For 7venth Sun Brewery , last Thursday was a day for working on beer.
Devon Kreps and Justin Stange’s downtown Dunedin brewing operation starts preparing in January for its annual Tampa Bay Beer Week tradition, Hunahpu’s Hangover Day. But this year’s event, a two-in-one celebration hosted at the brewery’s flagship and its new Seminole Heights location, is expected to be the biggest yet.
“I’m calling it a pop-up tasting room,” Stange says of Hillsborough’s inaugural Hangover Day.
Hangover Day, which doesn’t charge a fee for entry, emerged in 2012 as a sort of conclusion to Beer Week. It’s held the day after Cigar City Brewing’s wildly popular Hunahpu’s Day, and has morphed into a large, go-to event. Last year, a crowd of 750 attended, and the line to get a beer extended far beyond the 1,200-square-foot brewery’s block along Broadway.
Stange and Kreps anticipate about 1,000 guests outside their larger Tampa facility at 6809 N. Nebraska Ave. between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. Sunday, when a parking lot party will highlight 50 one-of-a-kind offerings from 7venth Sun and its brewery pals around the country. A smaller tap list will pour from noon to 10 p.m. in Dunedin, and 7venth Sun’s Hangover Day offerings will remain the same on both sides of the bay.
While three food trucks and DJ tunes will also be showcased in Tampa, tours of the location will not. The renovation of the 18,000-square-foot building’s roof was just completed, and there’s more to do — the tasting room build-out, new fences and landscaping included.
The old building requires a good amount of rehab, but a space with character in an up-and-coming neighborhood is the right match for a brewery with an organic personality all its own. According to Stange, the Seminole Heights demographic, from its lack of food and retail chains to the other nearby beer-makers, is everything 7venth Sun’s about.
Here, a wood cellar, something the brewery has wanted to implement for a long time, will be used for aging beers in wine and spirit barrels, then blending the results. An event space and tasting room with 350 seats, as well as packaging in bottles and cans, are planned as well.
The Tampa facility, which could open in the late third quarter of 2016, is set to relieve some of the pressure in Dunedin. But for the 4-year-old brewery, growth just means improved quality and more sophisticated toys to play with.
So, what keeps people coming back?
Stange points to 7venth Sun’s focus on variety and putting forth more great brews. He says Hangover Day’s a good way for industry people to relax and throw back a cold one together; craft beer fans like it for this chance to mingle comfortably, too.
“We really wanted to do the event in Tampa,” Stange says. “It has so outgrown this space.”
This article appears in Mar 3-9, 2016.