Hopulist Issue Eight

Craft beer
in the time
of COVID-19
As the craft beer world looked ahead
to 2020, we’re sure plenty of you
out there had your own ideas about
the challenges we might have to face and
overcome to ensure it is another successful
year. We’re not sure many people had in
mind what has ended up happening, this
new reality that we find ourselves in with
a pandemic sweeping the globe. It’s a
bizarre and barely believable situation, but
it is here and besides the obvious issues
it’s created, the pinch is likely to be felt
particularly hard by small independent
brewers and bars. Many of the beers you
know and love are lovingly brewed by very
small teams of hardworking individuals who
never came into this game to make a quick
buck, but to do something that they enjoy
and are passionate about. They need our
help now more than ever, because when
this is all over, we don’t all want to go back
to drinking tasteless macro crap.
But, what can you do? Every craft brewer
is in their own unique situation, with some
not able to brew at full capacity or even
at all. Some are still managing though,
and some are doing their absolute utmost
to continue serving the customer bases
they’ve worked so hard to build up. Many
of these brewers have had to resort to
relying solely on direct sales from their
websites and are working tirelessly to
ensure they can meet that demand. But
they are still selling beer. Get on your
laptop, smartphone or other internetconnected
device and search around,
there’s a good chance your favourite brewer
is selling online. Some of them are naturally
experiencing much higher demand than
usual and also working with a reduced