As 2020 grinds toward its close, the year’s dearth of beer events represents not only lost revenue for breweries, but an existential threat to the way many businesses see their purpose and place in the industry.
Canceling events jeopardizes two of the main pillars supporting craft breweries—community and innovation—because events facilitate customer interaction and offer the chance to test new beers with drinkers. Events, from neighborhood tap takeovers to major beer festivals, are core to the identity of small breweries. These businesses have long defined themselves as places that are creative, fun, and alternative to the mainstream. So while breweries are loath to become loci for the virus’ spread, they're also fearful that a lack of events could have devastating consequences that endure beyond 2020.
On Oct. 10, Olde Mecklenburg Brewery (OMB) in Charlotte, North Carolina co-hosted a free COVID-19 testing event at its brewery. This wasn’t just community service: It was a response to the news that Mecklenburg County health officials had linked five cases of COVID-19 to the brewery’s Mecktoberfest celebration, which had taken place Sept. 25-27. In a letter posted to the brewery’s website, OMB founder John Marrino says that contrary to the brewery’s expectations of “smaller turnout,” several thousand people visited the brewery across three days of the event. The county health department urged all attendees to get tested, though, according to WBTV News, only 137 people showed up at the testing event, which was held in partnership with the county health department and Starmount Healthcare.
This dramatic example epitomizes the possible risks breweries face when hosting events as the pandemic’s trajectory worsens. According to The New York Times’ analysis, new cases of COVID-19 nationally increased +32% the week of Oct. 22 from their average two weeks prior. On Oct. 23, America recorded its highest daily number of new cases since the pandemic began, tallying more than 83,000 infections.
As breweries confront the risks of becoming vectors for the virus’ spread, they’re also recognizing that a total halt to beer events jeopardizes their very identities. Events bring in revenue: 88.3% of breweries that responded to a March survey by the Brewers Association reporting that the pandemic had already affected their business via canceled events. But owners say the threat to their businesses goes beyond lost ticket sales: An end to large social gatherings means an end to the way many drinkers connect to breweries, and an end to in-person feedback on new beers.
Even when breweries enforce social distancing, mask wearing, and rigorous sanitation of surfaces, simply gathering people together in any form is not without potential risks.
Solemn Oath Brewery in Naperville, Illinois, confronted that reality in mid-October, when a non-customer-facing employee tested positive for COVID-19 days after the brewery had hosted its annual Oktoberfest event, which drew 350 people across three distinct sessions. The employee did not attend the event, but Solemn Oath’s chief operating officer, John Barley, says the positive test caused the brewery to close for a day to conduct two consecutive deep cleanings of surfaces and equipment.
Breweries tend to tout their sanitation practices—“brewers are uniquely equipped to deal with the cleaning portion,” Barley says—but research indicates sanitation may actually be distracting Americans from the way the virus is primarily spread: through the air.
PBS NewsHour aired a segment on this topic in September. On the program, Shelly Miller, an environmental engineer at the University of Colorado Boulder, said The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) initially focused too much guidance on surface disinfection rather than preventing airborne transmission. Scrubbing surfaces, she says, can divert attention from the fact that gatherings of people are the major way this virus spreads. In essence, cleaning is good, but staying far apart is better.
Barley says the best breweries can do right now is keep events to a manageable size that allows for social distancing between tables and groups, enforce mask wearing, and abide by local health regulations. He believes that in-person events that follow those guidelines remain vital to breweries’ survival, connecting customers to brands that need more support than ever. That connection is where Solemn Oath finds value in events like Oktoberfest; the event itself, Barley says, actually brought in less revenue than a typical Saturday of taproom sales would have. But if people have a positive experience at the physical brewery, they might want to buy that brewery’s beer off the shelf, or make it a priority to visit the taproom.
“It’s been an integral part of craft beer for the last 15 years to throw larger, community-scale events. It’s what we’re good at,” he says. With sporting events, concerts, and even religious services on hold in some places, Barley says hosting in-person brewery events is “more important than ever.”
If this were a typical year, Chicago’s Revolution Brewing would have just wrapped up two of its largest annual events: its Oktoberfest celebrations and its Deep Wood beer release. The former attracts 10,000-15,000 people daily to the closed-off streets outside Revolution’s brewpub; the latter draws thousands of drinkers who typically wait in line for a chance to sample and purchase barrel-aged beers in the brewery’s Deep Wood series.
But with cases trending upward in Illinois—the state added 4,729 new cases Oct. 26, and its seven-day positive rate rose from 6.1% to 6.3%—2020’s events look quite different. This year, Revolution canceled Oktoberfest, moved its Deep Wood release to online sales with curbside pickup, and restricted Deep Wood preview tastings to 50 people (the maximum allowed under Chicago’s Phase 4 guidance).
Parties and events at bars to celebrate the brewery’s Oktoberfest beer release were also mostly canceled. In September, Revolution hosted a “keep-the-stein” night at a Chicago bar, with limited capacity and social distancing required. Josh Deth, founder of Revolution, struggles to find deep satisfaction in that type of event.
