from noon to 7 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.