Stay At Home Order further impacts WV alcoholic beverage market

This evening at 8:00 p.m., the Stay At Home Order issued by West Virginia Governor Jim Justice goes into effect. The new order requires people to stay inside their homes most of the time and closes all non-essential businesses. Alcoholic beverage producers and beer, wine, and liquor sales businesses should not be further seriously affected by the order over the requirements in previous COVID-19 emergency orders. Here are the details as we see it….

The order is similar to those in Ohio, Pennsylvania, California, and several other states. In states with that kind of order, brewery taprooms have been allowed to remain open for carryout business, especially if they are also operating as restaurants selling carryout food. Alcoholic beverage producers are members of the essential food and beverage producer industries and are allowed to continue operation. The order continues the prohibition of on-premise consumption including sampling.

Most breweries still selling beer

Only six of our 27 brewery taprooms have closed during the crisis. For those remaining open, hours have been cut back, but growler, crowler, and can and bottle sales are continuing. Breweries are still brewing beer, and those who self-distribute are still delivering beer to retailers. This is the good side. On the negative side is that demand has shrunk. Beer sales have greatly diminished as people stay home and avoid social contact.

Distillery and winery tasting room cut backs

Since sampling is such an important part of winery, cidery, and distillery tasting room experience, some have decided to close their tasting room stores for the duration of the on-premise consumption ban, Their production side and direct shipping operations may still be working, however. Tasting room store closings have hit some of the more popular WV wine and cider outlets such as Smooth Ambler Spirits, Hawk Knob Cidery, Hatfield & McCoy Moonshine, and Forks of Cheat Winery/Distillery,

At other places, winery and distillery stores are maintaining hours for pick-up sales. For instance, Appalachian Distillery near Ripley is open normal hours for bottle sales, as is Black Draft Distillery outside Martinsburg. Daniel Vineyard in Crab Orchard and Lambert’s Winery in Weston are taking call-in, online, and walk-in orders and will have them ready for curbside delivery if requested. Swilled Dog Hard Cider in Upper Tract has closed its tasting room to walk-ins but is taking online orders for scheduled pickup on Thursdays and Fridays at the cidery door.

Anyone interested in visiting a distillery or winery store to purchase bottles or swag would be wise to check the business’ social media or call ahead to verify operating hours and policies

Grocery store, restaurant rules remain mostly unchanged

Restaurants with a tavern or private club license may continue selling packaged beer and wine to-go. Wine may be sold only in its original package. Beer may be sold in its original un opened bottles, cans, and kegs, or, with the proper license endorsement, in growlers. Growlers are containers that a bar, restaurant, or growler filling station fills with draft beer from their own taps, seals the lid, and then sells it to the customer as packaged beer. The most common growler sizes are half gallon and quart. Bars and restaurants with liquor licenses may not sell distilled spirit products to-go, even whole unopened bottles.

Bars and restaurants are encouraged to emphasize curbside/outdoors/online/phone-in purchasing rather than allowing customers into the premises. If inside sales are allowed, social distancing requirements need to be enforced. Similarly, for customer pick-up of the carryout order, an emphasis on curbside delivery is suggested.

One change or clarification that bars and restaurants are being made aware of is that alcoholic beverages may only be sold in conjunction with a food order. They cannot just sell someone a bottle of beer or wine to-go without that person also purchasing some food.

No change was made to the state policy that licensees are not permitted to deliver any beer or wine off of the premises (curbside delivery is the only exception and it requires special permission from the WVABCA commissioner). Neither can licensees use third parties to deliver beer or wine to a customer. Beer and wine may only be picked up at the business by the purchaser.

For off-sale businesses (grocery/convenience stores, etc.), there is no change to the state policy that packaged beer, wine, and spirits may be sold and must be picked up by the purchaser at the store and taken home. The store may not deliver any alcoholic beverage to the customer along with the groceries or prepared foods. Off-sale stores with a growler filling license may also sell beer in growlers.

Will beer availabilities hold up

For beer availability, probably a good question is how effective will the supply chain remain. While alcoholic beverage manufacturers are considered essential services, even if they continue working, smaller ones that focus on distributing their beer and even larger breweries may not be able to keep their beer consistently in the market. One reason is that beer distributors and/or beer retailers will cut back on ordering due to the greatly decreased demand.

It seems reasonable given the situation that you will see a more focused group of products stocked and pushed by beer distributors. Some small breweries that use distributors have worried about that, fearing that they could be mostly left out for the duration of the stay at home period. Slower selling brands are less likely to be reordered until this crisis is over. Small breweries that self-distribute are more nimble and in a better position to pick up the slack and fill holes that distributors may leave open.

Our brewery taprooms remaining open have cutback hours but are working hard to keep encouraging customers to stop in and take their beer home. However with the growing seriousness of the crisis, and more people staying home as much as possible, fewer people will be showing up at those taproom. Sales will likely decline even more.

While all WV beer distributors are remaining open and making deliveries, but with the big slowdown in sales it remains to be seen just how often they can reorder fresh beer. Some brands and varieties will undoubtedly run low or run out before new orders can be received if this crisis continues for the next weeks, month, or more.

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Updated list of all WV brewery taproom hours and policies during COVID-19 crisis

List of all Growler Filling licensees in WV including address and telephone