EASTHAMPTON – As the city and the Commonwealth continue the gradual process of reopening after months of closures and restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic, Easthampton’s breweries are again shifting their business models.

On March 15, Baker announced the prohibition of on-site food and beverage consumption at restaurants and bars for three weeks. On March 23, Baker followed that up with an order for non-essential businesses to cease operations. Breweries were deemed essential businesses by Gov. Charlie Baker when closures first occurred in the spring, but those with thriving taproom and event hosting aspects of their business were forced to pivot hard to remain viable.

While just a few hundred yards from each other, New City Brewery and Abandoned Building Brewery each found their own paths to maintaining their businesses while keeping their employees and customers alike safe and healthy. To that end, education and guidance was key, with little coming from state officials.

“Once we had an approach to safety the question was how do we pivot and stay in business?” said Sam Dibble, owner and brewmaster at New City. “I have a pretty proactive approach to government. I’ve done some lobbying with the Massachusetts Brewer’s Guild and I get along with our town officials and our mayor is on the reopening committee. My philosophy has always kind of been to not be afraid to talk to those people because they work for us.”

Matt Tarlecki, owner and head brewer at Abandoned Building, also credited the Massachusetts Brewer’s Guild for being a guide through the uncertain times.

“We kind of looked around the state and got a pretty good idea about what was working for other people,” he said.

Taprooms have been empty, but the beer has still been flowing.

“We’ve packaged more beer in the last few months than ever. We’re a little unique; we have a bottling line and a canning line so we just started producing as much as possible as quickly as possible,” Dibble said.

When word came down that patrons would not be allowed in the brewery for to-go sales, both operations resorted to the curbside pickup model, which has been popular not only in the food and beverage industry. The response, they said, has been strong.

“It’s been really great. The community really rallied around our approach and the approach of other breweries doing curbside and it helped us keep going,” Dibble said.

Tarlecki added that the transition was fairly seamless. “Our [point of sale] system already had a to-go feature, so it was pretty easy because our staff was already familiar with the system and the public was already pretty savvy when it came to online ordering. It picked up pretty quick, actually. People were really receptive to it.”

Additionally, New City was granted a delivery license and Dibble has spend the past few months bringing beer to the doors of customers not comfortable with venturing out. Abandoned Building, however, did not pursue this avenue. “I could never really get the logistics and the staffing and the numbers to work out for us, so curbside pickup is what has kept the taproom side of things going,” Tarlecki said.

Abandoned Building’s robust wholesale distribution has been the aspect of their business model that has remained strong in spite of the uncertainty of the times, Tarlecki also noted.

“We’ve always had a really large presence in the wholesale side of the beer industry. We already had a good foothold in all of the grocery stores and package stores and specialty beer stores,” he said. “I think across the board people saw a slowdown in March and April but that’s actually picked up quite a lot for us because it’s the busy summer season and since bars and restaurants have been closed, the only format we had was selling in cans and bottles. That’s been a really huge part of our business.”

That isn’t to say the businesses haven’t felt ill effects of the restrictions.

Abandoned Building had to forego its usual anniversary party, which involves an outdoor beer garden, live music and food trucks. Its Food Truck Friday series during the warmer months also normally attracts hundreds of guests.

Dibble said he had to lay off some bartending staff, but was able to shift some to beer production duties. He said he was happy to report all were back to work now as the company is working on “sprucing up” the taproom. New City also prides itself as a popular venue for live musical performances and has been unable to capitalize on that aspect of their business.

“We had a pretty vibrant scene for local and international musicians, so that part has been a bit of a bummer,” Dibble said, adding he has tried to support local artists by sponsoring livestreams.

With the state now in the midst of Phase 3 of the reopening plan, more and more breweries in the state have reopened their doors to the public. Specifically, those with food licenses were permitted to first open socially distanced outdoor seating areas followed shortly thereafter by indoor spaces. New City and Abandoned Building, however, were slower to move in that direction.

Abandoned Building got approval for a temporary outdoor space with a food truck nearly that would seat approximately 60 people, a far cry from their normal Food Truck Friday turnouts. The brewery will offer a combination of cans and draft beer that customers can order from their table using the online to-go feature to minimize contact between staff and patrons. A member of the staff will then serve the beer to the table. The city gave the brewery the go-ahead nearly a month ago, but getting it up and running was slow-going.

“We’ve kind of become experts at doing outdoor events,” Tarlecki said. “We’ve been doing them for years now, so the outdoor seating isn’t the problem for us; the problem is trying to book and find enough food trucks to go around.”

Tarlecki originally planned to start July 3, but rain forced him to cancel. He hoped to have a full weekend of outdoor seating on July 10 and 11 but had his eyes to the sky with Tropical Storm Faye developing.

“We’ve had to deal with this before because we’ve done outdoor events before and in the past we’ve had really good luck with not having rain on our event days, but this year it’s been an extra challenge to deal with,” he said.

New City, meanwhile, is preparing to open a tented area measuring about 6,000 square feet in their parking area while simultaneously building out a small kitchen in order to provide their own food. Along with New City’s menu, the Little Truck food truck will be on-site. Dibble said he plans on setting the space up with safety protocols that go beyond the state’s minimum distancing standards to ensure customers and staff feel safe. Illustrating that the brewery has a healthy environment is one of the biggest challenges, he admitted.

“I probably could have opened up a couple of weeks ago if I wanted to but I didn’t want to do it before we felt more than 100 percent ready,” he said. “We’ve been through a process of educating ourselves and also talking about best practices and what systems could be put in place beyond the minimum guidelines here with our physical space and honing in feels best for people. That’s been a lot of our work and I think that’s also where the public is at - what feels best to each individual. People want to get out, but a lot of people also aren’t comfortable coming out or they’re very hesitant. You need to convince them you have their safety in mind.”

In an effort to cater to all, both businesses said they plan to continue to offer their curbside pickup service. Dibble added the same-day delivery would probably shift to next-day delivery.

“It’s all about finding each individual’s COVID comfort,” Dibble said.

For up-to-date information on their operations, visit the breweries’ Facebook pages at https://www.facebook.com/Abandoned-Building-Brewery-139189989511873/ and https://www.facebook.com/newcitybrewery/.

Reminder Publishing reached out to Fort Hill Brewery for this story but did not receive a response as of press time.