The number 11 has been a strange constant throughout Chelsea and Dave Wickman’s lives.
The number 11 has been a strange constant throughout Chelsea and Dave Wickman’s lives.
“It was each of our sports numbers,” said Chelsea, referring to her and Dave’s respective high school sports teams. “So, we still had some old jerseys and T-shirts with our number on it, it was just kind of like, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s funny, we both went to different schools and we were the number 11.’”
The strange pattern continued, as they would be seated at table 11 or in row 11, given check number 11, etc., until they eventually began to play into it, getting married at 11 a.m.
So, when their new brewery ended up being located at 211 Cherry Avenue, it only seemed right to include it in the name.
And so, Eleventhree Brewing came to be — the “three” representing the Wickman’s three children.
“Our first night of being open — it was our soft opening, our very first night — we closed out the night on the computer, we had 113 tabs,” Chelsea recalled of June 30. “It was amazing. We poured almost 800 beers that night.”
Rather than having flagship beers, Eleventhree rotates its menu and sports a number of IPAs, sours, lagers and stouts. A noted favorite of the public was the Cherry Avenue, a sour made with cherries, maple syrup and vanilla beans.
Dave — a hobby brewer for 14 years before the couple decided to open a business — noted they like to focus on flavors that will spur nostalgia.
“One of the stouts that we made had astronaut ice cream in it. And then some of the other ones we would do were Fruity Pebbles, or, you know, some of these other interesting, fun nostalgic things we grew up with as kids, but now it’s in an adult form,” Dave said.
Nostalgia aside, the Wickmans take a culinary and seasonal approach to their drinks, as well, considering what foods are currently in season and what would pair well in a beer flavor. The couple aims to source their ingredients locally, or as close to home as possible.
“The cherry one, we released the cherry one because it was just maple syrup season, so we used local maple syrup and it was cherry season, so we used cherry puree as well, and now it’s blueberry season, so it’s blueberry things,” Dave explained.
Along with beers on tap, Eleventhree sells canned beers to go, which the couple will also be distributing to several restaurants around Northeast Ohio.
Eleventhree offers several non-alcoholic options, as well, including non-alcoholic beer and a variety of craft sodas.
While the brewery has no kitchen, the Wickmans partner with a number of local food trucks to provide meals to their patrons. Chelsea says the idea came about while trying to figure out options for food that didn’t involve an in-house kitchen.
After seeing the success of trucks at a venue in Willoughby, they settled on them as a viable option.
While there is not currently a set plan of what to do in the winter when the food trucks are no longer running, the Wickmans do offer a selection of craft snacks to be paired with their beers. These will still be available throughout the months when the trucks are gone.
The Wickmans, originally from Lake County, said they had first considered moving to North Carolina to start their business, but, ultimately, could not find work in the area.
“We started looking all over Geauga County and fell in love with Chardon, so our joke was that we moved south to the Snow Belt,” Chelsea said. “We decided this was going to be our home base in Chardon and that’s when we were like, ‘We’re gonna open up a brewery.’”
The couple found their spot on Cherry Street fortuitously. They needed a building both large and sturdy enough to support their brewing equipment, but small enough so as to not be overwhelming for the new business owners.
Nothing available in the area seemed to fit that criteria until Dave accidentally clicked onto “marketplace” while trying to view the specials of a local restaurant on Facebook.
“The first thing on his screen was this building,” Chelsea said.
A year and a half later and the interior of the business is near unrecognizable from what it once was. Chelsea said the brewery’s design is something that sets them apart from others in the area.
Continuing to play off their theme of nostalgia, the tables are made from a refurbished 100-year old basketball gym floor and the sign over the bar is designed to look like an old train timetable. The interior of the brewery also features two murals, one of cherries and one of Cherry Avenue itself.
Eleventhree’s tap hours are 3-10 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, 12-10 p.m. Saturdays and 12-8 p.m. Sundays. For more information, including what beers are currently on tap and the current food truck schedule, visit www.eleventhreebrewing.com, or their Facebook page, www.facebook.com/eleventhreebrewing.
