Coronavirus at One: An Opportunity to Rethink Business
Alan jokingly holds an “ultra hazy.”
In this ongoing series, I have been posting the reflections of brewers and cidermakers as they navigate the coronavirus pandemic. This week we'll have a series of our regulars discussing the pandemic at one year. You can see other posts in the series here.
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Today we hear from Zoiglhaus’ Alan Taylor. A packaging brewpub in the outer southeast neighborhood of Lents, Zoiglhaus has evolved during the pandemic (Alan explains below). The focus will remain firmly on German lagers and ales, but the pandemic has given Taylor a chance to reconsider his restaurant and use the time to make changes.
I would say that we limped our way through the worst of the pandemic. Some of the hardest days were laying off/furloughing staff whom I truly cherish as fellow brewers and great people. Working 7 weeks solo in the brewhouse every day was a physical and mental challenge, so having the crew come in on canning days was greatly appreciated in many ways. We went from five brewing staff in Portland to one and are now back up to four and looking to hire another brewer.
We had started some expansion and renovation plans before the shutdowns took effect. Having an empty restaurant allowed for some radical (and constantly noisy) renovations that are still ongoing. The Zoiglhaus restaurant will shift into more of a communal beer hall with three new food pods located inside the building. We will shrink our food offerings down into a pod size as well and add a bar with mixed drinks/hard alcohol. The beer bar in the middle will remain. Beyond our current offerings, we will focus on having beers that match well with the cuisines of the new food pod occupants. That project is still under construction.
The brewery expansion is also ongoing. We renovated our basement and added a good-sized walk-in cooler to store the kegs and cans that we are producing. We added a canning line last year and that has been great for scheduling production and increasing tank efficiency. We are canning at least twice a week on whichever days fit our schedule best. This opens up the tanks earlier and we can fill them and keep production cruising along.
Draft is back! Finally! We are now hammering the keg washer again. It is a noisy bugger, and I hate having to work at my desk close to it, but I'm trying to appreciate the sounds of the pumps roaring ten feet from my head. So volume is increasing as kegs start going out the door again.
Our contract/alt-prop partners are increasing their reach in the market and that is putting some strain on capacity, but we are doing what we can to make everyone happy. Once we start dropping in 60 bbl tanks, we will have lots of space available again to expand our partners' footprints and offerings as well as to fulfill the increased sales of our own beers. At that point, we can take on further projects working with new and established breweries to help them get their products to market in the volumes they want. Having our own canning line helps provide us with the flexibility to accommodate their needs.
Luckily none of the brew staff has been sick and three quarters of us have already had our second round of vaccinations. The final brewer gets his in two weeks. So, according to the CDC, we can start working without masks around each other once the fourth brewer has his vaccination. A small relief, but a welcome one.
I'm also pleasantly surprised that the vast majority of breweries are still open. I don't feel like it is due to all of us having a ton of cash to survive, though. I think that the drive that made us brewers (i.e. the ability to work our tails to the bone on a daily basis) also doesn't let us give up easily even when it would make sense to do so financially. The PPP and government loans have kept many of us afloat, so I am thankful for that, not just for myself, but for the entire industry.
I look forward to having a beer in a pub or in a beer garden someday soon. We have a number of collaborations planned or in planning and we look forward to visiting with our sisters and brothers in their breweries.