Greetings, beer lovers! Happy Friday, and once (or not?) again, ‘tis chingchongchinaman here as your guest FNBB blogger, continuing with the running (perhaps into the ground) theme of social distancing and how it has inspired new beers over the past 15 months, given the COVID-19 pandemic. From NJ last week, FNBB heads back south, this time first to Tennessee, with another “last year’s news” edition of vintage 2020 beers, to keep 3CM’s credentials as Loser King on DK fully burnished. However, something more recent, actually from 2021, will follow anon.
The first destination brewery for this FNBB is Hop Springs in Murfreesboro, TN. Hop Springs brewed two new beers in 2020, connected thematically to social distancing:
* Social Distance Tennessee Ale
* Hospitality Strong Altbier
From an April 2020 feature from WKRN, Brittney Baird quoted Hop Springs’ own description of this brew:
“Social Distance is a Tennessee ale in line with a slightly hoppier hefeweizen”
From a Nashville Scene article in May 2020 by Chris Chamberlain that covers both beers, Chamberlain mentions the purpose of sales of the first beer:
“Social Distance Tennessee Ale… was brewed to help provide relief to local hospitality workers displaced by the COVID-19 crisis”
News Channel 5 in Nashville had this video story last year on Social Distance Tennessee Ale. With respect to the “sequel”, Chamberlain further comments on the second beer from Hop Springs intended to assist hospitality employees, Hospitality Strong:
“Hospitality Strong is brewed in the style of a traditional Altbier, an amber ale with toasty tones”
The backstory on production of the beer goes as follows, again per Chamberlain:
“With an aim at keeping the financial impact of this particular brewing as local as possible, Hop Springs brewmaster Derrick Morse reached out to Batey Farms’ Brandon Whitt to source some of their Murfreesboro-grown malt. Morse utilized 5,000 pounds of Volunteer Mission Malt two-row foundation winter malt as the backbone of the Altbier, and then reached out to another local company, Resource Label Group, to see if they’d be able to get labels printed in time.”
Nashville celebrity chef Maneet Chauhan, a partner in Hop Springs, is quoted in the various articles:
Baird article: “Hospitality is in our blood, we live this industry and the last few weeks have been very, very difficult, especially with all of our restaurants in Nashville the opportunity to give back to people who need help. I think it’s absolutely amazing and I’m really excited that we at Hop Springs are doing Hospitality Strong.”
Chamberlain article: “It’s been challenging, but one of the most important things we are doing is we are trying to remain as upbeat as possible. We are keeping our organization stronger; I was getting texts yesterday from employees seeing if we needed any help. It is a family, and everyone realizes we are all in the same boat...
“We in this industry always take time to care for others, this is a time when we need service the most. Whatever each of us can do, we need to step up. We can do our part by taking care of the Nashville and Murfreesboro people with care packages. Doing our small bit to spread some humanity around.”
Jumping from last year’s brews to this year, we move to Virginia, specifically to Bedford, VA, and to Beale’s Brewery, where, on their beer menu, one title may make you cringe a bit:
“YOUR MANAGER IS *****”
For explanation, once past the description of the beer (which actually sounds kind of fun):
“The latest brew in honor of the Trolls, this beer will remind you of pecan pie - with notes of caramelized sugar and warm toasted pecans. 6.7% ABV”
The inspiration for this beer came from a ‘mask-hole’ (if you haven’t heard the term, explanation and source to follow in due course) customer who insulted a manager at Beale’s Brewery, in person and later via e-mail, over mask policies in the establishment. Rachael Smith of The News and Advocate had this story on this incident this past March, where Smith notes that:
“…a disgruntled customer emailed the brewery with that insult to Canterbury and said their beer tasted like ‘hot, old orange juice.’”
The Beale’s people did their electronic detective work, per a Beale’s Brewery upper level executive:
“Emily Sanfratella, vice president of operations for Beale’s, said the email was traced back to a customer who had become abusive and confrontational after he was told to put a mask on.
“’He just kind of flew into a rage and he started yelling at the host, the manager, Brittany, who told him to put a mask on or he would have to leave. He yelled two more things, left, ended up phoning back that evening and yelled on the phone to the person who answered, and then they sent an email.’”
Brittany Canterbury is the manager who bore the brunt of the customer’s abuse. The story made local TV news:
BC knows that she’s not alone in having to endure such shabby behavior from customers, even if that is cold comfort:
“Worldwide customer service industry workers have experienced this and many more unfortunate situations. COVID has brought out the worst in some but for us, it’s shown how strong we are and what we’re capable of accomplishing in such trying times. We will keep fighting the good fight, keep coming out on top.”
