Emporium Brewing in Kaikoura will be closed until further notice following the devastating flood that roared through the town last week.
Owner-brewer Paul Finney has just had insurance assessors through the premises which includes a brewery, bar, escape rooms, and a mini golf course. He reckons they will be shut for at least another month and maybe until September depending on how quickly builders can start their work.
Finney said the water was shin deep in most places and knee deep in the bar.
“It’s just enough water to cause damage everywhere. All the electrics, the gycol units, we’ve got to re-line the walls of all the escape rooms, which means you’ve got to rip all the escape rooms out. You’ve got to re-do all the carpets on the mini golf course, because all the water that came in was potentially contaminated, and then re-do all the landscaping.
“It’s fully insured. It’s going to be fine. It’s just a pain in the arse.”
It’s the second natural disaster to hit the brewery in its 10-year life, with the destructive Kaikoura earthquake hitting just as they were setting up.
“When we had the earthquake, we didn’t really have much — the brewery wasn’t in place, the bar wasn’t in place, the escape rooms weren’t in place, so there was less to lose, whereas now we had water everywhere.”
The flood also coincided with the business being on the market, and a potential buyer was scheduled to inspect the property the day after the flood.
Finney admitted it was probably better for the damage to have hit them rather than a new owner.
“While it’s a pain in the arse, and we’ve got to go through the rebuild of everything, if it had been new owners trying to get all the information to insurers … at least we’ve been through this all before, with natural disasters and knowing what to do. I haven’t been in a flood before, so this is new.”
There are a couple of silver lining stories.
First, they might get lucky with a friend who is builder and who had another job cancelled because the flood resulted in his scheduled client being physically cut-off when a road washed away
Second, the brewery itself survived intact apart from the glycol units, a pump and some hoses.
“The water just got to the brew platform, but also everything on the brew platform is on legs as well so the brewery is fine. I’ve just got to buy a couple of glycol units and a pump and a few hoses and I’ll be able to brew again.”
They also dispatched a Beer Hug order just a day before the flood hit, so that was another small blessing as the flood would have wrecked the packed-up boxes.
And now Finney says that when the business goes back on the market in a few months at least everything will be brand new and recently renovated.
In the meantime he’s asking Emporium fans to support businesses that sell his beer, including Dodson Street in Blenheim and Moon Under Water in Christchurch,
“And hopefully I’ll be back in the brewery next week and we’ll be selling beer again soon.”