There were no pint glasses raised for the derecho.
Not at the Port City Brewing Co. in Alexandria, Va., where owner Bill Butcher and head brewer Jonathan Reeves paced nervously, fretting about thousands of gallons of craft brew - especially an ever-warming tank of seasonal pilsner more than two days into the fermentation process.
"It should be around 50 degrees," Butcher said Monday morning after a long weekend without power in the midst of a relentless heat wave.
"It’s around 62 right now," Reeves said.
The two men were racing against the thermometer to preserve the contents of the 1,860-gallon stainless steel tank, which (they hope) will be bottled as Downright Pilsner.
"If we have to drop the tank, it’s about $20,000," Butcher said. "As a start-up business, every dollar in sales is critical. We don’t have any margin for error. This is a crisis situation."
More here
http://www.standard.net/stories/2012/07/03/power-outages-threaten-beer-brewing
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