Author: Marshall Schott

Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined living in a time when toilet paper was a hot commodity, kids were removed from school for months, and people were being implored to keep a safe distance from each other. I’ve read and heard the word “unprecedented” more times than I can count over the last week, and it’s true– regardless of your take on COVID-19 and how it’s being handled, we all have to deal with this very weird and unfamiliar situation, one that is sadly bound to have a negative impact on many in the beer and brewing industry.

Nearly every weekend, I spend at least a couple hours knocking a few back with friends at the House Of Pendragon taproom, an activity I trust most of you out there can relate to. But this won’t be happening anytime soon due mandated closures. I’ve heard from a number of people in the industry recently including brewery owners who are understandably anxious about the future of their businesses, bar staff who have been or are at risk of getting laid off, and organizers forced to cancel events they’ve been planning for months, all because of COVID-19.

It sucks so fucking bad.

I’ve also been contacted by quite a few folks asking how Brülosophy will be affected, and the reality is, it’s led to a bit more anxiety than I’m used to experiencing. The fact of the matter is, a big part of what we do is supported by sponsors, many of whom are really struggling because of COVID-19. Moreover, while we don’t sell our beer to consumers, we do rely on others to evaluate what we brew in order to get the data we then share with all of you. A good portion of this data is collected in public settings like brewery taprooms and homebrew club meetings, which we don’t currently have access to. And of course, to keep the risk of spreading the virus as low as possible, we will not be hosting large tasting sessions at our homes for the time being.

As shitty as this is, the Brülosophy crew sees the value in continuing to provide interesting brewing content and discussed ways we can adapt during these trying times. Obviously, we won’t be able to serve our beers to as many people as we’d like, but I think we’ve settled on some temporary solutions that will suffice. Here’s our plans for each main series once we’ve published the articles that we already have data collected for.

exBEERiments

Our goal for every xBmt is to have a minimum of 20 people participate in the triangle test before analyzing and sharing the data. This is what we’re known for, it’s our bread and butter, and hence making major changes is pretty scary. But we have to, so we put our heads together and decided to go with an approach many have requested over the years.

Rather than serving the triangle tests once to multiple blind tasters, the contributor who brewed it will take a minimum of 10 semi-blind triangle tests. When reporting the results, we’ll also go into more detail about the contributor’s impressions and experience with the beer. If the opportunity is there based on recommended safety practices, we’ll also include the results of a taster blind to the variable who also completes multiple trials.

We’ll be sure to indicate the xBmts completed in this manner and plan to return to them once life is back to normal.

Short & Shoddy

I’ve been handling the majority of this series and will continue to do so. Seeing as we publish one Short & Shoddy article per month, my hope is it won’t be impacted for very long. For the few batches we plan to publish during this pandemic, I’ll have just a few participants evaluate the beers using recommended social distancing guidelines, then include more personal feedback from each taster in the articles.

The Hop Chronicles

We recently upped The Hop Chronicles (THC) series to twice monthly, and thanks to Paul’s charming personality, he usually yields 30+ participants. Similar to the Short & Shoddy series, we’ll be replacing blind taster data with more anecdotal impressions from both Paul and myself. Given the circumstances, we may have to reduce the frequency with which THC articles are published for a short time.

Brü It Yourself

The beautiful thing about the Brü It Yourself (BIY) series is that it doesn’t involve any formal data collection, rather we just share the beer with a few friends and write about our thoughts. For this reason, we may actually increase the frequency of these articles until things blow over. If there’s anything interesting you’d like to see us brew, drink, and write about, please do not hesitate to let us know!

The Brülosophy Podcast

Producing a podcast isn’t the easiest or cheapest feat, but as I’ve tried to make very clear over the years, we’ve been able to do it thanks largely to the support we get from sponsors and Patrons. Unfortunately, due to brewery closures and such, I understandably expect to lose some of this support, which will put us in a precarious position. At this point, we’ve no plans to stop producing the show and will do our best to weather whatever storms may come our way as a result of COVID-19.

Support What You Love

I’m not typically one to give advice, in fact I generally try to avoid it, but I’ll make an exception here…

If you love brewing, craft beer, and all that comes with it, please do what you can to support those who have worked so hard to make it what it is today. Don’t stop brewing! What better thing to do when while sheltering in place like I’ve been ordered to do here in Fresno? Contact your local homebrew shop to check on options for purchasing stuff, place your online orders for ingredients and gear, and don’t forget to pick up growlers of delicious beer from your favorite local breweries who have been forced to close their taprooms.

If you’re a fan of what we do here at Brülosophy and want to play a part in helping us stick around, become a Patron by making a pledge of as little as $1 a month, and on top of keeping us going, we’ll give you a cool reward as well.

This thing won’t last forever, we will get past it. Stay safe, stay cool, drink great beer… we’re all in this thing together.

Support Brülosophy In Style!

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If you enjoy this stuff and feel compelled to support Brulosophy.com, please check out the Support page for details on how you can very easily do so. Thanks!

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