News Quake Rattles Breweries – and Wineries

The 6.0 earthquake that slammed the Napa, California region early Sunday morning caused extensive damage to the wine industry but little if any to the region’s craft breweries.

While there are 400 wineries and a similar number of vintners in the Napa region, there are only five breweries.

The quake was a “near miss’ as just 9 hours earlier,  the Napa Downtown Association was hosting the Blues, Brews & BBQ beer festival with over 20 breweries set up in the exact spot where brinks came crashing down onto the street from the historic buildings.

ProBrewer News was unable to reach the brewery closest to the epicenter,  Downtown Joe’s. But Napa Smith Brewery, the second closest brewery to the epicenter only suffered a few broken bottles

Calistoga Brewing located in the far northern end of the valley did not sustain any damage.

While there are relatively few breweries in the Napa Valley region, just one valley to the west is Sonoma county, home to booming craft beer scene including Russian River, Lagunitas, Bear Republic and about 40 others. So far there have no reports of any damage to any Sonoma breweries.

The wine industry was a very different story. Extensive damage to both infrastructure and inventory was being reported this morning. Some wineries were reporting over half of the inventory being stored in barrels was destroyed. In addition to damage at many winery production facilities, there are also a number of large wine storage facilities located very near downtown Napa where the most damage was reported.

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