Sanfrantella also noted the big picture:
“We don’t really do this about mask-wearing or COVID, we really do this out of just basic respect for service industry workers. And I think that’s an issue that’s been going on, far longer than COVID has. I think there’s sometimes a sense of entitlement that a few customers have because they’re spending money in an establishment and they think they can act any way they choose and treat employees in any way that they choose.”
From another VA establishment, Dave Henderson, owner of The Water Dog in Lynchburg, is quoted in a similar spirit (emphasis mine), but also mirroring a bit some of Chauhan’s statements from TN:
“Truthfully, our staff is like family to us and we honor and respect them and they actually are a priority for us. I know everybody’s grown up with the idea that the customer’s always right, but that’s just not the case, and people during COVID have certainly given us a lot of grief about our mask policy and social distancing and we usually get that feedback, not necessarily always in person, but online.”
If you haven’t seen this December 2020 article from Food & Wine by Khusubu Shah, about how “The Customer Is Not Always Right”, while it’s a sobering (pun not intended – sort of) read, I’d ask that you give it a read, and then spare a thought for restaurant and hospitality workers. I suspect that everyone who stops by FNBB is already pretty considerate towards restaurant staff, but it doesn’t hurt to cover all bases :) . I’d mentioned the term “mask-hole”, which certainly applies to the customer who behaved appallingly towards Brittany Canterbury. The word comes from this passage in Shah’s article:
“Many customers refuse to wear masks, or get angry when asked to wear a mask at the door. ‘We call them ‘mask-holes,’ says an operations manager of a restaurant group in Mississippi who asked to remain anonymous. They often take their anger out on the people working at the host stand, who are frequently some of the youngest employees of the restaurant group.
‘They are just doing as they are told. It’s hard for people to understand that to dine with us, you have to follow the safety protocols, because while they might only be here with us for an hour or two, our staff is here anywhere from four hours to ten hours.’”
A more recent article on this theme is from Jamie Rubin at Vinepair here. And certainly not all customers are like that one, as Smith’s article quotes a more sympathetic customer, Scott Boiles:
“…[Boiles] had heard people complain about the mask policy for inside the brewery and felt the establishment has been following the rules Gov. Ralph Northam set last year.
“’You just try to do the best you can during this pandemic. They’ve always been up front with everyone about the rules. And as for Brittany, she’s the biggest sweetheart in the world.’”
Obviously with things opening up more and more, more and more people are wearing masks less and less, at least from glancing in passing at various restaurants in the area. How this will all play out in the near future for the hospitality industry remains to be seen. Clearly bars and restaurants want customers and business back, but this gets into the whole meta-question of price vs. earnings vs. value (another big topic in of itself), where I’ll just leave it with this bit of food for thought (pun again perhaps not quite completely unintended) from Angie Mar, in Shah’s article:
“That money is not worth it. No amount of money can replace your dignity as a human being, and you shouldn’t have to put up with that type of behavior.”
Overall, the Beale’s staff managed to turn this nasty situation into what sounds like a nice new beer. In fact, this post from the American Craft Beer website gives the story from Beale’s Brewery’s perspective (note this bit):
“….our new GM, Brittany Canterbury...worked her way up from server to bartender to manager in our taproom. As so many of the recent online comments attest, Brittany is actually a kind and hardworking individual. She and our staff have been routinely subjected to verbal abuse from customers who dislike our enforcement of the mask mandate.”
“We decided to fight back…..We told the story on the can and printed the email verbatim.”
“We could not have anticipated the response. The post went viral on Facebook, 290,000 views and counting and we are getting emails from all over the world, from France to Canada to Tasmania.”
“This ultimately isn’t about COVID-deniers or opinions about mask wearing. It’s about honoring people’s fundamental dignity and humanity, and pushing back against the tired, outdated maxim that the customer is always right. As restaurants have fought to survive the pandemic, we’ve also been fighting to keep our staff safe and supported from inconsiderate and abusive customers.”
“We are happy to say we are open, and thriving, and will have made it through this pandemic by being crafty, resilient and taking no sh-t.”
In keeping with 3CM’s status as DK Loser King, he does not have a nice new beer, or at least a nice different beer, to mention as tonight’s offering, and definitely not this beer, since I haven’t been to Bedford VA. Instead, he revisits old territory, with another go of a 2nd Shift Brewing Company Sunny Cat (meow), this time the grapefruit “flavor”, among the 4 different “fruit” flavors for this hazy pale ale. It’s obviously not quite as ‘tart’ as the lime version of Sunny Cat. It goes nicely with today’s ever-so-slightly spicy pasta dish.
With that, time to turn it over to you folks. What beer are you sipping tonight? Anyone brewing their own? And if anyone has actually sampled the listings from TN and VA described in tonight’s edition, which would indicate that TN and VA DK’ers have stopped by, that would be really impressive :) .