Today we’d like to introduce you to Marco Leyte-Vidal.
Marco, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Unseen Creatures started in my wife Vicky and I’s kitchen almost ten years ago. We didn’t know it then, but the beers we brewed and re-brewed and began to evolve would become a production brewery in our hometown of Miami. Over time, I began to realize that beer could be so much more than just a combination of ingredients and process and could tell a story. That’s when things started to take off and we really began seeing Unseen Creatures as what it has become.
Today, we have been blessed to collaborate and brew beers with some of the country’s best craft breweries, constantly learning and in turn, tweaking our approach to our beers. We will be open this December and are excited to finally put out some of the ideas and concepts we’ve been dreaming up. Our beers tell a story like any other form of art and are inspired by personal experiences and things that move us. We’ll have a couple core offerings, but the rest of the menu will change with the season and our life story.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
This has certainly not been a smooth road. Tie-ups with the county permitting and inspection process have delayed our opening significantly. That said, like anything in life, these struggles and setbacks have made us stronger. We’ve become more certain of our vision and what the brewery means to us. It’s made us hungrier to open our doors and we’ve used the extra time to think about the details for when we do finally open in the coming weeks.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Unseen Creatures Brewing & Blending – what should we know?
Unseen Creatures is a farmhouse-inspired brewery in Southwest Miami-Dade County. We love the romanticism of fermenting beer in barrels, adding our house culture of wild yeast and bacteria, and the influence of local fruit, yeast, and other ingredients like local honey and herbs in our beer. While we pay as much attention to detail on any beer we brew, our love for these tart barrel-fermented beers certainly drove the direction of the brewery and the images associated with it. Our logo, a barn owl with antlers, apart from being a literal unseen creature, represents our appreciation and love for the farmhouse tradition. We treat these beers more like wine than we do beer and it was important for us to emphasize the blending process in our name. Blending beer allows us to pull from several different sources to tell the exact story we want to tell.
While these farmhouse-inspired beers drove us, we also love hop-forward beer and sessionable easy to drink beers like kolsch and lager. One of our core beers is an IPA, called Pursuance. We love it and you can expect to see it on draft every time you come to our brewery. We’ve worked to develop our approach to hoppy beer and our menu will feature several hop-forward options at any given time (think IPA and Double IPA).
We are excited about our team, our beer, and our vision and can’t wait to share it all.
Contact Info:
- Address: 4178 SW 74th Ct., Miami, FL 33155
- Website: unseencreatures.com
- Email: info@unseencreaturesbrewing.com
Image Credit:
@brewtographyproject @alexgmoney
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