Springboro gets craft brewery

Crooked Handle opens nextweek, but there’s an open house today.

Crooked Handle Brewing Co., the region’s newest craft brewery, will open its doors to the public nextWednesday, and is already eyeing a potential expansion of its brewing capacity, co-founder Jeff Pedro Jr. said.

The new brewery, which hosted a soft openingWednesday night and will host a Christmas open house tonight, is located at 760 N. Main St. (Ohio 741) in the Marketplace at Settler’sWalk retail center in Springboro. The 3,600-squarefoot brewery and tap room has a seating capacity of 50 to 60 and will employ six or seven after it opens fully, according to Pedro, who co-founded Crooked Handle with Jason Moore.

The founders had wanted to open in the fall, but equipment delays pushed back the opening to December. “Enthusiasm from the community has been very strong,” Pedro said. “We’ve had many people stop in and tell us they were looking forward to us opening.”

Crooked Handle’s brewing system can produce about 1,000 kegs a year, but owners already have developed plans to expand the current system to add capacity for 400 more kegs a year, Pedro said. Moore and Pedro have said their long-term plans involve opening a larger production brewery, first for kegs that would be delivered to area bars and restaurants, and ultimately for canning or bottling Crooked Handle’s brews.

The brewery does not have its own kitchen, but invites customers to carry food in or order delivery from nearby restaurants, Pedro said. It will open next week with five or six beers on tap, and will later expand to 10. The brewery will serve a broad range of beer styles, with a partial focus on beers that “bridge the gap” between mass-produced domestic beers and the sometimes-extreme, high-alcohol craft beers, its owners said.

Crooked Handle is the 12th brewery to open in the region in the last four years.

Tentative hours for opening weekend are 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. Wednesday, closed for New Year’s Eve, and open 11 a.m. to midnight on New Year’s Day. The “soft opening” will continue with a Christmas Day open house today from 4 p.m. to midnight.