Zachary Shumaker, co-owner of Shu Brew with his wife Erika, serves a beer Feb. 20 at the Zelienople pub. The couple is already considering expanding their operations in the borough.

ZELIENOPLE — A Seven Fields couple started a brew pub in Zelienople in the fall, and now they are working around the clock to keep glasses topped off and plates full.

Zachary and Erika Shumaker, owners of Shu Brew, opened their business in September on Main Street and already have plans of expanding.

“Zelienople is nuts about us,” Zachary Shumaker said. “We were unsure at first, but the community has been very good to us.”

The brew pub employs eight people.

The young entrepreneurs, who signed a two-year lease, would like to stay in the borough and are trying to decide if they want to continue to lease or buy their own building, Shumaker said.

If they buy a building, they would keep the current location open unless a larger space on Main Street became available.

The couple brews a wide variety of beer styles, and they have produced more than 35 different brews.

“We're going to make the beers we like,” Zachary Shumaker said. “If people don't like a certain beer, we have other beers for that.”

Shumaker, who graduated in 2001 from Seneca Valley High School, developed his passion for beer while visiting breweries as a Marine in San Diego, Calif., from 2004 to 2008.

The couple brews about 12 barrels a month, which equates to about 156 cases.

Erica Shumaker, who graduated from North Allegheny High School in 2002, is responsible for creating 95 percent of the food menu, which uses fresh and local ingredients to make homemade food to pair with the beer.

“We take the food just as serious as the beer,” Zachary Shumaker said.

He said the toughest part about starting the brew pub was not having the experience of opening a restaurant, which included getting the building up to code.“There is an unbelievable amount of work that goes in but it pays off in the long run,” Zachary Shumaker said.“The best part of being a brewer is getting to see people's reaction to the things I've created,” he said. “Even if they don't like it, someone will.”Zachary Shumaker, who works about 100 hours a week, said from start to finish it takes about two weeks to make a batch of beer. When he creates a recipe, he said he tries to envision what it is going to taste like at the end.“I try to reverse engineer it,” Shumaker said. “Beer recipes used to be trial by error, but now I can sit down and write a recipe.”

Adam Crabtree, an employee at Shu Brew, works on a pump in the beer room Feb. 20 at the brew pub in Zelienople.