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Craft brew kiosk restaurant comes to mall

Nick Blank
Posted 10/10/18

Craft Beer has landed at Orange Park Mall, if shoppers have the urge for a wheat ale, IPA or porter.

Portland, Maine.-based Shipyard Brewing Co., founded 1994, is Maine’s largest craft brewery …

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Craft brew kiosk restaurant comes to mall


Posted

Craft Beer has landed at Orange Park Mall, if shoppers have the urge for a wheat ale, IPA or porter.

Portland, Maine.-based Shipyard Brewing Co., founded 1994, is Maine’s largest craft brewery and one of the largest in the Northeastern U.S. A similar Winter Park location closed in 2013.

Shipyard Brew Port will have a VIP after hours networking event Tuesday from 4-7 p.m., and a grand opening next Thursday at 5:30 p.m.

On Oct. 4, Shipyards Managing Partner Nick Harris and his distributors were setting up taps, rummaging through steel cabinets and adjusting various tubes and levers. He’s signing checks and having a last look at menus. Shipyard beer, meanwhile, is brewed in Clearwater.

“This market is phenomenal for what we’re trying to do,” Harris said. “We’re located smack dab in the middle of the mall. We have local craft brew and stuff that you can’t find that often in Clay County.”

The bar is not in an outlet store and does not have walls, rather, it sits in an open space just past the AMC movie theater and adjacent to Dillard’s. Harris, 28, said thanks to the surging popularity of craft beer, the bar was a great opportunity.

The bar serves 12 different craft beers on tap, as well as red and white wine and sangrias. However, if customers come looking for domestic brews, they may have to go elsewhere. Drinks are confined to the Shipyard’s location so there will not be any shopping and drinking throughout the mall. Shipyard Brewing Co.’s selection includes an array of stouts, porters, IPAs, pale ales, flavored ales and bar snacks. The venue will also offer a food menu of lighter fare it will prepare through a partnership with an area catering company.

“All of our beer that we don’t get from Shipyard or Seadog [Shipyard’s sister brewery in Lake Buena Vista] will be from local breweries like Bold City, Green Room and Engine 15.”

Harris has experience as a bar trainer in Ponte Vedra and Jacksonville Beach. He said the experience suited him well for the new venture, and calls the bar in the mall a unique opportunity.

“This is the first thing of its kind that I know of,” Harris said. “Honestly if this goes well, I think this will be implemented in a lot of other malls.”