Celebration Brewing Co. location in the works for Osceola County
A fast-growing Osceola County master-planned community is set to get its first brewery.
Celebration Brewing Co. plans to open in a 4,818-square-foot space at 1601 Future Way in Orlando-based Unicorp National Development’s Celebration Pointe shopping center. The brewery is led by Frank Lozito, who is a 24-year resident of the community. Lozito was motivated to open the brewery locally because there was not one like it nearby and he had been home brewing for several years.
A leased space in Celebration Pointe provided an opportunity because there wasn’t really space downtown for the concept, plus there’s potential for more customers coming in Mattamy Homes’ Celebration Island Village development, which will have 1,000 single-family homes over multiple phases.
“The location next to World Drive and Interstate 4, we plan to serve both locals and tourists,” he said.
Demand already has showed up for the brewery, as it sold out all 175 of its Celebration Craftsman Society Founders Club memberships, which includes a free 64-ounce growler, monthly fill-ups for it over a year, plus other apparel, glassware and perks.
The brewery will have outdoor seating, up to 24 beers on tap, along with house-made cider and third-party wines. Lozito said the food offerings will be reminiscent of an “elevated gastropub” concept, with both handheld and shareable dishes.
Lozito expects to get the space handed over in August or September, and hopes to open by December. He is in the process of selecting a contractor for buildout.
In total, the brewery — which will have a 10-barrel production system — plans to hire a few people to bartend and serve, but that won’t come until closer to opening.
Meanwhile, there are 368 craft breweries in Florida, the seventh-most in the country, according to the most recent data available. That total has grown steadily from 45 in 2011. There are more than 30 in Central Florida.
Other local breweries in the works include:
* Wolf Branch Brewing Co. plans to open a new location at 707 W. Main St. in downtown Leesburg.
* Longwood-based Connor Brewing LLC, which does business as Little Wekiva Brewery, plans to open a 1,200-square-foot location in the Springs Plaza shopping center at 145 Wekiva Springs Road near Longwood by the second quarter of 2022.
* Twelve Talons Beerworks LLC plans to open a brewery at 2807 E. South St. in the former South Street Coin Laundry in Orlando’s Milk District.
There were 9,247 U.S. craft breweries in 2021, up from 9,025 in the prior year, according to Colorado-based Brewers Association. That included 646 new brewery openings and 178 closings last year.
The rate of breweries closing has slowed down, due to the combination of better sales and federal government funds through the Restaurant Revitalization Fund.
Further, “while the boom in breweries of a few years before certainly has slowed, the continued growth in small breweries shows the solid foundation of demand for their businesses and beers,” said Brewers Association Chief Economist Bart Watson.