Beer Floods Framingham Brewery After Gasket Fails
FRAMINGHAM (CBS) - There's about to be a shortage of a popular brew made by a local craft beer company after a costly malfunction at a brewery in Framingham.
Jack's Abby Brewing Company reported on Wednesday that a gasket failed on a full tank of their Jabby Brau, a year-round pilsner that the company sells.
Video originally posted on the brewery's Facebook page shows a flood of suds streaming from a large tank onto the brewery floor.
Co-owner Jack Hendler says crews filled the tank on Wednesday with 1,500 gallons of beer, which equates to about 700 cases. The gasket gave out sometime overnight. The entire batch was lost.
WBZ's New England Business spoke with Jack Hendler
Beer Floods Framingham Brewery After Gasket Fails
"When we came in the morning, we came into a mess," he told CBS Boston. "The good side of the whole mess is there was never a safety issue for anyone working. It was simply a waste of beer issue."
Hendler says the beer was set to be bottled on Wednesday and shipped off to retailers. Instead, the bottling crew spent the day on clean-up duty.
Hendler says the beer has been selling faster than they can make it. And after promising retail partners they would have a new batch of Jabby Brau in the next few days, he had to break the bad news to them.
"We weren't sure they'd believe us, Hendler said of posting the video on their Facebook page. "We were hoping to prove that we weren't lying to them.
"We hope that they'll take pity on us going forward," he said.
The award-winning brewery says none of its other beers are affected by the spill, which has since been cleaned up.
They also say they have enough current inventory of Jabby Brau kegs to last until the next batch is ready.
But they expect to be out of Jabby Brau bottles until at least the beginning of January.
Asked about the financial impact from the leak, Hendler acknowledge it wouldn't be pleasant.
"For a small company like ours, any financial issues hurt," he said.
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