New York’s F.X. Matt Brewing Co. resumed production Tuesday, just five days after a fire that caused more than $10 million in damage and destroyed the brewery’s canning operation. Its bottling line will be down for an undetermined amount of time.
The brewery will have to temporarily outsource to other breweries for canning and bottling, an arrangement that would require approval from federal regulators, president Nick Matt said. Matt said he has been in touch with other beer companies but wanted to select just one, rather than sending the beer out to several different locations. The beer would then be brewed and aged in Utica before being tanked elsewhere, he said.
The fire started accidentally when two employees working on a welding projected inadvertently melted a plastic conveyor belt, fire officials said Tuesday.