The Blast of the Okanagan Spring Fermentor

Jordan, over at St. John's Wort, has had some fun with the recent explosion at the Okanagan Spring Brewery in Vernon, BC.  He has altered the lyrics of Gordon Lightfoot's famous song "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" to play into the blast that occurred last Thursday, spilling 32,000 litres of Cream Ale into the street.

Jordan picks up his guitar and sings the beer themed version he created and he has shared it with all of his readers in a audio podcast.  It's good stuff and worth checking out.  Here are the altered lyrics, but head to his site for a listen.

The legend lives on throughout Vernon’s downtown

Of the day the fermenter exploded

The beer, it is said, never gave up its head

And by nighttime the city was coated

As craft breweries go it was bigger than most

Each fermenter held thousands of liters

But there wasn’t a vent and it finally went:

Broken bottles for dozens of meters.

The newspapers claimed that the problem was blamed

On a buildup of carbon dioxide

The force of the squall tore the door from the wall

With the violence and strength of a rock slide

This was the tale of a batch of cream ale

from the brewery called Okanagan

The lumberjacks cried and they broke down inside;

There’d be nothing to drink after logging.

The beer it was spilled and though no one was killed

It was tragic enough to the brewers

Instead of being filtered through beer loving men

It flowed directly into the sewers.