How Will the Coronavirus Impact Beer?

The US hasn’t had to deal with a real pandemic in decades, and I don’t know that anyone has thought through the myriad ways it may play out. Beer is an interesting (and possibly alarming) case in point. The vast majority of beer is sold in bottles and cans—handy storable packages people can lay away in case of disaster. That may be good for sales:

As an outbreak of a new coronavirus causes some U.S. customers to fill up shopping carts and thin out store shelves, industry groups and experts say grocers can tamp down on “panic buying” by planning ahead and trying to stay stocked. Grocery stores, including Costco stores, have seen a spike in sales of household items like hand sanitizer, face masks and cases of bottled water in recent weeks. Sales of shelf-stable grocery items, including fruit snacks, dried beans and pretzels, are on the rise, too, according to late-February data from Nielsen.

On the other hand, there’s a large retail sector of pubs, taprooms, brewpubs, and restaurants which may not do so well. So far, it seems not to have impacted them in the US. It’s very difficult to get numbers because this is all so recent, but observationally, folks are saying business is still good. That may not last, however. Thanks to an anemic response by the federal government, cases of afflicted people have gone under-reported, perhaps for weeks. Now people are starting to die, particularly in our part of the country, and that raises serious concerns that the virus may be far more widespread than previously known. In other countries, the virus has had a serious effect:

The streets of Seoul, the South Korean capital, stood nearly empty this week. Those who do venture out wear masks. The normally busy subways have few passengers and riders make sure to sit far away from one another. Many residents are relying on grocery and restaurant delivery apps.

In Milan, Italy's business capital and the center of the country's outbreak, restaurants, bars and train stations are much less crowded than normal. The usually teeming Piazza del Duomo, home to the city's cathedral and lined with shops and bars, was almost empty at points Monday.

There are currently only a hundred reported cases, and in a country of 325 million, that’s not bad. But if that figure is artificially low—and it certainly is—it could balloon in coming days. It wouldn’t take much to keep people out of the pubs while waiting for things to blow over. From the customer perspective, that isn’t a serious problem—especially since one can take beer home. But how long can pubs and restaurants stay in business if the virus persists for months? The first death in China happened nearly two months ago. How many American retailers can go two months with no real business? Three? Four? This is especially bad for smaller breweries, many of which depend on retail outlets for a big part of their business.

Not to get alarmist, but this could be bad. Be safe out there.