A Darwin engineer has been left shattered and embarrassed after his shelf of 55 longneck bottles of homebrew beer collapsed in the middle of the night.

Dan Keil and his flatmate Dave Dec jumped out of their beds just after midnight last week after hearing sounds in their Rapid Creek home.

"We heard a tremendous crash," Mr Keil told 105.7 ABC Darwin.

The men found their downstairs laundry-based micro brewery in a sorry sight, with brown glass and amber liquid strewn across the concrete floor of its narrow walkway.

Only 18 of the micro brewery's 750ml bottles were salvageable from the wreckage.

"We thought we lost them all but the washing machine and the sink caught a few bottles," Mr Keil said.

Mr Keil said he had assumed the shelf was strong enough to hold the micro brewery but now realises this assumption was "a bit of a blunder".

"I don't think the wire straps were tightened up and the brackets were rusted through," he said.

But naval architect Mr Keil said "structures were never his strongpoint" and his job is "more about buoyancy".

Darwin micro brewery resurrected

The men's beer shelf has since been re-erected with new brackets and the remaining 18 bottles have been removed from the scene.

Asked how they will recover, Mr Keil said: "Dave is just a bit reluctant to get back into brewing. He's not ready."

"They might have to give me some time off work to rebuild and re-brew," he said.

"Or if anyone out there has got any old kegs they want to part with, give us a hoy."

Tributes and messages of condolence from the Top End's homebrew community have since poured in over social media:

"This is a disaster. There should be some form of governmental relief payments for these poor people until they can get their home brew back." - Curtis Loe

"Feel your pain fellas. Such a difficult time for this pair. Stay strong Daniel and Dave. Stronger than that shelf." - Dave Fry

Others have been less sympathetic: