It was once South Florida’s largest craft beer brewery. Now it’s closing
Mike Halker turned down a tempting offer to buy his Due South Brewing in Palm Beach County just seven years ago, when it was the largest craft beer production brewery in South Florida. Now, he’s closing the brewery.
Due South Brewing, which opened in 2012 and anchored the craft beer movement in Boynton Beach, well before its popularity ballooned in South Florida, will shut down at the end of the year and sell off all its assets, a spokesman wrote the Miami Herald. Their taproom, which the brewery remodeled in 2018 from a lovable and spartan space inside its warehouse, will close Dec. 19.
“Obviously this is a very difficult decision,” Mike Halker, president and founder, wrote in a release. “The impact Covid has had on our industry over the last 18+ months, and continues to have, is devastating. That combined with our building lease coming up for renewal has made this the right decision for us at this time.”
Due South’s beers — like the popular Category 3, Mexican Standoff, Caramel Cream Ale and Isle of McGourdo — are available in hundreds of bars, restaurants and stores throughout Florida, from Key West to the Panhandle. But it all started with Halker, who said he didn’t like the taste of beer when he walked into a homebrew store in 2005 looking for equipment to make wine.
The store clerk encouraged him to try brewing beer instead because it was easier. He made Caramel Cream Ale (in honor of his wife, Jodi) to win a home-brewing competition, and it became the basis of Due South, which grew into the best-selling craft beer in Palm Beach County at its height.
“Turns out I love beer,” he told The Palm Beach Post in 2015. “But it has got to be the right beer.”
Now Due South is putting up its brands and recipes for sale, the company wrote. If it goes unsold, the intellectual property will be auctioned in December. The brewery, at 2900 High Ridge Rd #3, Boynton Beach, has until February 2022 to sell off its equipment and vacate.
Florida produces more craft beer — 1.2 million barrels — than all but three other states. With 368 breweries, Florida ranks seventh in the country, according to the Colorado-based Brewers Association.
But large, corporate beer companies have been buying out independent craft breweries across South Florida — and putting pressure on the remaining mom-and-pop artisanal breweries.
Funky Buddha, which started in Boca Raton before building a large-scale brewery in Fort Lauderdale, sold to the maker of Corona beer in 2017 for what was believed to be around $80 million. Miami’s first craft beer brewery, Wynwood Brewing, sold a controlling stake to Portland-based Craft Brew Alliance in 2019.
And three corporate-owned breweries — Boston Beer Company-backed Dogfish Head Brewing, Anheuser-Busch-owned Veza Sur and Heineken-backed Cerveceria La Tropical — set up shop in Wynwood. Only J. Wakefield Brewing remains in Wynwood as an independent craft beer brewery.