“We sat at our own table and didn’t walk around and talk to customers at all,” Deth says. “But you see someone drinking your beer in your stein and that’s how you define success now, I guess.”
Revolution was the 50th-largest brewery in the country in 2019, according to the Brewers Association, and sales of its packaged beers at grocery stores and other retailers have kept the brewery afloat during the pandemic. A lack of revenue isn’t what stings about these canceled events; Deth says Revolution sometimes lost money on its Oktoberfests if the weather was cold or rainy. Instead, he’s mourning something intangible: his brewery’s identity. Revolution began as a brewpub, and before the pandemic, that brewpub and Revolution’s newer taproom accounted for 24% of the brewery’s overall sales. Though packaged sales have sustained Revolution during COVID, it’s clear the brewery still sees the brewpub as its beating heart.
“I wanted to create a place that people could come together and gather and share together. It was never about selling a lot of beers so you could drink them at home,” Deth says.
Deth is also concerned about how Chicago’s bars will survive winter. On Oct. 21, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot ordered bars to close for indoor service following a rise in positive case rates in the city; indoor dining remains open at limited capacity, however.
“There’s a shakeout, not just for breweries and bars and restaurants, but the whole idea of social interaction is up in the air,” Deth says.
Taproom-focused breweries fear customers are becoming more used to drinking at home, establishing behavioral patterns that will persist long-term. A survey conducted by the North Carolina Craft Brewers Guild (NCCBG) asked 4,000 North Carolina residents how likely they were to continue using curbside or delivery to order beer. The results found 70% said they were very or somewhat likely to do so, even after breweries reopen for on-site drinking. That doesn’t bode well for the large-scale events and gatherings breweries see as core to their mission and identities.
Since the pandemic’s arrival in early March, Montclair Brewery in Montclair, New Jersey has tried shifting its regular taproom events. It has held online happy hours and trivia contests, modified its Oktoberfest event to allow for table service and outdoor dining, and streamed live music from local bands online. Its actions echo an industry-wide shift to online events, including those hosted by state brewers’ guilds, and even a virtual Great American Beer Festival in early October.
But private events, which Montclair Brewery’s taproom hosted between 35-50 times a year, just can’t be held over Zoom—and those are the events that often connect most deeply with customers.
Co-owner Denise Ford Sawadogo gives an example of a customer who had booked Montclair Brewery’s taproom for his daughter’s surprise 21st birthday party in March. The brewers had even brewed a special batch of beer flavored with peanut butter to match the woman’s peanut butter birthday cake. The party was postponed as the taproom remained closed in the early months of the pandemic, but the customer was adamant he wanted to reschedule the party. Finally, it was held outdoors in the brewery’s beer garden in July.
Since then, the brewery has put together a protocol and pricing structure for outdoor events (these are based on a minimum beer spend, with packages starting at $200 for two-to-three hours) and has hosted several more semi-private parties of 10-40 people. This, Ford Sawadogo says, shows how important breweries are as venues for celebrating people’s milestones. That deep connection—attending an important, personal event at a brewery for a friend or family members—is what might make Montclair’s beer stand out on a shelf among dozens of other options.
“If we weren’t able to hold events at all, we’d have to focus on just the beer; which, the beer is important, but it’s all the other stuff that adds to it,” she says. “Every brewery is looking for how to be different, and one of the ways we do that is through our events. They’re critical.”
Deth mentions another way in which events are crucial to a brewery’s identity: They’re opportunities to debut and test drinkers’ reactions to new beers. Revolution often trials small-batch beers at events, soaking up valuable feedback that’s more challenging to solicit if breweries can’t hand drinkers three-ounce samples in person.
“Events and people gathering together have a strong connection with innovation,” Deth says. “Anything you want to go to market with, you have to get people to trial it.”
Some breweries, like Lawson’s Finest Liquids, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, Goose Island Beer Company, and Verboten Brewing have been conducting virtual tastings with the media to solicit feedback on new beers, though these are beers already intended for wide production and distribution. Getting pilot-batch samples in the hands of customers and gauging their honest reactions is logistically more difficult.
Deth is afraid that the longer the pandemic remains—some experts predict two more years of spread—the more Americans will become habituated to drinking at home rather than in person and at events. This was already shifting elsewhere in the world, including the U.K.
It reminds Deth of what the U.S. beer industry looked like decades ago, before the rise of craft breweries, when mass-produced beers were brewed at factories most drinkers never visited. Beer was a consumer good like toothpaste or cereal. Drinkers might have had a favorite brand, but there was little incentive for those brands to connect with customers on a personal level.
“It harkens back to when there was no innovation and nobody pushing community,” he says.
It’s clear that events aren’t just major keys to individual breweries’ identities: they’re part of what the craft beer industry is about as a whole. They’re what distinguishes local breweries from national or international beer brands, and even what distinguishes one small brewery from another.
That explains why so many breweries are trying to forge ahead with events any way they can. Yes, there are risks involved—but for some, the risk of canceling events entirely feels even greater.
Words by Kate Bernot