Second brewery-distillery on Treasure Coast opens in Stuart

Laurie K. Blandford, Treasure Coast Newspapers
·3 min read

Martin County's first brewery-distillery has opened.

Frazier Creek Brewing & Distilling in Stuart is the second brewery in Martin County, the third distillery on the Treasure Coast and the second brewery-distillery hybrid on the Treasure Coast.

The "brewstillery" concept is a rarity in Florida, said co-founder Etienne Bourgeois.

All things food: New restaurants, reviews, inspections & best bets

Frazier Creek Brewing & Distilling, which opened May 26 in Stuart, is the second brewery in Martin County and the third distillery on the Treasure Coast.
Frazier Creek Brewing & Distilling, which opened May 26 in Stuart, is the second brewery in Martin County and the third distillery on the Treasure Coast.

Frazier Creek serves beer, wine, spirits, seltzer, soda and cocktails. It has 35 taps, mostly for its own beer, non-alcoholic craft sodas and ready-to-drink cocktails — basically vodka-based seltzers. It also has guest taps for cider. There's a variety of brewed beers: IPAs, sours, lagers, shandys, pale ales and imperial stouts.

Some beverage names are a nod to the local environs: Refuge Rum, Shipwrecked Vodka, a Confusion Corner wheat beer and a prickly pear gose.

They sell crowlers, which is a 32-ounce growler in a can. Happy hour is from 3-6 p.m. Monday-Friday and there are food trucks on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

Frazier Creek Brewing & Distilling, which opened May 26 in Stuart, is the second brewery in Martin County and the third distillery on the Treasure Coast.
Frazier Creek Brewing & Distilling, which opened May 26 in Stuart, is the second brewery in Martin County and the third distillery on the Treasure Coast.

Bourgeois, Peter Hibberd and Aron Trocchia had the idea to open a brewery when they were sitting around and drinking beer in 2015. They revived the idea when brewmaster and distiller Dan Rogers, who has 30 years of experience in the commercial brewing and distilling industry, decided to leave his native Michigan.

Rogers opened the first craft brewery in Las Vegas in 1992. He won his first Great American Beer Festival medal in 1993 and a World Beer Cup medals in 2010.

The partners added a second brewmaster, Dave Otto, who also won awards with Las Vegas Brewing Co.

Frazier Creek Brewing & Distilling is expected to open in the Mayfair Plaza on U.S. 1 in Stuart in May this year.
Frazier Creek Brewing & Distilling is expected to open in the Mayfair Plaza on U.S. 1 in Stuart in May this year.

Most of the equipment from their 15-barrel system came from Due South Brewing Co. in Boynton Beach after it closed in 2021. Bourgeois said they invested millions of dollars into the project, but he didn’t want to specify how much.

The 9,000-square-foot brewstillery includes a 3,500-square-foot taproom and 800-square-foot cocktail lounge in The Creek District of Arts & Entertainment in downtown Stuart. Frazier Creek opened May 26 in the Mayfair Plaza on Federal Highway, next to Wawa and across from Flanagan's.

The building previously was home to a Seacoast Bank operations center, a grocery store, a movie theater and an office space.

New restaurants: 3 open while 70-year-old seafood restaurant closes

Best boat tours: Go sightseeing on Sebastian River, St. Lucie River, Indian River Lagoon

It’s about a mile away from Ocean Republic Brewing Co. in the Plantation Plaza, which was the first brewery in Martin County in 2019. Plus, Ocean Breeze Beer Co. opened March 9 in the Ocean Breeze Plaza in Jensen Beach, but it’s just a taproom for now. Co-owner Chad Davis said they plan to brew their own beer in the future.

Frazier Creek Brewing & Distilling

Laurie K. Blandford is TCPalm's entertainment reporter and columnist dedicated to finding the best things to do on the Treasure Coast. Follow her on Twitter @TCPalmLaurie and Facebook @TCPalmLaurie. Email her at laurie.blandford@tcpalm.com. Sign up for her What To Do in 772 weekly newsletter at profile.tcpalm.com/newsletters/manage.

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Frazier Creek brewery-distillery opens in Stuart