Cold Fire Brewing Brewery and Tasting Room, Eugene

Location: Mill Street, Eugene, Oregon
Client/Owner: Building owners; tenant Cold Fire Brewing
Partners: 2G Construction (general contractor); City of Eugene (permitting)
Year: 2015
Size/scale: Change of use of an existing storage building to a small brewery (about 2,200 sq ft of brewing area) and tasting room (about 480 sq ft), sharing a roof and party wall with the neighboring building
JBE services: Code and occupancy analysis, permit drawings, structural calculations, brewing tank anchorage design, plan review responses and construction administration
Sector: Restaurants

The challenge

Cold Fire Brewing wanted to brew and pour its beer in a plain storage building on Mill Street. Turning storage into a working brewery with a public tasting room is a change of use, and it brought a list of questions: how the brewing and tasting areas would be classified under the code, how the building related to the neighboring building it shares a roof and party wall with, and how the stainless brewing tanks and fermenters would be held in place in an earthquake.

The brewery also brought its own details: a walk-in cooler built partly from a shipping container, waste plumbing for the brewing equipment and a grease interceptor, and a covered outdoor storage area.

Project photos

What we did

We prepared the permit drawings and the code analysis for the mixed brewing, tasting and storage uses, and designed the anchorage for the tanks and vessels against overturning and sliding, with a two-bolt anchor group at each base plate.

When the City’s plan review came back, we answered every comment, adding structural details and revised calculations for the tank anchorage and clarifying the plumbing, boiler and lighting items. During construction we designed footings for the cooler, and when the inspector asked about the cooler walls and the framing of the outdoor storage roof, we confirmed the wall types and checked the rafters, beam and ledger connection to the masonry wall with calculations.

The result

The building was permitted in the fall of 2015 and finished as a working brewhouse with a warm, wood-clad tasting room alongside the tanks. A former storage building now makes and serves beer on Mill Street.