Advertisement

Tampa Bay Brewing Co. expands to Westchase

 
The Tampa Bay Brewing Co. will open a new 17,400-square-foot facility July 6 at 13933 Monroes Business Park. The brewery will have offices, a restaurant and a patio.
The Tampa Bay Brewing Co. will open a new 17,400-square-foot facility July 6 at 13933 Monroes Business Park. The brewery will have offices, a restaurant and a patio.
Published June 18, 2015

TAMPA

Mike Doble beams with pride as he walks through the construction site of Tampa Bay Brewing Co.'s new Westchase location.

Amid the sounds of saws buzzing and the pounding of hammers, he glides through a maze of pipes, wires and unfinished walls. Doble stops and points to the exact spot where the indoor bar will be. In fact, Doble knows every detail of the building because he designed it himself. A civil engineer by trade, he is part of the 20-year-old, family-owned and operated company that includes parents John and Vicki Doble and brother David Doble.

Tampa Bay Brewing Co., located in Centro Ybor, is Florida's oldest brewpub.

On July 6, the company will open its new 17,400-square-foot facility at 13933 Monroes Business Park, near the intersection of Race Track and Tampa roads. The new building will house its corporate office, brewery, canning operation, restaurant and bar.

"We purposely decided on this spot because we have so many customers that live in Westchase and north," Doble said. "This spot is so ideal for us. We are very excited about it."

• • •

What started out as the Brew Shack, a home brew supply store on W Waters Avenue, evolved into Tampa Bay Brewing Co.'s first brewpub in 1995. Vicki Doble grew up in England and had the idea for an English-style pub, while her late son, Johnny Doble, wanted to open a beer garden.

Ultimately, the family decided to open a small pub on 15th Street in Ybor City, housed inside a former horse stable used by Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders. Then in 2006, they moved to Centro Ybor.

"It had a proper kitchen, it had proper space for the bar and it had an outside patio," Mike Doble said. "We have been growing ever since."

In 2011, Tampa Bay Brewing Co. garnered international attention when the Food Network's Diners, Drive-ins and Dives aired an episode showcasing the restaurant. Vicki Doble described host Guy Fieri as "a wonderful man" and said the show helped boost their company's recognition worldwide.

She recalls the day she got a call from a couple in South Africa who said they had seen the episode and wanted to visit the restaurant when they came to Florida.

"People come from all over the world just to come to our place," John Doble said.

The company's proximity to Port Tampa Bay also helps draw in a diverse crowd.

"The tourism aspect of this business is so huge and is so important to our local economy," Mike Doble said. "You could walk through our pub on any given day and you could find at least a dozen countries and probably about 20 or 30 states of people who are traveling."

• • •

After the continued growth and success of their Centro Ybor location, Tampa Bay Brewing Co. started selling its craft beer three years ago to see what the reaction would be.

"It was massive," Mike Doble said. "A huge, huge positive reaction."

The success paved the way for the Westchase location. The larger facility will allow the business to brew an additional 8,000 barrels of beer per year, which will be distributed statewide.

"As the beer comes off the line, people are demanding it," John Doble said.

Since brewing beer requires a lot of water, Mike Doble designed the building with the capability to filter and recycle the wastewater from the brewing process. Purple pipes running along the walls contain clean wastewater that is used for toilet flushing and irrigation.

The goal is to reduce the brewery's waste stream and create a more sustainable operation.

• • •

The new facility will have several other features that are different from the Centro Ybor location. The restaurant will have a special pizza oven and more steak and seafood on the menu. Executive chef John Boyle has a band saw to cut all of the meat in-house for the new menu.

Outside, there will be a bar and patio, offering several types of seating areas.

"We wanted to do a nice mix of informal and formal spaces," Mike Doble said.

On the inside, the bar tops will be made from old sinker cypress and pecky cypress trees that were harvested in North Florida in the 1800s. The Doble family sees this as a way to honor their beginnings in Ybor City and as a Florida brewery.

"We come from a historic district," Mike Doble said. "We wanted to find some sort of history, some sort of tie back to where we came from."

To celebrate the grand opening and the company's 20th anniversary, the new location will host a beer festival on July 31.

Tampa Bay Brewing will release a new beer, and everyone who comes to the event will get a 20th anniversary beer in a can.

Contact Danielle Hauser at hillsnews@tampabay.com.