Cypress and Grove Brewing Co. Revives Historical Landmark

You may have the breweries you know and love, but get ready to add one more to the list because Cypress and Grove Brewing Company is open for business.

Cypress and Grove Brewing Company, located at 1001 NW Fourth St., officially opened its doors on June 17 and will be open select days for the rest of the summer.

Patrick Burger, one of four managing members of Cypress and Grove Brewing Company, said that right now they have six different beers on tap.

These include the Cypress and Grove Pale Ale, American Ale, IPA, Irish Stout, American Wheat and Porter, he said.

“We want to have beers that you can have more than one of,” Burger said. “So, we make light refreshing beer — hopefully not too alcoholic, but we do have some higher alcohol beers.”

He said that they have been working to achieve a specific flavor of beer for a long time, and that they want their own beers to be just as good as other beers they love.

“The key phrase that comes up a lot in describing our beers is balanced,” said Gary Heil, another managing member of Cypress and Grove Brewing Company. “Our beers aren’t overly hoppy or malty, they fall somewhere in the middle and are really good.”

Heil added that even their light ale has a pleasant maltiness that has just enough hops to balance out the flavor.

“Our IPA obviously is a little bit bolder on both ends of that, but again it’s really well balanced so it doesn’t really overpower you one way or the other,” he said.

The two both agreed that this is the style that they like to brew and drink, and they’re hoping it will appeal to a wide range of people.

Not only are they excited to bring a new local flavor to their community, but they are proud to be preserving a historical place in Gainesville.

The location of this new brewery used to be the location of an ice factory in Gainesville from the late 1800s through the early 1900s. The factory was located on the corner of Cypress Street and Grove Street, which are now known as Northwest 10th Avenue and Northwest Fourth Street respectively.

The ice factory began when a 400 foot deep well at the location was connected to the Floridan aquifer, and allowed people to mass produce ice.

However, when the refrigerator was popularized and companies no longer needed large amounts of ice to keep non-perishable items fresh during transportation, the factory was shut down.

Now in 2017, the well is serving a new purpose: brewing beer.

Those at Cypress and Grove will be using the well to make their beers, and want to preserve this piece of Gainesville history as much as they can— through the story behind the building but also the building itself.

“What we couldn’t keep intact, we at least kept little parts of and incorporated it back into the new,” Heil said. “But, there’s a lot of the old that’s here too and we cleaned it up and made it look good and we’re proud of what this building was.”

He said that even the tables and the bars are old heart pine wooden boards that they salvaged from the building.

“There have been quite a number of old Gainesvillians who have remembered coming here and getting ice and it’s just kind of a cool part of our history that we thought was worth accenting,” Burger said.

The two are ready to finally have the community see their creation after two years of construction and several years before that when they were home-brewers together.

“I think it’s just about every home-brewer’s dream to go big, but somehow between us we got the inspiration, the spark we needed to go out there and get the funding and convince our families that this a worthwhile idea and have them help us get into the business,” Burger said.

Luckily enough, it just so happened that the old ice factory was available at the same time that they were ready to expand on their dream of beginning a brewery.

“It’s part of our community and we’re happy to be a place where people can come and meet and have a conversation and a good beer,” Heil said. “We look forward to being this place where people in our neighborhood can just come and hang out.”

For the remainder of June doors will be open on Fridays and Saturdays from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. for anyone who wants to hang out at a new brewery that houses a lot of history.

In July the schedule will be Friday through Sunday, and in August they will be beginning a five-day schedule.

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