DETROIT – Their two Detroit tap rooms might be closed, but Eastern Market Brewing has come up with an idea to get their craft beer into customers’ hands.
They plan to deliver beer right to people’s homes amid the coronavirus pandemic.
While we all try to get through the social distancing era together, beer could certainly help. That’s why Eastern Market Brewing is getting creative about send its beer to customers while also keeping employees and the business afloat.
The company opened the Ferndale project less than four weeks ago, only to get shut down Monday.
“I see the momentum we had growing, and seeing it come to a standstill has been kind of tough,” managing partner Dayne Bartscht said. “One nie thing about it, though, is because we’re so new, we’re not set in our ways. So we’re able to adapt and be nimble.”
They’re adapting by bringing beers to your doorstep.
“There’s a small piece of code from the Michigan Liquor Control Commission than allows direct beer deliveries for breweries,” Bartscht said.
The beer must be delivered by a brewery employee with an accredited safe serve license.
“Coming this weekend, we hope to have 24 delivery drivers ready to send beer out to local homes,” Bartscht said. “The thing is, I’ve got to make tens of thousands of dollars a week to continue to employ my staff. I now have 48 employees. I obviously have my family at home. I’ve got two little girls and one on the way, and thinking about them is important, but all of my employees are family, and figuring out how we can get through this together has been a huge focus the last few days.”
So the company is improvising, canning its beer at the Ferndale project while taking every safety precaution.
“Our goal is for nothing to exchange hands, other than the actual product itself, which has been pre-sanitized,” Bartscht said.
Beer orders will come in through an app they’re creating called “Wing It.”
“I see a viable business here,” Bartscht said. “I also see this as a way to mitigate risks if something like this were to happen again.”
Eastern Market Brewing plans to launch the pilot program as early as Wednesday. The Wing It app will be up and running within the week.