On Sunday afternoon, March 15, the Dutch government took the unprecedented step of closing all restaurants and bars and to keep children home. What followed was a frantic hour-and-a-half to give customers their last meals and drinks before closing the door at 6 pm. This will last until at least April 6^th although no one seems to believe things will open again a day later. Corona is here and it will stay for the time being.

That night instagram and facebook were full of pictures of unlit, empty bars. Chairs and stools on tables, not a customer in sight. The streets in Amsterdam and Utrecht, always busy with locals and tourists, are now mostly empty.

No customers means no income. The government is now trying to everything in its power to try and keep all businesses running. People will still be paid and businesses will not have to pay their taxes immediately. Banks are not asking small businesses to pay back their loans straight away but have halted this for 6 months. I will never vote for any of the political parties in the cabinet right now but they are trying to keep the country running. Sometimes it is a good thing to live in one of the richest countries in the world.

This governemt is also not standing in the way of any ideas to keep getting an income. Many breweries are now selling beer online or are driving around the city delivering beer. Or you can just drive to the brewery and buy it yourself directly from the brewery. This has to be done to keep things running, some breweries had 0 orders last week. If you don’t have bottles in a supermarket things are going to get very tough. Beer festivals have all been canceled until at least early May.

This crisis is going to change the world where we live in. We don’t know when it will be over and we don’t know how we are going to get out of this. But it is going to be naieve to think that in a year the same breweries and bars will still be around. Some tanks will fall dry and breweries will end operations.

And what can we do? As has been the mantra these last few years: support your local brewer! Bring your favorite bar to you! Some bars offer packages that they can bring to you, peanuts and games included. Order some beer at a local brewery and have them deliver it. The big guys will be fine once this corona thing is over (including Corona), but it is the smaller ones that will suffer. Support them now if you can. Let’s beat this together and keep beer culture alive.

I cannot visit places in the coming weeks, but I will see if I can still post things online now and again.

Take care my friends and hold on. Most of you will be fine, but you can seriously hurt others around you. And remember that the party that will happen once live has returned to normal will be epic.