The COVID-19 pandemic dealt breweries variable hands, depending on their business models, and the cofounders of Chicago’s Hopewell Brewing found themselves holding especially tough cards.
For safety reasons, they chose not to reopen their taproom after closing it in March, despite being a taproom-focused neighborhood brewery. They simultaneously saw draft sales to restaurants—a core part of their business—dry up, as those restaurants closed or reduced capacity. Then, in August, they had to issue a recall for three months’ worth of beer inventory, after wild yeast contamination caused refermentation in their cans.
Yet they’ve done more than just hang on. Hopewell cofounders Samantha Lee and Stephen Bossu have responded to the pandemic’s challenges in ways that address the immediate crisis while also setting the brewery up for future success. They’ve put in place new quality-control measures in cooperation with Omega Yeast, found more ways to sell beer to loyal patrons, maintained relationships with Chicago’s restaurants, and released new styles of beer—and hard seltzer, too. Through it all, Bossu says, “We’re making some of the best beer we have in our five years of business.”