North High Brewing Co. opened for tours on Saturday, letting customers see the work behind the scenes for the first time in over a year.
Guided tours are an integral part of Short North’s beer producers business. Giving guests a look behind the scenes means both generating interest in your products and increasing your income. With COVID infections declining and vaccinations increasing, the brewer decided it was time to let the guests go behind the scenes again.
“We wanted to wait until the mask mandate was lifted and about 50% of people were vaccinated,” said Kelsey Stief, North High Brewing’s director of sales and marketing.
Brewery and distillery tours were suspended last March when most non-essential stores closed and faced coronavirus restrictions when they reopened two months later. Now most of these restrictions have been lifted or relaxed and beer and liquor makers are once again welcoming tour groups.
Land Grant Brewing, which has a microbrewery and taproom in Franklinton, has resumed its weekly weekend tours.
“One of the really exciting things about a taproom brewery is that you can really look behind the curtain and see how the beer is made,” said Meredith Miles, director of communications for Land Grant. “We are very proud of our brewing and I find it very interesting to see how the beer is made.”
Why now?
North High waited longer than some other breweries thanks to its compact size. The brewery is located in the middle of the crowded Short North district and brews its beer in a smaller space than most craft beer manufacturers.
“Our brewery isn’t huge and it would be really difficult to distribute the people,” said Stief. “And we didn’t want to do it for just five people.”
For Middle West Spirits, waiting wasn’t just a matter of infection and vaccination counts. The distillery in the Weinland Park district recently moved to new premises and installed new equipment.
“We need to bring in tour guides to retrain them and educate them about the new things,” said Marketing Manager Rudra Triveda.
Why are tours important?
Breweries and distilleries have a financial incentive to resume tours.
The Noble Cut Distillery is on the outskirts of Gahanna, far from the busy Columbus neighborhoods, which means it can’t depend on pedestrian traffic, said founder and master distiller Tony Guilfoy.
“When it comes to our on-site sales, our tours typically account for about 80% of the distillery’s sales,” he said.
But perhaps more importantly, tours create loyal customers by creating interest in beer and liquor making.
“I think it gives people insight into how their beer is made, a better understanding of what goes into the product and how long it takes, and everyone gets a new appreciation for the process,” said Stief. “It helps tell a better story.”
Take some precautions
Public health experts recommend that unvaccinated people continue to wear masks and practice social distancing. And even if COVID infection rates and deaths from the disease continue to decline in Ohio, breweries and distilleries are still planning to take precautions on their tours.
“We will disinfect between tours and require everyone to wear a mask during the tour,” Triveda said. “We want to make sure everyone who comes in (including staff) is safe.”
Other breweries and distilleries are cautiously lifting their pandemic restrictions. The Watershed Distillery on the Northwest Side resumed tours for a small number of guests in April.
“We thought it was safe enough to do socially distant, small-group mask tours,” said Watershed Founder and CEO Greg Lehman. “And we wanted to start by bringing people back into the room as we were preparing to (re) open our restaurant.”
The restaurant started welcoming customers again earlier this month.
The distillery gradually allowed larger tour groups as the number of infections with the coronavirus improved. And it helps that most of Watershed’s employees are fully vaccinated against the virus, Lehman said.
“We recently increased the number from 10 to 15,” he said. “It makes us a little more relaxed and people seem to be comfortable.”
Limitations vary. Land Grant does not require masks for people who are fully vaccinated against COVID, but Miles said, “We are in the honor system”.
Some never stopped
Some distilleries never really stopped giving tours.
451 Spirits in Clintonville, for example, has been offering tours for six months. Co-owner Toby Harris said the distillery offers informal tours for several hours three days a week.
“We’re doing it differently than in the past,” he said. “They’re more of an open format. We’re open Wednesday through Friday from 4pm to 7pm, and if someone comes by, we bring them through.”
Harris stressed that the distillery followed all CDC guidelines.
Noble Cut kept offering tours throughout the pandemic, depending on the infection rates.
“We started it again in the fall, but had to close it again when (the pandemic) got worse again,” said Guilfoy. “And we put it back into operation last January.”
Noble Cut still limits the number of people allowed on tours and has moved the tasting section of each tour to an area with tables to comply with social distancing guidelines, Guilfoy said.
@PatrickACooley
