'Heart-wrenching': Beloved brewery Ol' Beautiful damaged in major ...

A popular brewery was severely damaged by a major fire early Sunday.

Ol’ Beautiful, a beloved brewery in southeast Calgary, says its taproom will be closed for the foreseeable future — though it will continue producing beer at its off-site production facility.

It will leave a hole in the community, area residents say, which credit Ol’ Beautiful and other breweries for changing Ramsay and Inglewood’s culture over the past decade.

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Calgary Fire Department were called to the area around 2:30 a.m. Sunday for reports of a fire in the community of Ramsay.

Firefighters arrived to smoke and flames visible from outside the brewery and immediately attacked the flames from outside the building, the fire department said in a statement issued Sunday. Upon forcing entry into the building, they were met with a fully involved fire inside the taproom and found flames had spread to the roof area, which had partly collapsed.

Firefighters then set up large flow streams to contain the fire from spreading to nearby buildings, using hose lines, aerial master streams and truck-mounted nozzles. Downed power lines nearby required the firefighters to cautiously work around the infrastructure until Enmax shut down power. ATCO Gas also helped with utility shutdowns, CFD wrote in a release.

Controlling the fire took about 2½ hours and used nearly 1.2 million litres of water. More than 30 firefighters and 13 apparatus were on the scene.

Calgary firefighters scramble to put out a hot spot fire as they investigate the Ol’ Beautiful fire scene in southeast Calgary on Sunday, June 30, 2024. Jim Wells/Postmedia

There were no known occupants in the building at the time of the fire, CFD said, despite firefighters being unable to enter the building.

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CFD has closed road access to 12 Street S.E., which remains obstructed as investigators work at the scene to determine the cause and origin of the fire. CFD said traffic in the area will be impacted throughout the day.

Despite the million-plus litres needed to quell the fire, CFD Battalion Chief Scott Cowan said the city’s current water shortage did not impact firefighting efforts.

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In a post to Instagram, Ol’ Beautiful wrote that no staff or guests were in the building when the fire broke out. Occupants at a neighbouring taproom, Cold Garden, also safely evacuated. CFD’s Cowan said nearby structures weren’t impacted by the fire.

The brewer said it will be closed for the foreseeable future.

“We want to extend sincere gratitude to our community for the continued support as we navigate next steps following this devastating loss,” it wrote on social media.

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Absence will be a major loss for neighbourhood: ‘It just affects me at such a deep, deep level’

Standing outside the charred shell of a building Sunday morning was John Holt, a Ramsay resident since 1994. He picked up a call around 8:30 a.m. Sunday morning telling him the news and walked over to the building, still smouldering from the fire.

“It’s heart-wrenching,” Holt said.

“It just affects me at such a deep, deep level and very emotional to see a pillar of your community just crushed.”

Holt credits breweries like Ol’ Beautiful and Cold Garden for Ramsay and Inglewood’s evolution from being a neighbourhood dominated by warehouses into one of Calgary’s hippest areas that attracts people from all over town.

“We knew that the neighbourhood was going to change, but never did we think it was going to get to the status it is today — just rock-star status,” Holt said. “It’s really the breweries that did that.”

Cold Garden and Ol’ Beautiful employees react as they arrive at the Ol’ Beautiful fire scene in southeast Calgary on Sunday, June 30, 2024. Jim Wells/Postmedia

Also standing outside the taproom Sunday morning was Adam Kieran, an employee at Ol’ Beautiful for the past four years. Having spent more time at the brewery than his own home in that time, he said the taproom’s absence will be a “big loss of culture for a lot of people.”

“I feel like a Baudelaire child from A Series of Unfortunate Events. It literally just feels like a really sad fairytale,” Kieran said. “It really sucks.”

[email protected] X: @mattscace67

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