Editor’s Note: The coronavirus has hammered the hospitality industry, forcing restaurants, breweries and hotels to lay off millions of employees. These businesses are in desperate need of help. Consider ordering takeout or delivery, buying direct from breweries, purchasing gift cards or pledging money to initiatives like the James Beard Foundation Food and Beverage Industry Relief Fund or Save Restaurants, and get on the mailing list for All Together Beer, a worldwide beer collaboration with proceeds going to hospitality professionals.
The best craft breweries of today are local or regional businesses that rely on taproom sales and partnerships with local beer bars. Since coronavirus has thrust social distancing upon the U.S. and forced taprooms and bars alike to shutter, that business model has folded like a house of cards. Craft beer has an answer, though, and it’s a long time coming: selling beer online.
Previously only available at shops, bars and in the taproom, much-hyped New York City breweries like Threes Brewing, Grimm Ales and Evil Twin launched online beer shops midway through March and throughout April. Grimm, which also offers deliveries and to-go ordering through Caviar and GrubHub, opened its first-ever webstore for statewide shipping. Threes, who were planning on launching an online portal later in the year before the outbreak, had a short headstart. Joshua Stylman, Threes Brewing founder, says it has allowed the brewery to rehire employees they were forced to lay off. “[We said] let’s try to build an e-commerce business and a proper supply chain in just three days,” Stylman says. If Threes weathers the current situation and returns to some sort of normalcy, Stylman says online ordering is likely here to stay.
Asheville, North Carolina’s Burial Beer Co. launched its online shop in response to its taprooms closing, too. The shop, which ships to more than 30 states, launched in the middle of March. “It’s our taproom to go,” Chris McClure, the brewery’s director of brand, says. “We want people to be able to continue their interpretative journey with our beer in the comfort of their own home.”
Like Threes, Burial was planning to launch an online beer shop later this year, and was forced to fast-track development to stay afloat. McClure says its given the brewery a lifeline. “The support from our customers is amazing. Our staff is overwhelmed. That is the short of it. But it has kept us working, kept jobs secured at Burial, and kept our customers connected to us from their homes in North Carolina and across America.
Breweries adopting proper online shopping years after the online shopping revolution is partly due to consumer behavior, but mostly legal issues. There is an enormously complicated web of laws and red tape surrounding who can and can’t sell alcohol. Because booze makers have rarely needed to trudge through the red tape, drinkers have never become accustomed to going online to buy booze. That is, until the last two months, when online whiskey, wine and beer purchasing exploded.
New York state has relaxed laws and looked the other way on others to allow for direct sales from the brewery. But even breweries in California, a state that’s allowed direct-to-consumer online beer sales for nearly two decades thanks to the wine industry and a huge brewery scene, were slow to adopt online sales portals until recently.