M-m-m-my Sh(Ca)arona, Small Breweries, Bars, Shops… eek!
There is quite obviously a lot of talk bout Covid-19 (Coronavirus) and we are all waiting for the Government to tell us all to stay indoors for a period of time.
A point about brewery / bar Hygiene.
We make beer, and to make good beer you have to keep everything very clean, this is common practice in breweries. We have masses of written cleaning procedure in place for all brewery processes. We did extra cleaning (disinfection) the brewery bar setup yesterday too and I’m going to go kill everything again this morning before we open to the public. We have always had a Clean Glass policy on our bar, each pour is into a fresh clean glass so there is no person to person contamination. We have loo roll (obviously) and of course hand soap, so please do wash your hands when you arrive and ensure they are washed at other appropriate times while you are drinking with us.
We are backing-up our own bar and serving procedure and advising staff of the importance of sticking to it. Thanks
The Corona Panic plus the Toilet Roll and Hand Soap panic!
Has already set in and we have noticed a marked change in beer sales this week, this means that a lot of people are already practicing ‘Social Distancing’…. for us in the brewery and many other small businesses this means that sales and footfall are already dropping off and you start to wonder how long you can sustain a business before the Government shout LOCK-DOWN! Assuming sales continue to tail off up until that Government shout out its not going to be good for small business and especially the self-employed who don’t get any sick-benefits.
So then when the Shut-down does happen, 1-2 weeks maybe… yeah it will be like the Christmas holidays in December but without the over-eating or presents to unwrap, So we know we can shut down for 2 weeks once a year, its basically like stopping brewing for 1 month with the wind-down then wind-back up into production again.
But what happens in the wind-back-up after a UK Corona Isolation? I dare say that the landscape of how we do things in the UK will have changed and it will be a change that sticks with us for a long time, its going to be something we will all remember as its a world-event. You can predict that people will be affected and we will start on a slow upturn and the country starts to return to a slightly new normality.
So what can we do?
Please try and support your small independent local businesses, they are all going to need support. And indeed, true Local Support within towns with businesses buying local might just be a really sensible way forward. True Local Support will have multiple benefits, instead of many hands and many people delivering the goods you need its just one or two people which also means that if we think of 20-25miles as being local that we actually all contain ourselves and any bugs we may be unwittingly spreading. Greta Thunberg will also be happy because Supporting Local is also very good for food miles so less fuel wasted and not as much pollution screwing up our planet and our health, this is something we all need to be aware of and I’m glad people like Greta are taking a stand, the world and Govt policy need a kick up the arse!
We hope we and all the other small indie businesses out there come out of the other side of all this with our businesses intact!
