The Scranton nanobrewery’s latest beer is an English-style Old Ale…
For most breweries, a new beer arrives with a hop bill, a catchy name, and a brief stay on the tap list.
Ronan’s Reserve arrives carrying a year of patience and a family story.
The newest release from Cooper’s Family Brewing in Scranton is a 9.2% Old Ale inspired by a tradition that sounds almost too romantic to be true. Centuries ago, English families would brew strong ales upon the birth of a child, tucking them away in wood and allowing time to work its quiet magic. When the child reached adulthood, the beer would be ready for celebration.
When brewer Jesse Cooper first read about the practice eight years ago, the idea lingered. Now, with the arrival of the newest Cooper family member, Ronan, it has become reality.
The result is Ronan’s Reserve, a beer that stands apart from almost everything else being brewed in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
This is not a hazy IPA bursting with tropical fruit. It is not a pastry stout built for social media. Instead, it is an Old Ale, one of beer’s most contemplative styles. The beer spent more than a year aging in an oak foeder before being blended with fresh ale and released to the public. Along the way, wild Brettanomyces yeast found in English oak contributed layers of complexity that simply cannot be rushed.
According to the brewery, drinkers can expect notes of dark fruit, leather, caramelized sugar, rustic funk, and subtle tartness. Those descriptors read like chapters in a novel rather than ingredients on a brewing sheet. They suggest a beer that changes as it warms, revealing different facets with every sip.
That sense of evolution feels appropriate.
The label artwork traces a journey from infancy to adulthood. The beer itself follows a similar path, beginning as fresh wort before spending months slowly transforming in oak. Time becomes an ingredient. So does patience.
For Cooper’s Family Brewing, Ronan’s Reserve represents something larger than a single release.
Since launching inside Cooper’s Seafood House, the brewery has steadily built a reputation for embracing styles many small breweries rarely attempt. English milds, Belgian dubbels, tripels, Irish reds, traditional lagers, and stouts all share space on the brewery’s tap list. While much of the modern beer world races toward the next trend, Cooper’s has often seemed more interested in brewing what genuinely interests its brewers.
Family-owned since 1948, Cooper’s Seafood House has long occupied a singular place in Scranton’s dining culture. The addition of an in-house brewery expanded that legacy, giving one of the city’s most recognizable hospitality businesses an opportunity to contribute to the region’s evolving craft beer scene.
Ronan’s Reserve may be the clearest expression yet of what makes Cooper’s Family Brewing unique.
It is a beer built around memory. Around family. Around the belief that some things are worth waiting for.
In an industry often driven by speed and novelty, there is something quietly remarkable about a brewery willing to spend more than a year nurturing a beer before pouring the first glass.
A beer can tell many stories. This one begins with the birth of a child, spends a year resting in oak, and arrives carrying the unmistakable character of time, tradition, and Scranton itself.
