E-Malt.com News article: US, FL: Mile Marker Brewing to open soon in St. Augustine

A new brewery is planned to be open soon in St. Augustine, Northeast Florida, jacksonville.com reported on July, 20.

Mile Marker Brewing has its federal license and hopes to have its state license and be open for business in about a month. It's located in an industrial park on Agricultural Center Drive.

Michael Fierro and Vance Joy are planning a brewery that will ship bottles and kegs to area stores, bars and restaurants. And they'll have a tap room at the brewery.

They've got two 15-barrel systems and a bottling line. They've been making beer for several months.

If their state license moves as quickly as they think it will, the tap room should open about the middle of August with the beer showing up in area stores and restaurants two weeks after that.

They don't have a distributor yet, though.

Fierro runs the business side of things. He's got about 20 years in the beverage business, starting off in beer sales before moving to developing non-alcoholic beverages such as Vitaminwater.

Joy is the brewer with about 10 years of home-brewing but no commercial experience.

Ed Canty, longtime brewer and founder of the Florida Brewers Guild, is a minority partner and consultant.

Fierro said they plan to start off with four fairly mainstream beers aimed at distribution: A kolsch, an IPA, a red ale and a honey ale made with local honey.

"We're not going crazy, not yet," he said. "We're trying to get some really smooth drinkability. We want to get something that appeals to everybody, not to the extreme."

The tap room, he said, will probably have eight or nine beers and be a little more extreme.




22 July, 2011