Coronavirus Diaries (7/6): People Will Move Toward Chaos

In this latest round of reports from breweries trying to survive the Coronavirus, I noticed a theme in the writing: after nearly four months of the crisis, with no end in sight, brewers are starting to get both poetic and philosophical. These messages are so heartfelt and so full of important information that I’m not going to do an omnibus roundup. I’ll give everyone their moment in the spotlight. Pay attention and listen. This is the human cost. As a short background, every county in Oregon is now in Phase 1 of reopening, with Multnomah County (Portland) finally getting the green light a couple weeks ago. Our numbers remain relatively low overall, but they are jumping up alarmingly. Last week Governor Kate Brown issued an order that all citizens must wear masks in public.

Today we have Matt Van Wyk of Alesong Brewing, located outside Eugene about two hours south of Portland. The brewery specializes in higher-end barrel-aged beers sold in bottles, with a tasting room (no kitchen). That has insulated the brewery somewhat from this crisis—though not entirely. Here’s Matt.

We opened up our tasting room ten days after Lane county was allowed to do so, which puts us at right about a month open. In that time we have learned a lot! First, people are thrilled to have an outdoor drinking space with appropriately spaced tables and a gentle breeze blowing through their hair. We’ve been very busy and the month of June has been very good, especially compared to the dismal April and May. We even had a few Multnomah County beer industry folks get away for a day before you all got opened in Portland.

Secondly, people don’t read signs. We are revamping our wayfinding signs weekly with messages to customers to keep them and us safe during their visit. I’ve been going to breweries and other bars just to see what kind of communication I can find. Beg, borrow, steal, I say.

Third, if you don’t work very hard to keep order in your facility (rules, signs, verbal herding) people will certainly move toward chaos and do whatever the heck they want without remembering we are in a world pandemic. “Please don't touch that water pitcher with the sign ‘Staff only!’ on it.” Most people are very respectful of what we in the industry have to deal with but it's hard to serve both sides of the “caution spectrum.”

It’s not just the bipedal customers that need herding. We’ve sadly had to change our policy on our four-legged furry friends. They are no longer allowed on our patio (the only spot where beer is served).

Two employees and one customer have been lunged at or nipped in the last two weeks, so we were left with no choice. I think it’s a mix of more customers, more dogs, but likely the main reason is our servers have masks on which freaks out the dogs. It’s a small thing, but sad at the same time because we enjoyed having well behaved dogs on our patio. And since we are in the country and have room to roam it is a great spot for dog owners.

Finally, table service, which we transitioned to from counter service, is really hard, requires more staff, but seems to result in higher dollars per customer. We’ve had to hire extra servers to manage it, but it seems that you have more interactions with the guest and therefore more chances to up-sell. Jeremy Lewis, co-owner of Roscoe's and Saraveza, who I believe still does table service at Roscoe’s, told me this was the case, and it has proven a beneficial discovery.

All in all, business at our tasting room is good. However, my two biggest fears might make it all come crashing down. First, the infection numbers across the country continue to rise and I fear we might be forced into closing which will mitigate all the positive momentum we have gained. And that leads right into the second fear—that we are never able to get back in front of distributor reps and retailers to keep the wholesale sales going. The longer this goes on, the farther we get from cementing those relationships and that might have a bigger effect on our business than a few months down at a tasting room.

Some day this will all be over, I think.

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PHOTOS: ALESONG BREWING