Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Bold beverage
Boynton company brews kombucha, a ‘grownup drink.’
Boynton Beach’s newest player on the brewery scene occupies a windowless warehouse in the middle of a growing beer district, where owner Chris Montelius makes daily batches of fermented brew.
But Non-Prophet Brewing Company doesn’t brew beer. It brews kombucha, a type of fermented beverage made with black or green tea and packed with probiotics. Montelius’ low-calorie drink — effervescent like soda but with less sugar and a dry, tangy finish — comes in five bottled flavors at his 2,000-square-foot brewery.
“In the Venn diagram of beverages, [kombucha] is where beer and soda overlap,” Montelius says. “It’s a grownup drink that you can just sip on, and the flavors and aromas are really great.”
Montelius’ Non-Prophet, which opened in late April, shares the industrial neighborhood with fellow breweries Due South, Copperpoint, NOBO and Devour. By opening the brewery here, in a cluster of warehouses one block west of Interstate 95 north of Boynton Beach Boulevard, Montelius, 35, hopes to steer more craft-beer drinkers toward the funky-smelling tonic.
Montelius, who also sells ginger beer at NonProphet, learned to homebrew kombucha after seeing the beverage soar in popularity in Washington and Oregon. Kombucha has been hailed as a cureall for everything from stomach ulcers to low sex drive, but scientific research doesn’t support those claims.
Montelius doesn’t tout those claims, either, naming his brewery “NonProphet” as a wink to the pseudo-mysticism tied to kombucha’s dubious health benefits.
“Fermentation is an art and a science, but it’s not magic, sorry,” Montelius says. “Still, bacteria is not a bad thing. I’m not a doctor, and I’m not marketing a medicine, but a drink that happens to be lower calorie for you.”
Non-Prophet’s kombucha is sold in 16-ounce bottles ($5) at the brewery or on draft at multiple bars and stores, including Green Bar and Kitchen in Fort Lauderdale, Park Tavern in Delray Beach, and MIA Beer Co. and Boxelder in Miami. NonProphet also offers growler fills ($9 for 32 ounce, $15 for 64 ounces), and Montelius says he plans to add a “retail space,” as opposed to a taproom, to hold more visitors. (Visitors must bring their own growlers.)
Non-Prophet Brewing Company is the latest kombucha maker to open in South Florida, but it’s not the first. It joins One Kombucha Brewery in Palm Beach Gardens, Kombulicious in Oakland Park and others.