Discover Rockpit Brewing in Orlando's SoDo District
When Chris Rock was gifted a Mr. Beer Kit from his wife in 2010, he had no idea that 9 years later, he’d be co-founding Rockpit Brewing in Orlando’s SoDo District.
Excited to learn about making beer, Chris shared a picture of his gift on Facebook. The post triggered a message from his friend Sean Burke, who immediately called him out on it.
“Sean reached out and he goes, man, that's not how you brew beer. I was like, alright, so how do you brew beer? He told me to come over to his house.”
Originally a software engineer by trade, Chris met Sean when he hired him back in 2002 for his first gig. After working together for 3 years, they went their separate ways (career wise) but remained friends.
Chris and Sean brewed their first beer, which was a Foster’s Lager clone. The beer turned out exceptionally good and Sean told Chris that this was something he wanted to do someday. To open a brewery.
Owning a business, let alone a brewery, wasn't on Chris’ radar, but he was happy for his friend and wished him good luck.
Fast forward a couple years and Chris was doing some marketing work for Jeremy Pittman, who owned Orlando Homebrew Supplies. Jeremy started teaching Chris how to brew properly and he ended up winning a homebrew competition with one of the beers in 2016. Chris shared his accomplishment online and once again, Sean reached out.
The conversations became more serious around opening up a brewery so they started to look for spots that would make a great location. They decided on the SoDo District in Orlando (their current location) as the original partners both lived within 5 minutes.
After 13 months of hard work, Rockpit Brewing officially opened in February 2019.
Chris considers the timing of their launch to be pretty fortunate. At the time, there weren't a lot of breweries around so they quickly became a destination for craft beer fans which helped as they worked towards figuring out all the unknowns of running a brewery.
Chris now runs the business with his partners Sean Burke and Brian Knight. They see Orlando as a great place to operate a brewery because the culture is geared towards shopping locally. Since their launch, everyone continues to work hard towards making Rockpit Brewing a place where people around Orlando feel welcomed and at home.
“I can't tell you how many people tell us, ‘I'm so comfortable here. I love being here.’ There's not a lot of places where you go where you feel like you're at home. I get told that all the time, that it feels like their second house. That's been the biggest thing for us.”
Defining the Orlando Life
When it comes to life in Orlando, Chris sees it differently for everyone. He sees a lot of cool local businesses doing great things, especially with events.
“There’s just a variety of things to do here locally and that makes Orlando a pretty damn fun place.”
