By OWEN MORRIS
Free State Brewery is an institution in Lawrence. Townies as well as college kids are drawn to its excellent, mostly stronger beers. So it's sad to see that just as they were getting ready to expand into bottling and distributing, the East Lawrence plant they were refurbishing for the job caught fire and suffered extensive damage.
According to this Lawrence Journal World article, Free State was only a week away from testing its first batches of the beer.
Late last night, Free State brewmaster Steve Brandt sent around this e-mail:
I'm sure that by now many of you know that a fire struck our nearly completed production plant in East Lawrence this morning. The damage was extensive and we do not know the full extent or implications of the fire damage as yet. The structure is intact as near as we can tell, although we will not know the full story until we are able to have engineers come in for a full assessment... Although we lost a substantial inventory of raw ingredients stored in the building, we are still able to continue production at our current levels downtown. What is now on hold is the planned expansion of our wholesale production and distribution. Needless to say, this is a significant setback, as we were hoping to begin brewing in the next couple of weeks... We will keep you apprised as we move along and as answers appear.
If anybody is at Free State tonight for its usual great Monday specials and hears of any new developments, please shoot me an e-mail.
*Note: The picture above is of Free State Brewery's restaurant on Massachusetts Street. It did not catch fire and is still serving beer. The fire-damaged building is in North Lawrence at 1927 Moodie Road.
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