Another regional brewery launched Oct. 25 in a location off the beaten path near the Collier-Lee County line. Chubby Mermaid Brewing Co. opened its 20 craft beer taps in the Causeway Commerce Park on Old 41 Road, south of Bonita Beach Road in Bonita Springs.
“Bonita now has five breweries in a 5-mile radius,” said Gary Fortin, who co-owns the new local business with Joshua Hoover. “That is a huge thing when it comes to destinations.”
Chubby Mermaid is not a derogatory term, but rather another name for manatees or sea cows. The brewery’s logo features a manatee mermaid holding a mug of frothy beer.
One percent of Chubby Mermaid’s tap sales will be donated to the Save the Manatee Club, the nonprofit organization co-founded in 1981 by singer Jimmy Buffet and Sen. Bob Graham, two Floridians who recently died. The club’s mission is to protect manatees and their aquatic habitat.
Fortin and Hoover are Naples residents who independently have been home brewers for more than 15 years. The two met via YouTube, where they have channels about brewing beer and organized an online home-brewing club called BrewTubers.
Hoover relocated from California to start the local business with Fortin and works full-time at the brewery. Fortin, who retired three years ago from the U.S. Army, works full-time at the brewery too, but he also is an ER nurse for Physicians Regional Healthcare System.
The brewpub’s space at 28292 Industrial Road, Unit 9, is twice the size of what Fortin was planning to start with, but that was before he invited Hoover to join him in opening the brewery.
“I was going to go it alone or maybe hire somebody, but not a partner,” he said. “This location I fell in love with, even though it was just a slab at the time. The rendering and the location — I said ‘This is it. This is the spot.’ I had been looking for a while.”
The two did their own buildout of the business. They assembled their keg cooler and built a bar around it. The main bar has a lighted LED blue river effect running down the center of its polished wood top.
“It shows itself at night quite well,” Fortin said.
The brewpub has about 65 seats and a maximum capacity of 113 inside. The business eventually will add more seating on a mezzanine overlooking the bar and outdoor spaces accessible through overhead doors once air curtains are installed.
Chubby Mermaid has five on-site fermentation vessels for making beers and one bright tank for creating lagers. All 20 taps will have Chubby Mermaid beers, which they started brewing there in September.
Fortin and Hoover each have binders at home full of proven recipes for craft beer that were honed from six or seven iterations each. They were able to scale those up and put them to the test Oct. 23 during an industry night pre-opening event, where they invited folks from other area breweries for a kickoff party.
“The beers were well received by other brewers, who are more critical than any other people, and they were just raving about our beer, which made us feel really good,” Fortin said. “We’re happy about that.”
India pale ales, or IPAs, are traditionally popular craft brews.
“A big hit was our black rye IPA [named Black Betty]. That’s one of the ones I brought to the table that took me years to perfect. That one was a very difficult style to nail down,” Fortin said. “Then, two of the three hazy IPAs were just flying off the taps. People just kept reordering them. Then, later in the evening, they started going back to West Coast IPAs and Oktoberfest.”
The traditional Oktoberfest-style Märzen — brewed with German hops, malts and yeast — is named Wunder Garten as a nod to Everglades Wonder Gardens in Bonita. Early favorites also include Pseudo American Pilsner and Los Borrachos, a Mexican lager.
Other choices include red and blonde ales, lagers, sours and barleywine. Chubby Mermaid even brews two gluten-free beers: Mermaid Magic pale ale and Total Eclipse of the Hops, a Vienna lager.
Chubby Mermaid has a small semi-automated canner, so the brewery will eventually can some of its most popular brews. Merchandise is available online and at the brewpub with the brewery’s logo, too.
Chubby Mermaid features a menu of bar food such as pizza, burgers, hot dogs and chicken sandwiches. It also offers soups, sides and appetizers, including chicken wings and tenders, loaded nachos, onion rings and giant pretzels.
“We’ll occasionally have food trucks to plus-up our kitchen. Our kitchen’s not very big,” Fortin said. “We are a brewpub, but we are not a restaurant with beer; we’re a brewery with food.”
The brewpub’s hours are 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday; 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday; noon to 9 p.m. Sunday; and closed Mondays.
