The beer industry has been undergoing sizable losses with the Coronavirus and kegs everywhere are going stale. Since everyone has been staying home and not going to outdoor activities like concerts or restaurants, the beer in the kegs have been going stale and the brewers and distributors don’t know what to do with the vast supply.
The epidemic has caused bars to close everywhere, and being before two major holidays, St.Patricks Day and “March Madness” basketball tournament, the beer which was ordered for those events are now being unused and spoiling. Since the beer is in locked establishments, this is leaving the beer industry with a huge problem. What are they suppose to do with all the beer that nobody is going to want to drink?
Dumbing the large amount of beer isn’t an option. The large amount of beer can’t be dumped down the drains since it can alter the pH levels, reduce oxygen in the water and create bacteria. As of March there has been over 10 million gallons of suds abandoned in venues alone. This is equivalent to around 1 million kegs. With all the unsold and expiring beer, this could cost the industry around 1 billion dollars.
Before distributors can decided what to do with the large supply of beer, they must get it out of the locked down establishments housing them. With over thousands of venues, it is creating a very difficult process. Not only do the companies need to worry about getting into the venues but they are also facing the challenges of transporting all the kegs and balancing the trucks to compensate for the full and empty kegs.
“This is a hot potato because none of our businesses are set up to return massive amounts of beer,” says Dan Vorlage, marketing head of Denver-based MicroStar Logistics LLC, the U.S.’s largest keg-logistics company. “It takes three times as many trucks to transport full kegs than empty one.”
