“If we could collectively turn the stoke up a bit, then maybe we'd be the party that everyone would want to go to again. Come on folks, louder, more punk rock!“
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Gigantic’s Van Havig offers the most insightful look at the beer industry you’ll find, five years after Covid. “It was life or death for Americans five years ago, but it’s kind of life or death for the small brewing industry right now.”
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“Instead of going to their local brewery they’re headed to the store where they can pick up a 6-pack of whatever IPA is on sale. American society has changed for the worse at a time when we need collaboration and community the most.“ Heater Allen’s Lisa Allen, writing five years after Covid.
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Five years ago I collected reports from several Oregon breweries as they struggled to navigate the Covid crisis. This week I will have some follow-ups from the same breweries on what has happened since. We’re starting with Alesong because it’s a happy story.
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If we think of normal as the way we lived in February 2020, we have a long way to go. And yet last week something changed. For the first time in 15 months, many of us can safely sit together in a pub drinking beer.
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Breweries managed to survive the pandemic far more ably than anyone expected a year ago. They did it by retrenching and focusing on core fans rather than chasing those tantalizing customer just beyond reach. The “fan service” approach may be Covid’s greatest legacy.
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In this latest Coronavirus update, the always-candid Ben Parsons describes the real costs and long-lasting trauma he and his team has survived getting through this crisis.
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The pandemic caused major crises for breweries, but also smaller, unexpected side-benefits, including this one: for some small breweries, it meant tank space for neglected favorites.
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Today we hear from Zoiglhaus’ Alan Taylor. During the pandemic, Taylor has retooled the restaurant, added a canning line, and with draft sales picking up, he looks toward the coming year with hope.
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Despite their resilience and creativity, the Covid pandemic didn’t hit breweries equally hard. It hit those focused on a restaurant, like Old Town Brewing, with special violence. The brewery’s owner, Adam Milne, describes how he fought to keep from folding his bad hand.
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In the first report from brewers surviving a year of pandemic, Gigantic’s Van Havig points to the ways beer proved to be more resilient than similar industries.
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In today’s diary, Nat West of Reverend Nat’s encourages breweries, cideries, and drinkers to remember other crises unfolding in 2020.
Read MoreThe Covid pandemic has forced breweries to change the beers they brew, how they market and sell those beers, and how customers find them. How will these changes affect beer long-term in a post-Covid world?
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Checking in on breweries as winter approaches. Up today, Matt Van Wyk of Alesong Brewing and Lisa Allen of Heater Allen.
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For breweries hanging by their fingernails, what are the ramifications in knowing we haven’t even hit the halfway point on the COVID pandemic—and that the economy, barring an unlikely intervention by Congress, is likely to get worse before it gets better?
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Book publishing is the other major component of my life as a writer, but that world is changing as well.
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How does a writer make a life when sponsorship money dries up, teaching opportunities are canceled, and magazines and newspapers cut back on writing budgets? That’s not a rhetorical question. Tell me, please!
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Four months ago, the COVID-19 pandemic brought the U.S. to its knees. But while Europe has managed to stand up again, we are seeing a second wave. What comes next?
Read MoreIn the final report this July, four months into the Coronavirus pandemic, Baerlic Brewing’s Ben Parsons offers a searching looking into all the confusion and unknown variables that infuse this moment.
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A peculiar fact about the Coronavirus crisis is how its affects are not shared uniformly. In today’s diary, Heater Allen’s Lisa Allen describes an unanticipated opportunity it has given her brewery.
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