Coronavirus Diaries (Oct 12): Bracing for Winter
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The summer was relatively kind to breweries, many of which were able to open their doors and sell some beer. The rains returned this weekend, and in their wake leave forecasts of colder, shorter, and wetter days—in other words, winter is coming. I checked in with my regular circle of breweries (Alesong, Baerlic, Gigantic, Heater Allen, and Old Town) to see if they had reflections on the summer or worries about the winter.
So far two have offered the view from their brew deck: Matt Van Wyk of Eugene’s Alesong and Lisa Allen of McMinnville’s Heater Allen. (If you’re not in among the original group but would like to share your story, shoot me a message.) As a reminder, Alesong is a blendery featuring high-end barrel-aged beers that relies heavily on a membership club. Heater Allen specializes in German lagers and although they operate a small tasting room, mainly run a packaging brewery.
Here are there updates.
Matt Van Wyk
Well, we made it through the summer, and I’m pleased to report that from a direct-to-consumer perspective, we did just fine. It turns out we pivoted to all-outdoor seating on a large patio and hired more servers to provide table service as opposed to counter service. That change, along with a few other factors resulted in roughly 35% increase in “per transaction dollars.” Although our customer visits were down roughly 15% and we were closed for two months, our June through August tasting room sales were flat over 2019. Then of course three states caught on fire and we spent another 10 days closed in September, so we continue to battle the almighty year of 2020!
Winter is slowly approaching and we’ve done a couple of things to prepare. First, we have a 20x40 tent ordered along with several heaters. Hopefully this will result in a few more visits. But more importantly, we are going to be implementing a private guided tasting model via a reservation system, not unlike what many Willamette Valley wineries already do. This will be indoors, but they will be reserving the entire place for themselves and will get a tour of the facility and a roughly hour-long private tasting. We’re hoping our brand, along with our model, will be attractive to many people cooped up inside this winter and provide an experience they can't get at many other breweries in the area.
We're also hopeful that this model can be extended beyond Covid time, whenever in the far off future that may be!
Lisa Allen
As I’ve mentioned in previous updates, I feel that because Heater Allen doesn't have a restaurant or tap room we rely on we have been fortunate through all of this. Production will be down slightly for the year, which is a bummer, but not business-ending stuff. Cans still seem to be selling well and as long as cans keep moving out the door, we feel pretty secure.
However, at the back of my mind I worry about the looming aluminum shortage I keep hearing about, the outcome of the upcoming election, whether or not there will be another large Coronavirus outbreak (or is it already happening?!)*, and what happens if the country goes deeper into a recession or even a depression. People will still buy beer, right? And even if Heater Allen is okay, what happens to the beer industry Nationwide? There is so much uncertainty, it is sometimes hard to stay positive. I wish the best to everyone braving this storm and I hope we all survive whatever the winter brings.
I hope everyone is able to survive the winter.
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* Oregon announced the largest number of new infections last week.