According to a New Hampshire newspaper, an employee of Redhook Brewery died this morning when the beer keg he was cleaning violently exploded.

The employee had been pressurizing kegs with air to remove residual beer when the accident occurred. Although authorities are not entirely sure why the keg exploded, it was the metal shrapnel that caused multiple chest and head injuries, which proved to be fatal.

Firefighters were dispatched to the scene at 7:06am and found the worker, a not yet identified man believed to be in his 20′s or early 30′s, unresponsive with a weak pulse. He quickly went into cardiac arrest and was transported by ambulance to the hospital, where he died.

While no one can say for sure how or why this particular explosion happened, it’s important to remember that an over-pressurized keg is essentially a bomb, and it can be just as fatal.

Don’t mess around when it comes to pressure and please, please make sure the safety valves on your couplers and regulators are in working order. I think I speak on behalf of the entire KegWorks team when I say that our hearts go out to the man’s family and friends, as well as the entire Redhook team.