NOLA Brewing Suffers Damage in Hurricane Isaac

When hurricanes threaten, NOLA Brewing’s emergency plan calls for one man only to stay behind: president Kirk Coco. So when Isaac blew in last Wednesday night, Coco was at the Tchoupitoulas Street brewery guarding the beer.

“S**t was flying all over the place,” Coco said. “In the middle of the night, something fell on the ceiling and knocked all the ceiling tiles on my face. I thought I was dead. I thought the whole building was caving.”

Luckily, Coco survived, as did the beer. NOLA Brewing recently doubled the size of its brewery, taking over a second building next door. That means their cooling equipment relies on two separate power grids, one of which never went down. Although NOLA suffered considerable damage to its offices and merchandise room, the beer remained chilly and safe.

NOLA stopped brewing last Tuesday ahead of the storm. Coco hopes that full power will be restored today and they can resume making beer in two days. Going into the storm, NOLA already had a month’s supply of beer and Coco doesn’t anticipate any shortages.