Breweries struggle to stay afloat in Colorado Springs and across the nation
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- As restaurants remain closed across Colorado under the "Safer at Home" restrictions, some businesses are struggling to keep their doors open. According to a survey done by the Brewers Association, sales at breweries are down 65% while distributed draft sales are down a whopping 95%.
Travis Fields, owner of FH Beerworks said, “We would probably do in a Friday, Saturday, Sunday weekend what we are going to do the whole month of May under our current situation.”
Due to the lackluster sales across the nation, breweries are feeling the heat. Iron Bird Brewing which opened six years ago officially closed their doors amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I know the guys from Iron Bird and it’s sad," said Fields. "Anytime this happens to people you hate to see it. Especially when it’s so close to home.”
Fields says times have been extremely hard for small craft breweries.
“We create community and it’s really hard to create community without a space to do it in," he said.
But Fields is learning to adjust and FH Beerworks has actually created a delivery service to help relieve funds.
“We created a whole delivery service that hits different neighborhoods each day of the week. Just last week we launched an impromptu drive in movie theater in the back of our property so we are doing that," he said. "We do to go orders through the tap room. It is bringing in some revenue but definitely not what people being in seats would do.”
Supplying 25,000 jobs and contributing around 3 billion dollars, breweries were a huge part of Colorado’s economy. As of the past couple of months that has quickly changed.
“We hope it doesn’t last much longer. We are at eight weeks right now and another two weeks for sure so we will be at 10 to 12 weeks. Three months closed with 25% revenue and 100% overhead. That’s really not sustainable.”
If business continues the way it's been for breweries, the Brewers Association says 60% of breweries could close their doors by July.
