We Must Act Quickly To Avoid Wasting A Zillion Beers
It is not surprising that with all the idle time provided by the quarantine, people are itching with the desire to get a little lit. I don't know about you, but for me, nothing is scarier than an indefinite amount of time alone with your thoughts. Fuck leaning into feeling your feelings and REALLY fuck evaluating whether you're truly happy with yourself and the decisions you've made up until this point.
That sounds absolutely awful.
So let's get fucked up. You want to talk happy? I've NEVER seen a guy more happy then when he's been yugging beers for the last six hours watching old Jordan highlights on his 65 inch flat-screen TV, drunk texting his ex-girlfriend.
That, sir, is nirvana.
Given the serious uptick in need for anti-social lubricant, supermarket alcohol sales have spiked upwards of 20% in the last month.
Oh, good, some positive economic news.
I'm happy for all of the liquor stores and wine shops out there. Truly. But given that bars and pubs look set to stay shut for the foreseeable future, what's going to happen to the contents of their kegs, taps, and cellars?
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Truly a question for the age.
And as it turns out, the answer is pretty straightforward: Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
According to an article in the Financial Times, over 50 million pints of beer will go to waste just in the UK alone. “The problem was the short notice, so most pubs had high levels of stock,” said Tim Martin, chairman of the UK’s largest pub chain Wetherspoons. “Once it’s in the pub cellar, it’s a helluva job for the brewer to pick it up. Result: great waste.”
Damn. That is a shame. Truly. A tragedy, even.
What's worse? It's almost impossible to dispose of the plethora of hoppy IPA's and sweet, sweet lagers slowly going rancid in kegs around the world. Bar owners have been told not to tip out-of-date beer down storm drains because it's illegal and environmentally damaging. Some pub owners in the UK are doing it anyway.
Literally, a zillion beers, straight down the drain.
Desperate times indeed. And also, if the streets are empty, whose going to notice there are an extra 200 kegs of Brewski Barbarian in the sewer anyway? No one. The answer is no one.
In the end, there may be a Coronavirus related silver lining to all of this extra brew on tap.
One option that publicans and brewers who spoke to the BBC would love to try is converting out-of-date beer into hand sanitiser, by extracting the alcohol. Independent brewer Brewdog is already making hand sanitiser at its Aberdeenshire premises, while the government is giving manufacturers who want to do the same "priority" access to the methylated spirits - or "denatured alcohol" - they need.
OH SHIT. Nature abhors a vacuum. I don't know about you, but I'll be the first in line to buy a case of beer hand sanitizer, especially if the bottles look like little mini-kegs.