New restaurant/brewery make take over former Brew Angels building in downtown Milton

Milton’s original brewery, Brew Angels, has said goodbye, but a new brewery and restaurant is planned to take its place early next year.

Not only was the Milton craft brewery positioned in a historical space dating back to 1939, taking over the old Milton post office at 6821 Caroline St., the business made Milton history of its own as the first brewery in Milton and the second in Santa Rosa County.

The expansive space was known for its food and its hard-to-find brews like the hand-crafted milk stout, which Brew Angels Founder Sean McCool said sort of resembled an iced coffee. Slowly but surely, he started warming up the people of Milton to the idea of a craft brewery.

“There was a bit of a struggle. There was a subset that was familiar with craft beer, but Milton had a lot of people that it took a while for us to convince people that they could drink something other than Bud Light,” McCool teased.

McCool, who opened Brew Angels with the help of his father, Greg McCool, decided to move on to a new venture in 2022, selling the company to Blackwater Entertainment LLC. However, to his dismay, the brewery had closed permanently by July.

“I’m disappointed that it didn’t continue because of all the blood, sweat and tears we put into getting it off the ground … I just wish we could have kept all that effort both for the business, as well as for Milton,” McCool said. “It would have been nice to see the business carry on.”

However, the building’s owner and Brew Angels landlord Cassandra Sharp is in the negotiation stage with a potential new tenant that she hopes to have solidified this week. The new tenant intends to do just as McCool hoped, carrying on the historic space as a restaurant and brewery.

The space is essentially ready for use and comes with all the former brewery’s furniture and equipment. The new tenant reportedly intends for the new business to be open by February.

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The tenants will begin on the top floor and potentially to work their way down the lower level with a different concept, such as a speakeasy.

Sharp was one of those who advocated to bring breweries to Milton back when even Pensacola had only a handful.

“When I began advocating to the city of Milton to have craft breweries, so when I started working with Brew Angels and the city, there were maybe one or two breweries in Pensacola, and it just spread like a wildfire,” she said. “Look what happened. We got Brew Angels open; they were the first brewery in Milton.”

She said she was glad to have the opportunity to take a building that sat dormant and give it life again.

“It matters to me what goes into downtown, it always has,” Sharp said.

Sharp said if all goes to plan, she sees the new owners being successful.

“I think it’s their passion for wanting to do the brewery, the building has proven itself. It’s a very successful location. People love coming to the old post office,” Sharp said. “I’d love to see that building become the Seville of Milton.”

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Brew Angels closes permanently in downtown Milton with new concept coming