Reinventing Beer During Covid 2020

Like most everyone else we know, the pandemic shut down came as a bit of a shock to us. One day we’re planning a Spring Break adventure with the kids, and the next we’re trying to figure out how to keep everything afloat in spite of having no idea what the future might bring. Our biggest concerns were: “How long will this last?” and “please don’t let us or any of our employees get sick.” As It turns out there were several other factors we should’ve been considering as well.

To start with, we love our staff, and didn’t want to lose any of them or have them struggle too much. We ended up having to modify our sales to “to-go” only, and kept everyone who was willing to stay move to part time. They rose to the occasion and were supportive and dependable as always. Although they weren’t earning what they had been, they were professional, and our customers would reward that with compassion and generosity.

Soon after the shutdown order, the OLCC modified it’s “to-go” and delivery rules to allow for small businesses like ours to stay open and do contactless delivery. They even allowed more outdoor socially distanced seating for us as we began to reopen. These changes were extremely helpful, and made it possible for us to deliver growlers and cans. Because of the OLCC revisions, we were able to expand our can inventory and buy a new cooler to keep them cold.

Within about six weeks, we noticed some beers on sale from the distributors, and while there were more canned and bottled options that surprised us, there was far less keg inventory to choose from. Many of our favorite breweries were not producing beer. When you have to fill 40 taps with new and interesting beers, going from 1000 choices to 300 became a challenge of its own. Not to mention many of the sales reps had been laid off and beer orders were now placed online. It was not a smooth transition.

As we started to enter Phase 1 of the reopening, we noticed that many of the Portland beers were not available because they were still shut down. Even six months later several are not brewing at even close to capacity because the distributors aren’t stocking much inventory since they can’t afford to sit on product if we get shut down again. This has forced some breweries to slow brewing, put more beer in cans, or try self distribution. One rep told us his brewery will be slowing production this fall, and we’re sure they won’t be the only ones.

Currently though, the keg sheet is looking up, with pumpkin and fresh hop beers coming into season. It’s great to see a little diversity and creativity back on tap, though the list is still is only a little more than half of what it used to be. Many of the breweries and tap houses we love may not make it through this, and a few are already shuttered. We’re keeping our fingers crossed for everyone right now.

While we’re doing our best to drink copious amounts of beer to keep the economy going, the thing that really struck us durning this pandemic is how much we missed our tap house family. Sure, we would see many of our customers buying cans and filling growlers. It’s just not the same as sitting with a bunch of your peeps at the bar with a pint at the end of a long day. Even though we aren’t quite back to normal yet, it has been nice to catch up with everyone, even though we are yelling through a mask from six feet away. Our hope is that we don’t have to endure another hiatus from friends, and that the beer will keep flowing, but what we’ve learned is that we are able to weather the storm.