Goya Dmytryshchak
When the bars and pubs shut, Footscray’s Hop Nation Brewery pulled together beers made by struggling local independent brewers to home deliver packs of “Communitinnies”.
The brewery was started six years ago by friends Sam Hambour and Duncan Gibson.
Mr Hambour said the pair had to quickly rethink their business model after the coronavirus shutdown.
“We closed our bar at the brewery and over half of our customers, as in bars and restaurants, also shut their doors,” he said.
“Some of our canned product still had bottle shops but many of our customers were unable to trade, so we didn’t have a usual supply chain from the people that bought our beer.
“Overnight, more than half our business was not able to run.”
They started home-delivering packs of mixed beers dubbed ‘Quarantinnies’, which evolved into ‘Communitinnies’.
This was accompanied by a social media campaign urging people in isolation to “Go on a virtual brewery crawl and help with #KeepingLocalAlive!”
“Think of it like an advent calendar for some prolonged time at home,” the campaign went.
About 20 Melbourne breweries feature in the Communitinnies packs, including Spotswood’s Two Birds, Braeside’s Boatrocker, Kensington’s Bonehead, Fitzroy’s Fixation, Port Melbourne’s Colonial, Abbotsford’s Bodriggy and Seaford’s Mr Banks.
“The idea was people would be able to visit their craft brewery from the comfort of their own home,” Mr Hambour said.
