We continue our Halloween inspired series of scary brewery stories with visit to Narrows Brewing, which sits on pilings above the Narrows Strait next to Narrows Marina.

As we have documented earlier this week, brewing beer is an industrial process and can be a dangerous business: you’re dealing with boiling hot liquid, clouds of carbon dioxide that can suffocate workers, kegs and vats under pressure, heavy kegs and equipment, and other dangers large and small.

Today, we interview a Narrows Brewing employee in silhouette to hide his or her identity.

“My scariest experience in the brew house was almost tipping over a 15-barrel tank,” says the mystery Narrows Brewing employee. “I was moving pallets around and returned the pallet jack to its original space, which is a stack of pallets and such beside the tanks. The stack was a little crooked so I decide to straighten it out. While I was pumping up the jack I became focused on something to my right and wasn’t paying attention while raising the jack. When I faced forward again I realized I had raised only one side of the tank, held up by a neighboring tank. In my fear I released the jack and the tank slammed back to its original position on the brew house floor.”

Our mystery employee was terrified. He or she knew tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage could have been the result.

On a less scary note, but cause for spooky celebration, Narrows Brewing will celebrate Halloween with two beer happenings. They’ll re-release their big, chewy, luscious Rusalka Imperial Stout Oct. 31. Black as a 5:30 wake-up call, this dark malt beauty will also hit the store shelves in November. Also on Halloween, Narrows will run one of their porters through a Randall loaded with malted milk balls. Show up in costume and you could win a prize.

Pacific Brewing & Malting Co.’s scary story

Harmon Brewing Company’s scary story

NARROWS BREWING COMPANY, 2-9 p.m. Monday-Thursday, noon to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday, noon to 6 p.m. Sunday, 9007 S. 19th St., Tacoma, 253.327.1400