Framingham brewery dealing with lingering effects of storm, lost sales ahead of holiday
FRAMINGHAM – Two full days after a rain and windstorm knocked power out for hundreds of thousands of people in Massachusetts, many businesses are still feeling its impact.
At Exhibit 'A' Brewing Company in Framingham, the storm brought 16 inches of rainwater up into the parking lot, blocking access to delivery trucks, the loading dock – and soaking the brewery's chiller in water.
When the water receded, co-founder Matthew Steinberg discovered the chiller's pump was broken from getting soaked. "The pump keeps the beer cold," he explained.
Without it, 15 fermenters and four bright beer tanks are in jeopardy. The longer they go without the chiller, the more likely the temperature could make the beer go bad. Two fermenters in particular are in limbo at the moment.
When an employee came in on Tuesday morning to start their normal work, they had to ultimately dump the start of the beer out completely when they realized the chiller wouldn't be back for days. "We knew that there was no way to keep that beer," Steinberg said. "That part hurts, and you know I see the staff's eyes and they're like – they just made this perfectly wonderful batch…and then you've got to just open the valve and basically slowly drain it."
Due to the delivery delay, the brewery's wholesaler was without its flagship beer – The Cat's Meow – on Tuesday. "So anybody who ordered it for today probably didn't get it," Steinberg said.
That means the beer could be off the shelves at local liquor stores. "That hurts because the holiday shoppers are going to be looking for beer and if they don't see ours, they're going to buy someone else's," he said.
Exhibit 'A' isn't the only business for whom the storm affected profit ahead of the holiday. Bourbon's Kitchen & Cocktails reopened Wednesday night when it finally got power back. The lights show at the National Shrine of Our Lady La Salette in Attleboro was also in the dark until Wednesday night.
The best thing you can do to support local businesses affected by the storm? "The first thing is go to retail stores and buy our beer or buy other small business; beer in this market. We are all pretty much small businesses for the most part," Steinberg said.