Dan Reilly of Reilly's Brewing Co. has devoted half of his space to making hand sanitizer. Photo by Donald A. Promnitz

A Madera brewer and steel structure manufacturer has converted half of his brewery to the production of hand sanitizer to help health care workers and families during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dan Riley, the owner of Steel Structures, Inc. and Riley’s Brewing Co., began making Riley’s Hand Sanitizer five weeks ago, after an eight-day process of setting up the assembly line. Riley estimates the process took roughly $250,000 to $300,000 to do. Parts were also donated by friends in the Caglia family and J.M. Equipment in Fresno.

“This was something I was able to put together with the help of just friends,” he said. “So this is something we all kind of got together to do right, just to try to help the community out and the local Valley.”

There are currently 24 people making approximately 40,000 bottles of hand sanitizer a day over the course of two shifts. About half of the 12,000-square-foot brewery have been set aside for the project. They’ve also been able to bring on some workers who were laid off at other jobs. Riley added that while they’ve been going full throttle, it’s not about the money for them.

“We keep our prices pretty low,” Riley said. “We’re not trying to gouge anybody. We’re not trying to make a fast buck. We’re here for the long term and our goal is to put it in everybody’s hands.”