In Eugene: one brewery closes and another catches fire
It was a tough weekend in Eugene, Oregon for breweries as on Saturday February 28th one brewery poured their last pints while a structure fire broke out in the brewery of another but was narrowly saved by firefighters cutting through the roof.
Arable Brewing, one of the New School’s picks for most promising new brewery in 2023, decided to close down permanently after their Saturday service. The nearly 3 year-old brewery had developed a cult following in Eugene, but hadn’t really grown outside of the handful of beer nerds and neighborhood patrons. Sadly, the news of Arable’s closure came after their last day of service so people do not even have a final chance to go in and say goodbye. The New School has reached out to the owners for more information but we haven’t heard back before publishing time.
Arable announced the closure on social media, writing in part: “Dear Eugene, After a lot of long conversations and reflection, we’ve made the incredibly difficult decision to close Arable for good. This has been more than a business to us. It has been years of pouring our hearts (and a lot of beer) into something we believed in deeply. It has been early mornings, late nights, stressful moments, proud moments — and so many memories we will carry with us forever.” Their farewell message continued “From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for being part of Arable. Thank you for the support, the friendship, and the memories.”
Ninkasi brewery at 220 Blair Blvd. where a fire broke out on Saturday evening. Photo credit: Paul Carter for The Register-Guard.
Eugene’s largest brewery, Ninkasi, broke out in a fire on Saturday evening. As a plume of smoke filled the air and orange and yellow lights of the flames rose from the roof of the brewery the surrounding neighbors at Blair Alley Arcade and a food truck parked outside began sharing videos and alerted the fire department.
The Eugene Springfield Fire department dispatch first call was at 06:24 PM to the brewhouse address at 220 Blair Blvd. in the Whiteaker neighborhood. Firefighters responded quickly just minutes later engine No2 arrived, identifying the fire over the Blair Alley off of 2nd. Upon investigation firefighters encountered a heavy smoke condition in the interior of the building near the production area. Crews ordered the evacuation of the remaining occupants and began to attack the fire according to the Fire Department.
When crews encountered fire through the roof, a second alarm was called to bring additional resources to rapidly suppress the fire. The fire was contained to the area of origin but firefighters had to tear open the roof and pounded the area with water no doubt causing extensive damage. Luckily there have been no injuries reported.
Jamie Floyd, Ninkasi Brewing co-founder and founding Brewmaster told the New School that “I don’t have a definitive answer to what happened yet. The roof above a boiler caught on fire. We are assessing how it caught on fire. The boiler had been inspected a couple weeks ago,” said Floyd. “lots to figure out still.”
The fire was contained and no impact is expected on the Ninkasi Tasting Room, however it is unclear what the amount of damage to the roof and critically a boiler for brewing means to their ability to continue brewing beer.
Ninkasi Brewing is not only responsible for their own flagship beers like Total Domination IPA and Tricerahops Double IPA, but is also home to Ecliptic Brewing and recently were joined by Incline Cider and San Juan Seltzer in the larger Great Frontier portfolio.
This article will be updated when more information comes out.
