Many breweries in South Carolina are already seeing negative impacts from the shutdown due to coronavirus.
Terry Horner, the owner of Liability Brewing Company in Greenville, said they will be dumping out about 17 kegs of beer that are no longer fresh by the end of the week.
“The shutdown has prevented us to sell those beers that would sell within 60 to 70 days,” he said.
Horner said if sales don't pick back up, he'll have to dump out about 270 kegs of beer over the course of 90 days. He said they would essentially be losing up to $70,000 worth of beer.
He said compared to this time last year, sales are down 70% at his brewery.
Horner said like other breweries in South Carolina, for the last few weeks they have been solely relying on to-go sales.
Horner said almost all breweries rely on in-person taproom sales.
“Most of the breweries in the state are built around the taproom model,” he explained. “If that doesn’t work these businesses can’t function.”
According to Horner, they have shifted their focus to putting their beer in cans instead of just making it for taps.
Before the pandemic and shutdown, the brewery industry was growing at a fast pace in South Carolina. According to the South Carolina Brewers Guild, the industry supports about 5,000 jobs. They said the industry has an $800 million impact on the state.
“We’ve slowed down,” Horner said. “We’ve only brewed two batches of beer since this all started. Which normally we would brew one to two batches a week.”