New brewery under construction in Middletown

A standalone building under construction at 3387 Cincinnati-Dayton Road in Middletown will be home to Butler County's next brewery.

Its owners are still working out many of the details, including the brewery's name, according to Brian Yavorsky. ("Unbridled" is the working name but likely not the final one, he said.) Yavorsky, a long-time home brewer who helped found Star City Brewing in Miamisburg in 2013, is one of three core team members involved with the project, along with investors.

The other two team members, who are currently remaining anonymous, are the head brewer, currently a head brewer at another brewery in Southwest Ohio; and a beer industry veteran, Yavorsky said. They hope to open their production brewery and tap room in the 8,400-square-foot building sometime this year. (Yavorsky expects to get occupancy of the building in the next 30 to 45 days.)

As the name and branding are still in the works, so, too, is the beer list. Yavorsky said they're planning a variety of styles – and to make them on a larger scale than many startup breweries. They'll open with a 20-barrel brewhouse and four 40-barrel fermenters, and they plan to make at least 1,600 barrels in their first year, he said, to get the most impact from their labor.

"It's economies of scale," he said. "If you're going to work as hard as brewers work, why not do it on a large scale so that your yield is multiples?"

And though they have a vision of becoming a regional craft brewery, Yavorsky said they'll start at the hyperlocal level. "That's where your support comes from," he said.

And he thinks they've found the right location to get that support. Yavorsky said he and the other owners scouted locations throughout the area but were attracted to the site's proximity to both Middletown and Monroe, as well as the Interstate, casino and outlet mall.

"We really love that area because it really bridges the Cincinnati/Dayton market, and there's not a lot of breweries in that area," he said.

They aren't the only ones with an interest in the area: Rivertown recently revealed plans to build a brewery just a few miles away, at the corner of Salzman Road and Ohio 63 in Monroe.

Dogberry Brewing, which opened in January 2015, is a little more than five miles down Cincinnati-Dayton Road in West Chester.