E-Malt.com News article: USA, FL: First Cape Coral brewery projected to open in Cape Coral

Cape Coral’s first brewery - Cape Coral Brewing Co. - is projected to open in June downtown, parallel to Cape Coral Parkway, News-Press reports on April 14th.

“We’re almost all the way there,” said Peter Kessack, a partner and director of “hoperations” at Cape Coral Brewing Co. “We started talking about opening a brewery at the end of 2013 and went into the serious process of drawing up a business plan, getting consultants to help and then starting the application process.”

The facility is 6500 square feet.

Partners Kessack, Chris Hart and his wife Heidi Moore-Hart plan to work with local restaurants.

Hart, a brew master with 10 years of home brewing under his belt, plans to open offering six to eight brew styles with names that reflect Cape Coral.

“Beer is just not beer,” Kessack said. “It has a ton of flavor profiles and people are looking for different flavors. So we’re always manufacturing and doing tastings on items to see if it really accelerates. If we get a great response from it, then we’ll go ahead and put it into larger production.”

The partners are currently doing free samplings at local events — including Fort Myers Beach Craft Beer Fest, SWFL Hop Heads for Heroes and Fort Myers’ Jazz on the Green — to allow the community to taste and give feedback about the types of products to be served.

“When we got serious about this, we concentrated on making beers that we think everybody will enjoy,” Hart said. “Rather than making grandiose brews, we concentrated on style.”

The brewery’s bright Florida colors, beer names and logo — with an alligator, gopher tortoise and burrowing owl — will exude Cape Coral.


15 April, 2015