How will “dry”uary fare next month? Will seltzer keep rising? Is there a new IPA sub-style waiting in the wings? When will we be back at beer festival? If a year has started with more question marks, it has not been for a long time.
The biggest question being, the economy in the immediate vaccine aftermath. How long before life starts clicking like it was back this time last year?
I don’t have any good answers. The second set of stimulus, the brewery taxation and Save Our Stages bills got held up by the Child in Chief because of lack of magazine covers or some other imagined slight. That going into effect would have gotten us back at least a week early.
My prediction is that August is the month where we can stride to a brewery and have a pint at a bar. There will be sanitizer everywhere and people will be wary and some may even still wear masks even though that is the last safety measure that we should let go and not the first like I believe it will. Until that point, all other bets are on pause.