Craft Beer Has Continued to Flow in Florida Amongst COVID-19
Though the pandemic shut down bars in America, it did not shut down the American demand for alcohol, and craft breweries have been working to fill that demand as they also deal with COVID-19.
Within the last five years or so, craft breweries have become very popular in Florida. A craft brewery is a brewery that produces small amounts of beer and is independently owned; they are the small business of the brewing world.
With the demand for craft beer still there, many of these craft breweries rushed to adapt to the new restrictions, relying on social media and online retail to reach their customers.
Because craft breweries work on small-batch beer, they usually rely on a drop system to sell their beer. This means the brewery announces a time and place (generally at the brewery itself) that the beer will be dropped and it is first come first serve. This system typically leads to lines outside of the brewery of people waiting to pick up their beer.
This has led to many of the local craft breweries shifting to a fully online ordering system. For example, the Corporate Ladder Brewing Company in Palmetto, Florida has adopted an online presale system. They announce a beer and the time that they will be releasing it. Once it is released, it is sold online until it sells out. After you have made your purchase you are given a 72-hour window to pick up your beer. This system helps them avoid lines and spread out pick up times.
Tripping Animals Brewing in Doral, Florida has been following a similar game plan, doing presale releases online, and giving the customer a five-day window to pick up their order. Tripping Animals Brewing has also been one of the only craft breweries to implement a delivery system. Before the shutdown, craft breweries were unable to make deliveries straight to the consumer due to government regulations, but during the pandemic, the regulations were lifted to try and allow the breweries to continue to reach their customers safely.
James Herrholz, the Co-Owner of Corporate Ladder Brewing Company, in Palmetto Florida, explained that moving their POS (point of sale) online was not the hard part of the transition, but that it was moving all of their beers from draft to cans and bottles.
“We began to focus on doing everything in cans and bottles, which for us, unfortunately, is pretty difficult in the way that we operate. We have a manual can seamer which seals one can at a time,” said Herrholz.
When asked if Corporate ladder brewing would continue to make online sales after the pandemic is over Herrholz said, “We are going back to lines as soon as we can.” He went onto explain that they feel more comfortable doing traditional in-person drops and that the online sales are “just a different beast.” Herrholz continued, “we will make online sales as long as we need to. We’re just trying to make good beer, and sell it to people who are interested in buying it, while maintaining our business.”
Even with the ability to continue to do their drops online as well as being able to deliver to its customers, Tripping Animals Brewery, in Doral Florida, is still feeling the financial strain of the pandemic. Ignacio Montenegro, the Co-Owner of Tripping Animals, explained that, without their bar and tasting room open, Tripping Animals was forced to let go of more than half of their staff, “We went from having 14 employees to only having six.” Montenegro said that since restrictions were lifted and they were able to open the bar, they have begun to bring back team members little by little.
Montenegro emphasized how much the community has supported them through the pandemic. He explained that he attributes a lot of their success through this pandemic to the strong ties that they have built with the local community.
“Community for us is everything, and we want to please the community in the best way possible if it wasn’t for the community, if it weren’t for the people, we wouldn’t be able to do what we do,” Montenegro said.
Phase two of the reopening process in Florida is still underway, with bars and breweries now being allowed to open at 50% capacity. However, shortly after bars began to open up at the permitted capacity, some have had to shut back down due to positive COVID cases among their employees. One example of this is in downtown St. Petersburg, where three bars closed down (The Gallery, Park and Rec, and The Avenue) because of COVID positive staff members within a week of reopening.
Tripping Animals Brewing and Corporate Ladder Brewing Company have both continued to be able to sell out their releases during the pandemic, some within a matter of minutes. However, both breweries seem to be eager to get back to full capacity, but with COVID cases on the rise in Florida, it is hard to say if that will be soon.
