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Brewery Gets Power Back, Beer Supply Saved

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Cheers went up at a far south suburban brewery Thursday morning, when the lights finally came back on, more than three days after severe storms knocked out the power.

WBBM Newsradio's Mike Krauser reports things were getting pretty desperate at the Flossmoor Station Restaurant & Brewery, because the long power outage was threatening their beer supply.

Four fermenters full of beer could have been lost, and it would have set the brewery back weeks.

Handwritten signs on the front door pleaded with ComEd to help: "No Power. ComEd Please Save the Beer."

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"We drove around, and we stalked ComEd trucks. I'm sure they had an APB out on us; 'if you see two crazy women driving around, ignore them,'" General manager Sandi Nelson said. "We lost a lot of business in the last couple days."

She said ComEd workers sympathized, but couldn't help right away with all the damage across the southern suburbs.

"They actually, one of their crew came and took a picture of our sign, so … we don't think we made them mad, that's for sure," she said. "They were joking, like 'Well, we'll do anything we can to help you."

They collected 700 pounds of dry ice to keep the beer cool on their own until they got power back Thursday morning.

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