JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — It's been a tough year for our local breweries.
Engine 15 Brewing is evidence of that, announcing the closure of its downtown brewing facility and taproom effective Dec. 19.
"To our awesome DT customers: we want to share with you that we are moving all our brewing back to Beach Engine by the end of the year," the brewery posted on Facebook Monday.
Back in January, after the sale of the adjacent event space, the brewery told First Coast Brews that it was planning on opening a third location and investing further in the expansion of its presence in both on and off-premise sales in the area.
And then COVID-19 happened.
"The decision to close the downtown taproom and brewery was influenced by Covid but the roots of it go back a ways," explained Luciano Scremin, owner and brewmaster at Engine 15.
"We initially built the facility when the craft brewing scene was in its infancy here in Jacksonville and throughout Florida. We built it to do nearly 10 times the capacity that we are operating at. As you can imagine that is not a very efficient use."
He tells First Coast Brews that the wholesale landscape of craft beer has changed dramatically over the last seven years that the downtown location has been open and it just wasn’t producing enough to make sense.
"The prolonged Covid shutdown of bars and restaurants certainly didn’t help," he added.
With a reduction in overall brewing capacity, the brewery says it will have to limit what it can send to the wholesale market. Engine 15 says it's keeping distribution agreements in place but the beer won't have the reach it currently does.
But there's a positive side to all this. The brewery says the beach location has some exciting new interior plans.
"We are sad about downtown because it was our blood, sweat and tears but it is an exciting time to move everything back to the beach, I think this crazy Covid time is driving all of us to scale back to what works and get efficient," said Kara Scremin, Marketing Manager.
Luciano Scremin says the beach brewery will be doing a remodel that will change the layout and result in a bigger and more efficient brewing space. An even bigger bonus? They say they'll be able to accomplish the job with almost no downtime.
Taking the good from the bad, a lesson we can all take with us into the New Year.
"...We are ready to move out of 2020 and into 2021 to keep bringing you great beer and being a loyal part of this Jacksonville community," said Engine 15.
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