There will continue to be a brewery located at 909 W. 5th Avenue in the Grandview area, but it won’t be known as “Zauber” for much longer — local equity group Cebada is in the process of purchasing the assets belonging to the brewery with plans to make some big changes.

“We are going to be releasing a new brand this summer,” said Cebada partner Scott Talmage. “We’re really excited about what we’re going to be doing. A lot of what’s been holding us back, I think we no longer have those situations.”

Geoff Towne, who founded Zauber back in 2011, will no longer be involved with the brewery at 5th Avenue, but will retain rights to its brand name.

“We wish him the best,” said Talmage. “He may at some point revive the Zauber brand, that’s his option to do that if he chooses to down the road.”

While Talmage declined to share the brewery’s new name, which will be rolled out later this summer, he said it will be based on ‘global inspiration.’

“The idea is that this has been an expedition, this has been a great adventure,” said Talmage. “Many of the people involved here are very in touch with other parts of the world, so we’re going to pull different beer recipes inspired by different cultures together into one portfolio.”

To handle the production of these new worldly brews, Talmage and his partners brought back Cameron Lloyd, who had been Zauber’s head brewer before he was let go last year.

“We’re taking a big differentiation from Zauber and will no longer be just German and Belgian focused, although that’s certainly an area of the world that I draw a lot of inspiration from myself, and a lot of my favorite styles come from there, so there will be a fair number of German and Belgian styles within the wheelhouse but that’s not going to be the exclusive focus,” said Lloyd.

New beers from The-Brewery-Formerly-Known-As-Zauber will be released in advance of the full rebrand with some hitting the Grandview bar’s taps in early July. Talmage says they plan to involve the community for focus group tastings and naming input for products in the new portfolio.

The taproom will remain open during the transition from Zauber to the new brand, with possibly only a day or two of closure later this summer for repainting and other minor cosmetic updates. Talmage says the bar will continue to support the soccer community, and the bar’s in-house Explorer’s Club kitchen, which ceased operation in May, will be replaced by a rotating schedule of food trucks and pop-up kitchens.

A note for those working on the Columbus Ale Trail: the new brewery will take the place of Zauber in the book. Either a Zauber stamp or a stamp from the new brewery will count towards finishing the trail.

full disclosure: Zauber is a former client and I am a founding partner of the Columbus Ale Trail