Inside Commerce Brewing, Tampa craft beer titan Joey Redner's new passion project
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Dec 11, 2020

Tampa craft beer titan Joey Redner has been quietly brewing a new passion project in a nondescript industrial park in Largo.

Redner, the founder of Tampa's Cigar City Brewing, is a partner in Commerce Brewing, a contract brewery and incubator for new beverage concepts. Like Lakeland's BrewHub — another contract brewery — other brewers hire Commerce to produce their beer, but Commerce is targeting up-and-coming brewers, said Travis Kruger, general manager.

Commerce is in a brewing facility that was once home to Barley Mow Brewing Co.

"It's more boutique and fit for smaller breweries in the area that had the potential but not necessarily the means to make capital investments," said Kruger, who previously worked for Redner at Cigar City and went on to co-found Crooked Thumb Brewery in Dunedin.

Commerce fills a much-needed niche in Tampa Bay's brewing scene, which has exploded since Redner opened Cigar City in 2009. When Redner and business partner Randy Kemka were seeking additional production capacity for two brands they are partners in — Cigar City Mead and Rock Bros. Brewing — they saw the opportunity to use the Commerce space to boost other breweries, Kruger said. Beyond contract brewing services, it's a support system for beverage entrepreneurs; Kruger describes their approach as "meaningfully friendly" to brewers in growth mode. The partners behind Commerce have also invested in growing breweries, Kruger said.

Redner, who sold Cigar City for a reported $60 million in 2016, did not respond to a request for comment. Tim Ogden, another Cigar City veteran and founder of Deviant Libation, has been hired as head brewer.

Also among the partners in Commerce is Brian Davison, founder of Tampa real estate firm EquiAlt LLC. Davison revealed himself as a partner in Commerce in a 2019 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission hearing in Miami. Federal regulators charged Davison and his partners at EquiAlt with running a $170 million Ponzi scheme in February.

A corporate entity tied to EquiAlt took title to Commerce's Largo real estate in June 2019, according to Pinellas County property records. At the SEC hearing, Davison said that the building was a "foreclosed brewery" and that EquiAlt purchased it "from a local credit union."

Davison said via text message Friday morning that he holds the brewing license for Commerce. The Commerce facility has the capacity to produce 10,000 barrels a year and will eventually be equipped to produce 35,000 barrels.

"Joey has quite an affinity for our industry beyond what Cigar City was — he always has," Kruger said. "He's always been about the growth of the industry in Tampa Bay and how to do it smart, how to do it right. This was about, 'Let’s help brewers out the best that we can.' In my mind, that’s kind of what he wants his legacy to be."

One example of a brewery that Commerce has helped is Bay Cannon Beer Co., which opened in mid-2019 in West Tampa. Bay Cannon opened as a neighborhood brew pub, but when the pandemic hit had to pivot its model to distribution — and outsourced some of its brewing to Commerce.

"Instead of having their tanks full of those two or three brands, we brew those for them," Kruger said, "and that allows them to do the fun, romantic things that get people to show up for bottle releases."

Commerce has a minimum order of 30 barrels, while BrewHub has a 100-barrel minimum, said Matthew Juaire, Bay Cannon founder.

"They’ve provided an option for us to change our model enough to stay alive," Juaire said. "BrewHub is an incredible model for breweries of that size who need that volume, but we were too small. Commerce offers an opportunity for us to do something cost effectively enough to try to grow to our brand into profitability post Covid."

Redner's passion for boosting Tampa Bay's craft brewery scene is genuine, Juaire said.

"Joey is – he cares," Juaire said. "I don’t know how better to say it." The startup investment in Commerce, Kruger said, is "well into the seven figures," and there's more investment to come. He joined the team in September 2019 and said that cleaning and upgrading the brewing equipment was a seven- to eight-month process — and then the novel coronavirus pandemic arrived on U.S. shores, delaying the opening of an incubator and tasting room on the site.

Beyond beer, Commerce is also licensed to produce cider and mead and has a distillery permit, Kruger said. The facility has produced packaged, ready-to-drink cocktails, and it's able to produce hard seltzers, which have exploded in popularity in recent years.

The tasting room, Kruger said, will eventually be a key marketing tool for Commerce clients.

"We want to share them and show what we’re doing," Kruger said, "but another piece of that is a revenue share, so those brands recognize a little bit of that high margin revenue."