Tap Room unharmed and open for business
Nikole Babb, Editor
A fire broke out overnight at Walnut River Brewing Company’s storage building in El Dorado where they’ve lost over 1,000 gallons of beer. The team says it could’ve been a lot worse and are thankful for local first responders.
Around 11:30pm Rick Goehring, Head Brewer of Walnut River Brewing Company, received a call from an officer at the El Dorado Police Department notifying him that his building was on fire. He chuckled for a moment thinking it was just a joke before the officer pressed on – he wasn’t calling to joke with him, and he needed to come downtown.
“At first I thought he was joking,” said Goehring. “But then he told me that no, it really was on fire and the fire department was already on their way.”
Located at 111 W Locust, Walnut River Brewing Company has been a steadfast stake in the El Dorado community, opening the door of opportunity for other local brewers and crafting a community as they’ve conducted business. Inside they’ve got a taproom with meeting rooms upstairs, a brewing/production room and another building just east of the taproom, the storage building. That’s where the fire happened and fortunately was contained.
When Goehring arrived, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The storage building in question is a metal building with no electricity. It contains no gas or chemicals and is used solely for storage of full kegs, empty kegs awaiting cleaning, unlabeled beer cans, can labels and boxes on both wood and plastic pallets.
“Our storage building really just had all of our packaging materials in it, some empty kegs,” said Goehring. “There wasn’t much to burn so I was really surprised of how well it burned. Whatever it, (the fire), found, it really went to town.”
After taking a look inside, it’s clear that the fire was burning hot as the roof of the building is caving in from the damage and there are ballooned kegs, and almost all walls are blackened from the fire. Rubber rings around the kegs were noticeably melted from the heat as well.
The cause of the fire is unknown at this time as firefighters continue to investigate the cause. The fire was extinguished around 1:30am after burning for about two hours. The El Dorado Fire Department did note that they heard about 3-4 small explosions inside the building as they were fighting it, assuming it was most likely the full kegs that exploded.
The total loss is also unknown as the insurance agency had not evaluated everything or been on scene as of Saturday morning. Goehring guesses at least 1,000 gallons of beer was lost as it was staged for delivery around local areas. Once the kegs become so hot that the rubber rings are melted, and the beverage itself heats up and is no longer safe to consume.
He guesses about 80,000-90,000 empty cans were in the storage room ready to be filled that are now melted or damaged. In addition, the company’s forklift was in the storage room and is now damaged and must be replaced.
“But it’s all just stuff,” said Goehring. “We’re just glad no one was hurt.”
Aside from the storage building being burned, the rest of Walnut River Brewing Company is open for business and can continue to brew beer. Goehring said he couldn’t thank the local first responders enough.
“We’ve always believed that if we take care of our community, our community will take care of us!” said Ben Wheeler, The Marketing Guy at Walnut River Brewing Company. “That has absolutely proved to be true today!”
Before he arrived, the El Dorado Police Department, El Dorado Fire Department, Towanda Fire Department, Augusta Department of Public Safety and Butler County Emergency Medical Services were at the scene and actively working to stop the fire from spreading to the rest of the business.
“I told them when it’s all over, we’re making them a special beer for saving this place,” chuckled Goehring. “It may be a smoked beer!”
Walnut River Brewing Company’s Taproom is open to serve in downtown El Dorado 11am-10pm Saturday, 12-5pm Sunday, 3-9pm Tuesday–Thursday and 3-10pm on Friday.
