Heaven on the Mountain Distilling Company

Meet the Owners

Welcome to Heaven on the Mountain. Our name comes from the German translation of our family name; Himmelberger: Himmel means heaven, Berger means mountain, or hill. We didn't invent the name so much as use what was given to us by those before us.  Roger and Erin Himmelberger are the owners and operators of Heaven on the Mountain.  Roger’s traditional work revolves around Project Management for the construction industry while Erin is a licensed architect in active practice for Warehaus in York, Pennsylvania.  Together, they have embraced and blended personal hobbies to make something bigger than they are that reflects them as a couple and their love for creating something from scratch.

In our family we find meaning in all things, planned and sourced by God.  Even our location tucked at the base of the mountain between Bethel and Pine Grove in Berks County.  Ironically named Little Mountain Road.  Maintaining a humble life, we have raised our four children on the Preserved Agricultural Land with an elevated respect for all things, basic and natural.  Our family of hunters and gatherers use traditional skillsets to fill the freezer, bolster the canning shelves and heal all wounds.  What we can’t do for ourselves, we try to source from our local economy to support other surrounding family businesses.  In recent years, we looked at the Sun for power to run the house and have plans for the coming years to expand that resource and other sustainable resources on the homestead.

Distilling runs in Roger’s family. Roger's father was a stainless-steel specialty welder who spent years traveling the country building tanks for food and beverage manufacturers and dairies, work that runs on precision and patience. He built the first still out of a beer keg, a piece of equipment Roger still uses today to test new recipes. At one point Roger even held a permit to distill fuel, and ran his lawn mower on it, just to be able to say that he had.

Our parents taught us that nothing is given or owed to you, that everything worth having comes from hard work and a humble heart. We maintained that message while raising our own children and expanded the message for the next generation of grandchildren.  We believe that you need to take the road less traveled, because the best experiences in life happen off road. 

Everything in our family gets a nick name, sooner or later. Roger has a saying for when things get annoying or go sideways at the still, which happens often in this line of work: Minerva, short for “oh my nerves,” and ironically is also his great grandmother's name. It felt right to give that name to the still itself, since a name gives an item purpose and makes it part of the family. In its own small way, that's what we hope this brand is about: the people who came before us are not gone but take on a new form, and the work carries them forward in new ways.

Our Craft

Buy Local, Create Local and Return Local.

That way of thinking shows up in how we live, not only in how we distill. We're committed to doing things right, the old way but with modern intent.  Source clean, use traditional recipes, modern machines, personal touch, minimal waste and give back.  All of the grain waste produced from the process is repurposed back into animal feed for our own or local livestock.

Visit Us

1470 Little Mountain Road, Bethel, Berks County, Pennsylvania, 19507

Heaven on the Mountain is a distillery built on family history, hard work, purpose, and the belief that the best things are made slowly, by hand, close to the land that shaped them.  As Roger likes to say, after 50 years: “I think this might be what I want to do when I grow up.” We'd love for you to stop in, taste what we've made, and see for yourself.