Brewvine: More Ways to Get Workshop Brewing Company’s Brews

2020’s ever-changing COVID-19 regulations had checking their business model blueprints to get their handcrafted beer into their customer’s hands.

Whitney Amann and photojournalist Jeremy Erickson show you how the brewery has expanded their tool kit in this week’s Brewvine.

“At the beginning of 2020, we were talking about getting our own means of production as far as canning goes and as the year progressed, it kind of became more evident that it’s something that we should really have and so we pulled the trigger and it started with us just selling in our own pub but then, eventually, especially after the second round of restrictions we started selling to other stores,” said head brewer Michael Wooster.

Now you can find beer from on store shelves and in coolers in places like Maxbauers, Tilleys, Oryana and others.

“The other day I was in Francisco’s and I stood behind someone in line that was buying a four pack of our beer,” he said. “It was just kind of a cool feeling to see someone casually buying something that you made yourself.”

Workshop plans to cycle through their staple “journeyman” beers and make some of their seasonal offerings available in cans as well as on tap.

“So at the moment we have our ‘cold chisel’ biere blanche, which is like a wheat beer with orange peel and coriander. That’s one of the things that we have available in cans and then also at the moment we have our ESB – extra special bitter goes by the name ‘ball peen’,” said Wooster. “So those are the two kind of ‘journeyman’ that we’ve shuffled through now, eventually we’ll shuffle through some more.”

While they can’t offer the public the same in-person experience they’re used to yet, they are using every tool in their tool belt and taking to the internet to give customers a way to enjoy their beer and live music from the comfort of their own homes.

“We’re doing our best and things like canning and live streaming is really the best that we can do right now,” he said. “Hopefully we can look forward to a 2021, where we can get back into our normal groove and be a cool place for people to come, hang out, enjoy live music and craft beer craft food, and have a good time, I think we’re all ready for it.”