MINNEOLA, Fla. – One of Central Florida’s best-known breweries has something big on tap.
Crooked Can Brewing Company is planning to open a 40,000-square-foot destination brewery and headquarters in Minneola.
The new facility will be nearly four times as large as the brewery’s flagship location in downtown Winter Garden, which has been a catalyst for the area’s growth and popularity.
“I think what I’m most excited about is seeing the look on people’s faces when they walk into this tap room,” Crooked Can founder Andy Sheeter said. “We’re creating a building on the inside that when people walk in, they’re just going to be blown away. It’s going to be really, really cool.”
Sheeter said the company outgrew its facility in Winter Garden a while ago as it worked to scale the production and distribution side of the business. The new headquarters will be located ten miles from its original location.
“We want to be the beer of Central Florida,” he said. “What a lot of breweries do is they grow outward. They might go to Miami, Tampa, Jacksonville or Tallahassee, but we want to stay focused on Central Florida, so everywhere you go in Central Florida you get our beer.”
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The brewery has been a fixture in the community since it poured its first craft beer in 2014. It’s also been transformational for the downtown corridor and what it looks like today.
“The growth has been crazy to watch,” Sheeter said. “It was really just a sleepy town way back when and now it’s just really vibrant.”
If you’ve been to Crooked Can, you know how easy it is to spend hours there. Not only do they have great beer, but they also have live music and a ton of food options, and that’s exactly why the developers wanted the brewery to be the anchor of the highly anticipated Hills of Minneola development.
“This is going to be the type of development you spend an entire Saturday or Sunday or Friday night because of the variety of entertainment, restaurants, retail and other options,” Tara Tedrow said. Tedrow, a shareholder with Lowndes Law, helped the developer get Crooked Can onboard to build its headquarters in Minneola.
Kevin Skorman with Skorman Development said that, unlike the brewery’s Winter Garden location, the new one will be in a high visibility area along the Turnpike.
“The exposure is like no other place in Central Florida,” Skorman said. “You can go to Baldwin Park, Lake Nona, downtown Orlando, there’s not another location that will be seen like this.”
An estimated 1 million cars will pass through that stretch of the Turnpike every 10 days, according to Skorman.
“It’s one of the main arteries for tourist traffic,” Sheeter said. “A lot of tourists come down that Turnpike and when they do, we’re going to have a lot of signage where they’ll be able to see our branding.”
As Central Florida continues its rapid growth, especially in our western counties, that branding will be key for the brewery’s future success.
“What’s happening is that corridor is growing out towards The Villages and The Villages is growing towards us,” Sheeter said. “Eventually, I think you’ll have a time where those two are going to meet.”
The new facility will also include a stage for live entertainment, an outdoor beer garden and food hall.
Construction is expected to start sometime in 2024.
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