Drunk at the Pandemic

Sobriety optional.
  Well, not really, but it sure feels like it some days as we go 4 or 5 deep in search of relief from the grind of being essential, not essential or somewhere in between. The jokes about rising alcoholism have a dark undercurrent of truth and I'll be the first one to admit my tweets and other social media postings are part meant to poke fun at myself and part a glimpse into a world gone mad with social distance. While not a super social person to begin with, the sense that I can do nothing except go to work and come home leaves me feeling stressed on top of the other stresses of dealing with the general public and working in a restaurant kitchen where you are often elbow to elbow with your co-workers. You begin to feel like a machine, a cog that turns round awaiting the next crank of the wheel taking you back into the world, suspicious of anyone who walks through the door, at times grateful to be working and other times terrified of having to do so. We have no training or previous time to refer back on to help give us a sense of what to do or what will come next and the longer this goes on, the more cracks begin to appear in our supposed united front. And these cracks are not just between people who think we've been too harsh and others who know this must continue for much longer than we realise. The divisions come from within and that is where I struggle the most.
  At the very best of times, I turn to a pint or two after work for a little liquid relaxation, most often sticking to that the majority of my time. Sure I have a beer every day, but it is usually just the one...until it isn't. Sliding into near alcoholism has long been a personal demon I felt like I kept at bay because I always felt that I did my job, provided for my family and didn't devolve every day into a mess of booze. Truth be told, without kids, I guess my responsibilities kind of end when my shift does because I literally do what I want after that. I long ago left guilt or feelings that I must do this or that family or societal function behind, secure that my personal space was all I needed or wanted. The pressure to do things was less and less as time went on and we established a fairly routine life that was a perfect fit for who we are. A little heavy on the beer from time to time, but for the most part in control.
  Then Jinx died, the pandemic hit and the whole flimsy façade came crashing down in a very real way. Turning to that buzz, the numbing of the world and the forgetting everything became easier with every passing day. Coming home to a pint or two before dinner, 5 or 6 more after and repeating for days on end became the new norm, easy to feel nothing than deal with what felt like everything. The incredible ease with which beer could be delivered to my house certainly has changed the game, picking up a 24 of  an IPA just to drink was something I hadn't done in years and that kind of abundance allows me to indulge my whims whenever I desire. Good or bad, beer delivers me from the day behind and prevents the worry of the day ahead to cloud right damn now. It isn't something I am comfortable with to be sure, but it is real and I am most likely not alone in an increased consumption. I see it, I feel it in every post my online friends make, the need for connection feeding the need for more and more release. We are a social bunch, this pandemic has driven us to seclude in our homes and that is felt most in our mental health while we struggle to wrap our heads around the months ahead.
  This feels disjointed, I usually write from a spark and go from there, revisions minimal and editing almost never. I have no energy for creating anything most for the time, finding my mind has little patience for a vision further than my next pint. While I can pop off a video and a few beer reviews a day, I feel the pandemic slips in more and more and have no problem addressing how I am feeling while still talking about what I'm drinking. It is a weird place to be now, trying to be responsible while also not completely falling apart every single day. I will be the first person to tell you and truthfully admit without hesitation that I desire that feeling 2 or 3 beers gives me every day. I wonder if tomorrow I might wake up with a fever, cough or worse not wake up at all, the stress cannot be good for anyone, let alone a dude pushing way over his ideal weight heading into the back half (third?) of life. Every ache and pain of the day behind me ricochets into a near panic and those pints help calm that beast, every time.
  When I wake up every morning, I look myself in the mirror and say today we will just have one pint when we get home. I even believe myself and head out into the world with hope that it will be a good shift ahead of me. I go forward with an eye to safety and making sure we do all the right things, but with so much unknown, so many things changing daily, it can feel overwhelming and by the time I step back in the door at home, 1 turns to 3 and off we go. Rarely falling down drunk, but seeking a balance to the uneasy feeling that climbs all day long, I wish I could say it will end anytime soon. I am trying to express how I feel and not just drink those feelings away, being mindful that it impacts the people around me, even if they aren't physically here. I try to be more aware, but I am so easily led astray by my own weakness for comfort, seeking any kind of break from the world around me.
  I don't really know what's next, I don't know that this exercise does much good for anyone or even myself. What I do know is that we are not alone in experiencing these feelings of living through history, aware that this will not be over soon and that collectively we will change in some way after we come though the other side of  pandemic unlike anything we've ever seen. I might be a drunk, but at least I'm at home.
Stay safe, try to keep it together as best you can and maybe we can go for a walk before we crack that first beer of the day...it will do us all some good.


