Beers, Scares And Chainsaws: How One Writer Survived Flat12’s ZomBrewery

Halloween is about dressing up, carving pumpkins, listening to spooky music, being scared, and kids getting candy from strangers. Ah…  The good old days when our parents had to check our Smarties for glass. Good times!

It’s also when Zombies start making beer with humans instead of hops at Flat12 Bierwerks. Dr. Hopenstein (Head Brewer Sean Manahan) and his assistants were giving tours of the Zombrewery, where the Zombies had taken over brewing, on October 30th and on Halloween. Now, I hate haunted houses but I made the sacrifice for the sake of journalism to attend on Friday.

My first walk through of the Zombrewery was during a run through with the staff and volunteers that were “performing.”  I had a chance to talk to Sean Manahan during my walk through about putting the Zombrewery together. They worked really hard all week on typical brewery business so that they would have all day on Friday to work on the concept. It only took them a couple of hours to set up. “The brewery itself is kind of creepy on its own when you’re in here alone, you’re starting to brew early in the morning. It’s kind of creepy anyway. It made it easy to take some of the dangers we face in the brewery and turn it into a haunted house,” Sean said.

There was a whole story behind how the Zombies took over. In an effort to push the limits of brewing, “we harvested a unique yeast out of Transylvania and that yeast then turned everyone into Zombies once the beer was completed,” said Sean. So, in order to get into character, Sean said they were going to drink a lot of beer. Makes total sense.