Craft brewers are used to pulling long hours and making lots of deliveries, but demand for beer delivery has gone through the roof now that people are currently self-isolating.
"We weren't delivering before, but now we've had to," says Billy Madden of Black Lab. "We also have pretty loyal customers and followers. From my perspective the demand has been unreal. I've been on the road 12 hours a day making home deliveries from Mississauga, Markham and as far east as Bowmanville."
Small local microbreweries make a lot of their sales through their tap rooms and to restaurants, and currently these two main avenues of income have completely dried up. While the demand for beer delivery can be staggering, right now it's necessary to make up for lost revenue.
"About 80% of our beer was sold through our restaurant or other restaurants so there is a lot of beer available," says Matt Park, Brewery Director at Burdock. "There have been more orders than we expected and we are extremely grateful for every single one as it’s the only thing keeping us afloat right now."
Jordan Rainhard of Rainhard Brewing says, "We definitely saw an increase in demand. We've never really been a heavy online orders brewery but last week basically made up for what we would have sold in the tap room."
However, some microbreweries aren't so lucky, even with the surge in demand for delivery options.
"We are currently seeing completely unprecedented online ordering," says Doug Appeldoorn of People's Pint. "Even though we are seeing better than usual online sales, it's still nowhere near enough revenue to make up for the shortfall of no longer having the taproom open for service and selling our beer to restaurants and bars.
"We've had to reduce staffing and hours and scale back the volume of beer we produce in an effort to cut costs. However we are happy to support social distancing and flatten the curve. Together we can beat this thing and hopefully as a business we can weather the storm."
by Amy Carlberg via blogTO
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