Polk

Beer Delivery in a Brave New World

 

The changing landscape of Ontario beer will no doubt be shaken further by the current pandemic, even with the pivot to delivery, same day and otherwise, some of your favourite places will struggle as the nation hunkers down and tries to slow the spread of Covid-19. The taproom explosion of the last couple of years has screeched to a halt and the money invested with hopes of an expanded in house experience driving sales has definitely evaporated into the ether. This is the crux of what we will see in the coming weeks as the cash flow turns slower, people who have stocked up and bought far more than they usually do in an attempt to support the industry will have to come down to earth about their ability to order $50 to $100 of product at a time, with or without delivery charges. The challenge will be to find value for every purchase, balanced between regular offerings, seasonal and a potential dwindling of new beers as taking chances on things not proven to appeal to consumers on a larger scale will be a risk many brewers will not be able to take. Look for lots of hazy IPAs, kettle sours and other things that can return money to the coffers with some reliability.
  With all this in mind, let's take a look at how some of the factors will play out as we look to get more of our favourite beers delivered to our door and stay the fuck home. All of this is anecdotal, stuff I see and hear out on the fringes of the world. 

Selection
  This will be the first and most difficult thing you will see at a lot of places. While you may have become accustomed to a wide variety of styles and options when you would stop in at certain breweries, many have a much more limited online offering and that is no mistake of oversight. Be it less staff or volume to brew new things, a focus on core brands to generate revenue in the 4, 6, 12 or 24 pack format or a realisation that people are looking to drink a little more comfort beer (i.e. styles and brands they know and trust), brewers wanting to keep the lights on and the mash tun in water, malt, yeast and hops will cater to what brings the dollars in. Lagers will remain an easy hit for larger brewers who have the space to properly store them until ready, while we may see a spike in Kveik yeast beers because of their quick turnaround times. Hazy, sour and crushable will see a rise as they remain the go-to for so many who drink craft beer, either new or long time adherents.

Delivery Charges/Schedules
  I will admit, this is where I struggle the most for beer online, the added cost of shipping will temper what many of us can spend simply because adding $10 to $20 dollars means less for actual beer. Whereas I would stop in at various LCBOs around town a couple times a month and buy 1 or 2 of the new stuff , I now have to factor in a shipping charge and my beer budget doesn't grow accordingly. Lucky that some close by breweries have free local delivery (over a certain amount spent, of course) and many still have curbside, pre-order contactless pick up, so that option remains if you have transportation and the time to do it as we try to stay out of the crowd to protect our family and slow the growth rate of this virus. I understand the need for the charges, eating them would almost certainly bankrupt some folks, it is nonetheless part of the consideration now.

Formats/Minimum Buys
  Never a popular thing, the forced 4 pack (or more) buy rankled some folks even before the events of 2020 changed how we buy our beer. So many of us are looking to buy 1 or 2 of everything new and rarely buy a 24 of anything, sprinkling favourite beers into the mix on a weekly basis. Now with the move to online ordering, smaller staffs and the need to move enough beer to make shipping viable, we see the rise of minimum buys as the norm. Some brewers have only 12 or 24 packs, others allow the mixing of 4 packs to fill 24 or 48 minimum orders and some don't care as long as you hit their minimum dollar amount to ship it out. I completely understand the logistics of the smaller staff, spreading people out to minimize contact as they pack all these orders and continuing to support them as best we can. But I would like at least the option to make my 24 4 different 6 packs at a minimum, that's all I'm saying.

Time
  I used to stop by various local breweries on a semi-regular basis to get whatever new stuff happened to be out, maybe a couple of favourites and be on my way. LCBO on the way home from work, easy and simple. Now things are much different and if we want to help flatten the curve, we need to stay home and that means avoiding the LCBO or any sort of public space whenever possible. But if you want delivery, you need to take into account the time factor, how long it will take from order to glass and that will drive a lot of folks even more hyper local. Many breweries are using staff who would otherwise be laid off to help deliver beer in a local circle, from a small handful of postal codes close to home for the smaller ones to cross province same day for the ones with the staff and logistics to get that done. A nominal fee of $5 or more likely than not free will drive people closer to home and I am proof of that with Nickel Brook, Collective, Merit and Clifford all getting beer to my house on the cheap. But you have to plan far more than you would, the lines especially will be long at provincial liquor stores this weekend, crowds are not your friend during a pandemic. Order, but make sure you know when and how long it will take to get to you so you can ration and keep yourself stocked up.

