Coronavirus Diaries (7/7): Unexpected Opportunities
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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 Lisa Allen of McMinnville’s Heater Allen. Located west of Portland in wine country, Heater Allen is a packaging brewery with a small taproom focused on German-style lagers. Founded over a decade ago, it was the first brewery to lead the resurgence of lagers in Oregon. In today’s diary, Lisa mentions an unexpected silver lining in the way beer is now sold.
Most breweries have had to shift their focus to packaged beer since Mid-March, for us at Heater Allen it has been more of a return to what was originally intended for the brewery. When my dad, Rick, started Heater Allen in 2007 he wanted to focus on packaged beer, to him kegs were a way to advertise--the people that try your beer at a restaurant or bar might be more likely to pick it up at their local grocery store or bottle shop. We had shifted away from this significantly, as restaurant and bar culture grew so did the demand for kegs. Leading up to March 70% of our product was going into kegs and most of what going into kegs was Pils.
Now that we're almost 100% packaged beer (we still have a few kegs of Pils going out here and there) we are able to add more variety to the line-up. Several beers that have always been draft-only options we've put in cans and we've been able to add a couple of beers into the line-up that we didn't think we would have time to brew because we had to concentrate so much on brewing Pils. (Don't worry, Pils isn't going away anytime soon, we are still brewing a lot of it and canning it every three weeks.) Of course it depends on what happens in the world in the coming months/years, but we hope to continue to put most of our beer in cans and will do just that as long as the demand continues.
In Tap Room news, we have decided not to reopen the Tap Room for the remainder of the year. To put it bluntly, it doesn't bring in enough money to pay for the additional employees we'd have to hire and while we have a decent amount of outdoor space, it would cost more capital to fix it up, buy new tables, etc. We also have a small staff and it would be a huge disruption if any of us came down with COVID19. In lieu of the Tap Room, we are continuing our partnership with Allegory Brewing. Allegory will have two to three Heater Allen beers on tap and any cans we have available through the summer; they have plenty of room for the social distancing protocols and they're open Wednesday-Sunday. This isn't the end of the Heater Allen Tap Room, we will plan to reopen once we can move into Phase 3, but we know that this will probably be a ways out. Remember to stay safe and wear your mask!