LETTER FROM NORTH AMERICA

Getting creative to survive the Pandemic

It may not be everyone’s idea of an evening well spent, but there are certainly many among us who enjoy nothing more than spending some time with friends or family, a few choice beers, and a board game. Which must have been what was going through the minds of the folk behind Ontario’s Wellington Brewery when, as one of their many pandemic promotional strategies, they created Welly Can Land, a craft beerthemed board game the company designed and packaged for sale in 12-can and 24-pack editions.

The Canadian board game is but one of the many initiatives born of the challenges faced by breweries in this plague-ridden year, albeit arguably one of the most interesting and unusual. It also highlights one of the very few bright sides to our present difficulties, that being how breweries large and small have been forced to get abundantly creative in order to survive a time when on-premise sales have been virtually non-existent and traditional business models have been flipped on their heads.

I have written before in this space about how the nimbleness of smallscale independent breweries has been one of their greatest assets this year, and coupled with healthy doses of imagination and creativity, that rapidfire dexterity has yielded numerous benefits beyond easy online ordering and beer delivery. Like the beer and grocery packs launched almost simultaneously – but independently – by another Ontario operation, Henderson Brewing, and Pittsburgh’s East End Brewing.

For their ‘Pantry Pack,’ Henderson partnered with several area businesses and created a larder-stocker featuring twenty cans of the brewery’s beer plus coffee, mustard, hot sauce, ‘beer crisps’ and sesame butter, all delivered in a reusable, environmentally-friendly crate. Meanwhile, south of the border in Pennsylvania, East End likewise partnered with local businesses on subscription-based ‘Survival Kits’ featuring a different mix of food and drink each week for six weeks, available for pick-up only at the brewery. The idea, according to a story at triblive.com, the online presence of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, is to break the “monotony of the pandemic” while also providing support to businesses hard-hit by the spread of coronavirus.

Variety packs are, of course, nothing new in the world of beer, but they have multiplied and thrived during this time when the sort of tasting experiences one might have at a beer speciality bar or brewery taproom have been all but impossible to find. Generally speaking, this is where larger, regionally- or nationally-focused breweries have had a greater presence than have small, local breweries which might be new to the idea of packaging their beer at all, much less creating sample cases.

While almost every bottling or canning brewery of note has released some sort of variety pack this summer, among the more interesting and creative are Stone Brewing’s IPA Mix Pack, Elysian Brewing’s Pumpkin Patch Variety Pack – which, yes, features four different pumpkin beers! – and Victory Brewing’s Mystical Monkey Mixer Pack, featuring the brewery’s flagship Golden Monkey strong golden ale plus three variations on the Belgiuminspired beer.

Sometime, though, getting innovative can be as simple as reaching out to the local community, as did the Able Seedhouse + Brewery, located in the Arts District of Northeast Minneapolis, Minnesota. For their summer seasonal, the brewery partnered with a professor at the Minneapolis Community and Technical College to have a class there pursue a full-semester project which led to the design and marketing of the beer. Although conceived prepandemic, the effort did require brewery owners to think quickly when lockdown hit, as the art show originally planned to take place at the brewery evolved into a greater emphasis on the packaged beer backed by a strong social media campaign.

Giving back to the community has also been a recurring theme across Canada and the United States this difficult summer, highlighted by the stunningly successful Black is Beautiful collaboration effort. Instigated by Weathered Souls Brewing of San Antonio, Texas, the initiative offers an open-source recipe and label art to any brewery that pledges to donate 100% of the proceeds from the beer to “local foundations that support police brutality reform and legal defences for those who have been wronged,” an offer which, at last count, has been taken up by 1,158 breweries across the two countries and well beyond, extending to such far-removed locales as Wollongong, Australia, and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

In the end, it’s all about engaging consumers and strengthening community, whether through a family board game, a beer tasting among close friends, or a wide-spread effort in support of social justice for all. Which, to a considerable degree, has really been one of craft brewing’s great strength all along, made only stronger by the challenges the industry continues to face in 2020.

Stephen Beaumont