USA, FL: Southern Swells Brewing Company close to coming online

Corey Adams and Jay Varney have a long history with brewing beer – starting with home brewing in their early twenties.

A few years ago, Adams and Varney, both Jacksonville Beach transplants from Rhode Island, decided to turn that into a full-time profession, Jacksonville Business Journal reported on May 19.

"Three or four years ago, we got the idea of 'let's stop talking about opening a brewery as a pipe dream'," Adams said. "It went from all these guys talking about opening up a brewery to making a business plan and getting funding."

Now, Southern Swells Brewing Company is close to coming online, with an anticipated opening date of October or November.

The brewery, located at 1312 Beach Blvd., is spacious, at about 7500 square feet. The taproom will take up about 5000 square feet, something Adams said will help them stand out from Engine 15 and Green Room.

"The size of our location affords us some unique opportunities to host more events," Adams said. "We're thinking of having yoga on site and hosting run clubs to really engage the active community at the Beach. We want to become a place where events can be held or be the after spot."

Southern Swells will also be differentiating when it comes to style. Adams said Southern Swells is planning on introducing more sours to the Jacksonville beer scene, in addition to more traditional brews like American-style IPAs.

"We're really trying to run the gamut on styles of beer – everything from standard American IPA to Belgian to sours," Adams said.

Although the business model will rely primarily on taproom sales for the first few years, Adams said there are plans to can their beers down the road. In the meantime, Southern Swells will set up a small distribution network through kegs.

Southern Swells will bring the number of craft breweries in Jacksonville up to ten, including the soon-to-open Wicked Barley.

"You see what's going on in Tampa with a much larger beer scene. I think we can easily grow to that level and potentially beyond as we continue to attract more people and more millennials," Adams said.

23 May, 2016