  I have no special insight, no crystal ball as to how this all turns out. Best case scenario, we see the curve flatten, summer may see a slight lifting of restrictions and some normalcy, but the more likely scenario is that we are in this for a long haul. September isn't out of the question and even then we will not go back to life as it was in early 2020. How many breweries have the resources, the ability to pivot to delivery and curbside and the appeal to keep people interested in their product has yet to be seen, but I have little doubt we are weeks away from a few shuttering their doors. Not all of those will be temporary and while it is a small thing in a sea of bigger concerns, it breaks my heart to see people lose a dream when they did nothing wrong except have it in the time of reckoning for a world that wasn't ready.

Want to find out who is delivering, how much and where? Check out the Ontario Beer Delivery Index  or What's Brewin.Ca for more info.

Stay safe, support your local brewery, stay home and be kind to each other.

Polk

Virtual Cheers and other Thoughts...

Beer is a social drink.
Most beer drinkers I know like to drink with other people, it enhances what's in your glass and it makes life a little better for everyone.
Right now, that is all gone, save for the virtual meet-ups on your computer and while that seems to be fine in the short term, I wonder about the mental health implications of a long term physical distancing and how that will play out as the days become weeks become months.
  Personally I have long preferred to drink alone, finding my consumption far less when I am not in a social situation, a huge reversal of the party animal I was not so many years ago. But even I am feeling the pinch of not being able to stop into Clifford Brewing just because I want a pint and some friendly conversations or hitting up Merit, Collective Fairweather or Grain & Grit to chat with my Hamilton friends. There is a feeling of community that you can't quite replicate on Zoom or FaceTime and while we know we must stay home to do our part in flatteneing the curve, it does begin to weigh on your mind. Hyper vigilance aside, the monotony of life spent trying to keep yourself distanced from the world is something that surely leads to more drinking than less. I did an online poll at the beginning of the isolation and it was pretty evenly split between folks drinking the same anmount and those who felt their consumption had risen. To do it again, I would imagine that those numbers would now skew to the latter as boredom, terror and a combination of the two take hold.
  When Jinx passed away in the early part of the year, I had a couple of bad days followed by a whole lot of heavy nights where I sat and drank and drank and drank. A response to grief I hadn't felt in a long time and I was able to grasp hold to myself and regain my footing, but not without a real look into the deepest flaws of my character and self control.
  Covid-19 is a whole different game. This isn't a life event that you learn to live with it, time helping to heal your wounds, living in a new normal, not quite right but living with hope once again. This current pandemic has stopped our economy, frozen lives in place, ripped socializing from our lives and left a gaping hole in what used to be normalcy. Abnormal is the new normal and if you're on day 10 of self isolation, who cares if you're cracking into your first beer at 10 a.m.? Like you got something better to do. Or maybe you are still working and that stress is driving you to open the second bottle of wine after a particularly bad day. These thoughts cross my mind all the time and I will be the first person to tell you that it is very easy to let 1 beer turn into 6 and let the world slip away far too many nights in the last 3 weeks. I try to limit myself to just one pint as much as possible, but to honest, when I am 2 feet from people taking their orders all day and shoulder to shoulder with my co workers in the kitchen, hoping everyone is following the rules to stay home if they are ill, I need a couple of beers or a few glasses of wine to take the edge off at the end of my workday. Is it healthy? Well, I know it isn't, but my mental health says "Fuck it" and here we are.
  Staying sober is not an option for me, it isn't something I desire, but I do understand that my relationship with alcohol is complicated, deserving of some serious introspection and maybe when life turns a corner and we see a glimpse of freedom I will deal with it. I know we need to be steady during this crisis, we need to be there for our families and our friends, as best we can at a distance, and losing yourself in a drunken stupor isn't gonna help anyone. I know this is disjointed at best, the struggle for coherence finds me swinging from one edge to the other, hoping I don't fall off. I guess I hope this reaches someone who feels like I do, adrift amongst the world, unsure what is the next move and hoping everyone you know and love comes out the other side of this in one piece, sane and healthy.
 But having a couple of pints, taking the edge off a chaotic time in world history? I say do what makes you happy, stay safe and stay the fuck home if you can. Be kind to yourself if you screw up, forgive someone else if they do and remember to say "I love you" when you can.
 


Love,
Polk