CLEVELAND, Ohio - Cleveland breweries often like to evoke the past in their names or beer styles they produce. When Masthead Brewing Co. opens downtown, it will draw on history that dates to the 1700s.

Moses Cleaveland - with the extra letter included - founded the city in 1796. By 1830, the city's population had just topped 1,000. As the story goes, when the Cleveland Advertiser was getting ready to begin publication, the newspaper editors realized they had a big problem that had to be solved quickly: 'Cleaveland' would not fit on the masthead.

"So we kind of imagined the editors got around a table, had a few beers, and instead of changing the name they said 'Why don't we just drop the A in Cleveland?' " said Frank Luther, one of the owners of the startup brewery. "Lo and behold, it worked. It fits our spirit."

That spirit is culminating with a lot of work, planning and a location chosen among scores of options for Luther and brewer Mike Pelechaty, and Matthew Slife, who came aboard 14 months ago.

"Four years ago we knew we wanted to do it," Luther said, "but we didn't know where it was going to be."

They considered relocating as far away as California, but found a saturated beer market. They scoured nearby suburbs. But the three Ohioans wound up in downtown Cleveland. The brewery will be at 1261 Superior Ave., near East 12th Street and across from Reserve Square. A fall opening is expected.

"I think we we're passionate about the Northeast Ohio brewing culture," Luther said.

Pelechaty, who recently worked at Black Box Brewing Co. in Westlake, said the market is strong and "will be even better. ... The consumer wins when they have more choices."

"The market is growing as fast as the breweries are growing," Luther added.

The name of Masthead Brewing Co. draws on Cleveland's name origin.

About the location

Downtown Cleveland has Butcher and the Brewer on East Fourth Street, Portside Distillery and Brewery near the East Bank of the Flats, and Hofbrauhaus Cleveland, which is less than two blocks away on Chester Avenue.

Masthead's building, owned by Warrensville Heights-based Weston Inc., shows a lot of promise. The three main investors are eager to begin exploring and working on it in June.

Built in 1921 and formerly a car dealership and most recently a Cuyahoga County title office, the building sits on the National Register of Historic Places, the owners said.

A sun patio is planned, and rollup garage doors will replace the 14-foot by 14-foot front windows facing the thoroughfare. The massive space, at 16,000 square feet, will hold 300 people in its open-floor plan with no interior walls, and an additional 108 outside.

The curved bar will extend 104 linear feet, and a small, domed Neapolitan pizza kitchen will be installed to cook made-to-order pies at 825 degrees in 80 seconds.

"We didn't want our whole tap room to be taken up by a kitchen," Pelechaty said.

"Being downtown we wanted to make sure it's quick," Slife added.

The location has private parking and decent street parking, bike rails out front and communal beer-hall style seating and pub-high tables planned inside. Trees out front are coming, they added.

"This building allows us to keep the historical integrity with our business model," Slife said. The architect is Westlake-based Sixmo Inc., which designed the recently opened Sibling Revelry Brewing.

Most importantly, Luther said, the investors were told "30,000 people work within a four-block" area of building.

Then there's signage.

"The signage should be a bit of a beacon," Luther said. "You should see it from (East) 9th and Superior."

About the beer

The beer will flow from a 20-barrel fermenter to bright tanks "right out into people's glasses," Luther said.

They plan 24 taps and also will offer wine, coffee, cider, mead and classic cocktails. They will start with eight beers.

"Our focus is going to be American and Belgian beers," said Pelechaty, who worked at Black Box from November 2012 to February. "Plus we're going to focus on barrel aging - specifically, bourbon-barrel aging. We'll foray into sours. We definitely want to start out on the American side of things, play with a lot of hops, brew the Belgians, then get into the deeper segment of beers."

Added Pelechaty: "What was unique about my role at Black Box was that I came in and (owner) Jerome (Welliver) was looking to run the business-side of things, and I took the lead on the brewing side of things. I owe him a lot; he gave me a great opportunity."

The partners sent Pelechaty to White Labs in San Diego for formal microbiology training at a Siebel Institute-run program. White Labs studies and supplies yeast for breweries across the nation. Siebel offers brewing-education programs. The brewery will maintain a lab on site.

And to avoid potential copyright infringements, beers will be named by style.

"The trademarking situation we're in is getting more and more complicated," Luther said. "One of the biggest challenges is someone goes to a beer festival and sees the (creative or colorful) name and doesn't know what they are getting.

"The brand is the brewery," he added, citing Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and Stone IPA as two well-recognized beers.

Six-pack of facts about Masthead Brewing Co.

* Luther and Pelechaty have engineering backgrounds and were roommates at Ohio State, and they met Slife through mutual friends. Slife works at Cleveland Clinic in finance.

* Pelechaty is from Toledo, Luther from Cincinnati, and Slife from Cleveland.

* Luther and Pelechaty have been brewing about six years. "You can walk into any bar and get a beer, but in the brewery you can see Mike and I slaving away," Luther said.

* The three considered more than 500 names before settling on Masthead.

* Collaboration with Malt Haus, the malt house that opened on Carnegie Avenue this year, offers potential for Masthead to produce "an all-Ohio beer."

* When the space was a car dealership years ago, cars were able to drive straight in through the front, they said.