Fire tears through Ol’ Beautiful taproom in Inglewood

Fire destroys popular Calgary pub Popular Calgary watering hole OL’Beautiful was destroyed by fire and will have to be torn down. Tyler Barrow reports.

A fire destroyed one of Calgary’s favourite watering holes early Sunday morning.

At around 2:30 a.m., Calgary fire crews were called for reports of a fire at Ol’Beautiful, on the 1100 block of 12 Street S.E.

Arriving crews discovered smoke and flames visible from the outside of the building. When crews were able to access the interior of the building, they discovered the entire building burning, with flames spreading to the roof.

Crews set up to contain the fire and prevent it from spreading to adjacent buildings.

It took two and a half hours to bring the fire under control. However, Sunday morning just before 11 a.m., it appeared that smoke was coming from the site and that it may have re-ignited.

Neighbour Emaly Gallant was awakened at 2:30 a.m. to the sounds of loud explosions, which she said she initially thought were fireworks.

"But there was too many and it was too close to the house," she said, "so I ended up looking outside the window, where I saw bright yellow flames right across the street."

Gallant said that by 3 a.m., there were 10 fire trucks and five police cars on scene.

"It was super crazy, super noisy," she said. "Once we saw the flames, we figured it was the kegs inside the brewery exploding and that was super-loud.

"It was actually shaking my window panes," she said.

'Pretty surreal'

Ol' Beautiful co-owner Chris Carroll arrived at the scene around three o'clock in the morning, where he discovered a "slew" of firefighters and police officers.

"It was pretty surreal," Carroll said. "Pretty shocking. We're standing in a plume of smoke down there.

"It wasn't the wakeup I was hoping for."

Carroll said the pain of seeing your taproom burn down was compounded by the fact that it happened right in the heart of their busy season.

He said approximately 20 staff members were impacted by the fire.

"We'll do our best to keep them busy if they want," he said.

As for the future, he said the fire department was already knocking down the walls of what remained of the structure.

"It'll be a re-do," he said.

Investigators are on scene trying to determine the cause of the fire. Traffic on 12^th Street will be impacted throughout the day.

With files from Tyler Barrow