Mount Airy brewery destroyed by early morning fire

MOUNT AIRY, Md. ( DC News Now ) — What once stood as the Red Shedman Farm Brewery and Hop Yard has now been condemned as nothing but extensive damage after a fire broke out early Thursday morning.

The owners said they are still optimistic and look forward to rebuilding.

“It’s a setback, but we’ll go forward,” said Anthony Aellen.

That was the outlook from the Executive Winemaker for Linganore Winery, Anthony Aellen, and his staff as they looked at the pile of destruction left behind.

“My grandmother is 94 and she still lives on the property just up the hill from here, and her caretaker heard a large explosion around 3:30 this morning,” said the Director of Winery Operations Melissa Aellen. “I arrived here shortly after 4:30 this morning to sit in my uncle’s car and watch the building burn down,” she added.

Fire officials said that about 45 firefighters battled the large blaze as it ripped through the entire building.

After two hours, the building was deemed a total loss and racked up about 800,000 dollars in damages.

“When you put so much passion and pride into building a business with your family and you’re just literally watching it completely go up in flames,” said Melissa. “It’s so hard to process it now several hours later,” she added.

Luckily the winery was untouched during the fire, so even though they won’t be able to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the brewery, they do plan on going forward with their annual Autumn Reggae Wine and Music Festival taking place on the weekend.

“Everything will go on as planned,” said Melissa. “Luckily, the brewery isn’t a large aspect of that, so we’ll be able to get it cleaned up and be ready to welcome guests here for our festival.”

As for restoring the brewery, Anthony said it might take a while, but they’re ready to get it done.

“It’ll take us a while, but we’ll rebuild, and we’ll come back out and do this all over again,” said Anthony. “But that’s the agricultural mentality.”

The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

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