Micro-brewery still sells pints – of disinfectant
“This place is definitely not what it used to be,” said Eben Uys, gently wiping the dust from the counter of his bar.
Like more than 200 microbrewery and restaurant owners, Uys is fighting to keep his business afloat after a new ban on alcohol sales to combat the soaring numbers of Covid-19 cases.
But he has managed to adapt to survive.
The chemistry graduate, 36, runs trendy bar and restaurant – Mad Giant Brewery – in Newtown in the heart of Johannesburg.
Today, his business is at a standstill. He has nine staff members instead of roughly 40 in normal times.
“What happened? Covid happened,” he said.
It’s now less a question of how to make money, he said, but of “survival”.
“Every day you wonder how many days you have left and you just hope that something is gonna come in and just get you and buy you another day or another week.”
His beer barrels are full. In a few months, if the ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol is not lifted, the beer will all have to be poured down the sewers.
Some fear the industry may never recover. Already, 30% of the 215 microbreweries in the country have had to close their doors since the first ban, according to the Craft Beer Association.
But some have found imaginative ways to help their businesses survive, at least temporarily.
In Benoni, Julian Pienaar has trained some of the employees at his brasserie to fill and pack beer cans, and now, behind a small improvised assembly line, former chef Sipho Nkomo puts lids on aluminium cans.
“It’s been hard, you do a thing with passion and all of a sudden you’re doing a new thing and you don’t even have a clue,” he said.
Uys has switched to producing hand sanitisers. During the first wave of the pandemic, this business allowed him to stay afloat. But this time it’s harder. “When you spray a little bit in your hand, that’s just a couple of millilitres, when you drink a beer that’s 500ml,” he said.