Fifteen months ago, Sean Colleran, Robbie Reed and Jason Jones joked about opening a brewery together. Now, the trio is set to host Broken Beaver Brewing’s grand opening on Sept. 26.
Jones said the vision for the brewery came together with help from the partners, their families, and the Plant City community.
“A lot of local companies have donated stuff and been in here helping us. The three families have put everything into this over the past year, and so again I don’t think if we didn’t have all three of us this would ever happen, or it wouldn’t look like this that’s for sure, because it took three different people to make this happen,” Jones said.
Colleran said the idea began in his barbershop when Reed offered to swap complimentary canned beer for draft beer for guests coming to the shop. After this swap, the two joined together and landed first place in the Temple Terrace Craft Brewfest in April.
Then, when Jones — Plant City vice mayor, city commissioner and a regular at Colleran’s barbershop — sampled the beer for the first time on his next visit, the three started scouting areas in downtown Plant City to put their plans into action.
So, when a spot on the corner of S. Collins Street and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard opened up about 15 months ago, the trio took their opportunity to put their plans into action.
“We looked around at locations around town just to see if there was anything for lease or anything available, and then we found out about this place,” Colleran said.
Since then, their vision has spread into two surrounding buildings while gaining the community’s support, with 60 local businesses donating to the capital funding to renovate and open the space.
Now, with a taproom, Ellie-B’s ice cream parlor, and soon-to-be barbecue restaurant, Broken Beaver Brewing will be the first on-site beer manufacturing facility in Plant City in more than 120 years.
Colleran said the brewery will adjust its regular business schedule as the team develops a working rhythm and larger customer base.
“Soft openings and events and private events are probably what we’re going to thrive on for a little bit as we can develop more beer because Robbie has to brew a beer and build a stock of it,” he said.
After its grand opening, the brewery will be open full time on weekdays and weekends. From Tuesday through Thursday, the brewery will be open 2:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., and 2:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. on Fridays.
On weekends, the brewery will be open Saturdays from 11:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. and Sundays from 12:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
However, Broken Beaver Brewing is meant to be more than a place to get a beer. Jones hopes it will bring more activity to Plant City businesses while offering the city a new, family-friendly communal space.
“I just want people walking around downtown, other areas, and kind of creating a neat little buzz over here while they’re downtown,” Jones said.
Colleran added that the brewery’s mascot — which the brewery is named after — Benjamin McSkivitz, is a refurbished statue Reed rescued from an abandoned putt-putt course years ago. Reed and a friend designed and wrote his backstory, which is posted on the brewery’s website.
McSkivitz stands at about 3.5 feet with a toothy smile, a suit and a top hat, greeting guests as they come in.
Broken Beaver Brewing has a mix of bar, booth, and high-top seating, with warm lighting, a live music corner, epoxy flooring, and beaver decorations spotted across the space — including a Michelangelo-esque ceiling mural of two beavers clinking pints of beer.
Sara Nichols, a local artist, spent two months painting the mural.
The brewery also has its own brewing room, with an in-house water purifier to filter out chemical pollutants or mineral traces for a balanced draft brew. The taps are also connected to a beer cooler to keep pours crisp.
Jones said the partners secured a manufacturing license about four weeks ago and have started their own brews, with four draft beers — coffee brown ale, peach ring sour, horchata rice ale and a blueberry seltzer — on its menu. Six other beers are available through local suppliers, including hefeweizen, IPA, cider and lager.
However, to cater to the family-oriented side of the brewery, Reed is also looking to make homemade fruit-based soda syrups, with plans for craft strawberry and blueberry sodas using locally farmed fruit with the help of their own plants, Wish Farms and Parkesdale Market.
But as they plan for the future, the partners said they are looking forward to seeing more people interact with, explore, and enjoy the space they’ve created.
“I’m hoping to see the community coming together, and everybody just gather and enjoy the space downtown and enjoy Plant City’s first-ever brewery,” Colleran said. “Whether it’s an eatery or a place for kids or a place to drink, it’s all about fellowship and getting people together and being able to have a good time.”