Although the new Florida Avenue taproom—located at 4315 N Florida Ave. in Seminole Heights—won’t be open quite in time for this year’s rendition of Tampa Bay Beer Week, patrons can still expect a soft opening in March.
CEO Anthony Derby talked about the decision to merge Florida Avenue and Brew Bus with Creative Loafing Tampa Bay, stating that it’s one of the company's main goals of 2023 to consolidate the two local beer brands.
“Moving forward, all of our can designs and branding are now through Florida Avenue Brewing,” Derby said. “We’re still going strong with the beer tourism buses, but now we’re streamlining our focus to the Florida Avenue brand.”
Although there’s no soft opening date locked in, the new taproom and brewery is near completion. When open, the 3,000 square-foot space will boast a five-barrel brewing system (with the intention to add more), 16 taps filled with core products and seasonal pours, a large shaded patio, and most of its original staff behind the bar.
From its general manager to head brewer and line cooks, all staff at Florida Avenue’s upcoming taproom have worked within the company for years—some might even recognize a few faces from Brew Bus’ former Seminole Heights location. While Derby hasn’t had much time to think about grand opening details, he’s “really confident about everything that we’ll be putting out from day one onward.”
The new Seminole Heights brewery and taproom will share food and drink offerings with its 38,000-square-foot sibling location in Wesley Chapel. Its 20 foot-long, on-site food trailer plans to dish out the same beer-friendly eats like Bavarian pretzels, chicken wings, cheese curds and cheesesteaks, but the two location’s tap lists might differ from time to time.
“The taps between the two locations won't mirror each other 100%, but there will definitely be some continuity between what's available at each taproom,” Derby added.
While Wesley Chapel’s location has been in the works since 2019, plans for another Seminole Heights taproom didn’t come into fruition until its Brew Bus space at 4101 N Florida Ave.—which now houses Angry Chair Brewing—closed in 2021.
While Derby and the rest of his team initially intended to stay at the former Brew Bus spot, unsuccessful rent negotiations ultimately deterred them from renewing the lease. Joe Redner, Tampa strip club legend and president of Florida Avenue Brewing Co., told the Tampa Bay Times last year that “they jacked my rent up (so) I bought a piece of property in Wesley Chapel.”
Although the rent was certainly a factor, Derby told CL he had been wanting to expand north of Tampa for quite some time.
“When I met my now wife in 2015, she lived in Wesley Chapel and I started noticing all of these great things happening there,” Derby says. “It was impeccable timing when we bought that space in 2019, I knew we needed to be in that area.”
Florida Avenue opened the restaurant portion of its massive Wesley Chapel location in the fall of 2020, with its brewery following a few months later, after construction-related delays. While all of its core products—like the perpetually popular “You’re My Boy Blue” blueberry wheat ale and its “Luminescence” tropical hazy IPA— will be manufactured in Wesley Chapel, its Seminole Heights space will produce seasonal and one-off brews throughout the year, too.
And like its sibling brewery, Florida Avenue Brewing Co.’s Seminole Heights location will offer a full liquor bar, coinciding with the company’s expansion into the world of canned cocktails.
When Brew Bus acquired Florida Avenue in 2015, the young business (led by a young Derby) inherited an established brewery that specialized in beers for the humid Florida climate.
“Honestly, when we purchased Florida Avenue, we were kind of just looking for a place to brew our own beer,” Derby explained. “That's all we knew at the time.”
Eight years and a global pandemic later, business has certainly changed, as has Derby’s relationship to the craft beer industry as a whole.
He first started Brew Bus in 2011 as a senior at the University of Colorado, with his parents driving buses and hosting tours until he moved back to Tampa post-graduation.
“I would say my relationship to the beer industry has continued to evolve,” Derby said. “We used to be knee-deep in beer tourism, but that’s a model that’s already been perfected. In order to grow into the scale of what we really wanted to do, we realized that we had to be on the production and manufacturing side of things.”
With over 100 employees to manage and millions invested into the buildouts in Tampa and Wesley Chapel, Derby says he had to take a step back from his involvement in the local beer community to focus on the brand’s expansion. And its upcoming Seminole Heights brewery might not be the only new location on the horizon.
“We want to open more Florida Avenue taprooms within the three counties in our immediate area because I want to stay close to my family and home, but still continue to grow,” Derby tells CL. “We’ve looked at spots in the Trinity and Odessa areas, but haven't locked in another spot anywhere.”
With its new location getting ready to open its doors and a fully-loaded 2023 release calendar full of new brews, Derby and the rest of his Florida Avenue team are certainly staying busy.
And for the latest updates on Florida Avenue’s highly-anticipated soft opening later this month, head to its Facebook or Instagram, both at @floridaavebrewing.