Award-winning Jacksonville craft brewery Main & Six announces plans to close

Assistant brewer Alex Leuthold, left, and co-owner of Main & Six Brewing Company Dennis Espinosa are shown in the brewery of their 1636 N. Main St. business. The Springfield brewery is set to close in March.
Assistant brewer Alex Leuthold, left, and co-owner of Main & Six Brewing Company Dennis Espinosa are shown in the brewery of their 1636 N. Main St. business. The Springfield brewery is set to close in March.

Four years after opening in Springfield, Main & Six Brewing Company is planning to close the taps — and its doors.

In a Facebook post late Wednesday, co-owner and head brewer Dennis Espinosa announced the pending closure:

“It is with a heavy heart that I am writing to let everyone know that our brewery, Main & Six, will be closing within the next month and a half. We have a projected closing date of Sunday, March 13. But as with many circumstances in life in recent years, this may change or occur sooner.”

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The announcement comes months after Main & Six won one of the highest national honors in the craft beer scene — the Great American Beer Festival's Brewery and Brewer of the Year title for its size bracket (251-500 barrels). Main & Six was the only Jacksonville brewer to place at the festival, one of the nation’s premier beer fests and competitions.

Main & Six also took the bronze award for its Hubbard St. Stout and the silver for its Shuggah Daddi Chocolate Cake Variant in their respective categories.

"To be recognized among the thousands of breweries across the country that participate is just incredible and a real testament to the quality and consistency of beer being produced by Dennis and Alex [Leuthold] [Main & Six's assistant brewer]," Kelly Pickard told the Times-Union last year. She's the owner of Alewife Craft Beer Bottle Shop and Jacksonville's resident craft beer expert.

Espinosa and his mother, Cindy Lasky, opened the craft brewery in 2017 at 1636 N. Main St., in a part of Springfield that’s welcomed several new restaurants and breweries in recent years, including Crispy’s, 1748 Bakehouse, Social Grounds Coffee Company, Hyperion Brewing Company, Strings Sports Brewery and more.

As for the closing, Espinosa offered few details, citing “a combination of internal and external factors, one of which has been the current pandemic.”

In the social post, he thanked his staff and loyal customers “who have come to make Main & Six such a special place.”

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Springfield craft brewery Main & Six plans to close in March