Victoria’s Vancouver Island Brewing and Duncan’s Stillhead Distillery are teaming up on a new product to help save lives instead of getting you buzzed: hand sanitizer!
Due to ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, Vancouver Island Brewing found itself with an excess of unsellable beer due to restaurants and bars being closed. Since it doesn’t have a distilling licence itself to turn all that yummy beer into the distilled ethyl alcohol necessary to make hand sanitizer, VIB teamed up with Stillhead Distillery in Duncan to make it happen.
“Our team was unanimous in that we would use what supply we could to help meet the manufacturing demand of hand sanitizer,” said Danny Seeton, VIB’s production manager and R&D brewer. “We’re truly all in this together so it has been a delight to donate our product and do what we can to support our community.”
Vancouver Island Brewing has donated more than 3,000 L of beer so far, allowing Stillhead to in turn donate sanitizer to local non-profits, essential front line workers and those at-risk.
Stillhead Distillery hand sanitizer can also be purchased by the general public online at Stillhead.ca or for pick-up; costs are $10 per 375 mL bottle or $20 per 750 mL bottle.
“Once the announcement was made that authorized distilleries to produce their own hand sanitizer, we committed ourselves to making it a top priority,” said Brennan Colebank, Stillhead’s owner/distiller. “We were thrilled that Vancouver Island Brewing was keen to work with us and donate their beer supply to our production. As small businesses, we understand the importance of coming together to support one another and our communities, especially during challenging times like these.”
In an effort to further “flatten the curve,” Vancouver Island Brewing is currently offering free local delivery (in the Greater Victoria area) with an order of $40 or more, and have also implemented a “Tap & Go” touchless pickup from the brewery.
