Little Creatures brewer Lion sent a truck convoy carrying free kegs to regional WA over the weekend to support pubs hit by COVID-19 restrictions.
The delivery of 2500 litres of free beer coincided with the commencement of WA’s Phase 3 restrictions on Saturday.
A truck full of free kegs departed Fremantle on Friday to deliver a free keg to 50 venues re-opening this week, stopping at Geraldton, Shark Bay, Carnarvon, Coral Bay, Exmouth, Onslow, Dampier, Karratha, Broome and the Kimberley, in time to welcome locals and tourists once again.
The beer chosen was Elsie, named after Little Creatures’ faithful Kombi (below), which did ‘keg runs’ from the brewery to local venues when the brewery launched in the early 2000s.
The free kegs complement the assistance Lion provided to WA venues during the COVID-19 crisis which included the provision of hundreds of ‘growlers’ which provided pubs and bars with a means of selling draught stock on hand. The Australian Taxation Office also assisted by announcing they would not take compliance action against venues that repackaged duty-paid kegged beer to sell into sealed containers such as growlers.
Jamie Ryan, Sales Director for Lion in WA said the weekend marked an important milestone for WA’s pubs, bars and the entire hospitality industry.
“It has been a long time between beers in the front bar,” he said. “We want to do all we can to support Western Australia’s local pubs and venues that have really felt the burden over the last few months as a result of the shutdown and loss of tourism and get them back on the road to recovery.
“We hope this truck full of free kegs will make it a little bit easier for them to turn their taps back on this week to welcome more people – to bring their communities back together and welcome tourists once again to these magnificent destinations.”
Australian Hotels Association (WA) CEO Bradley Woods said the initiative will be welcomed by many dozens of venues located from Geraldton to Broome, as they seek to recover from the most challenging trading period on record.
“WA’s regional venues have been suffering from forced closures and widespread travel bans, so to mark the re-opening of venues with a keg convoy is will be very encouraging for hospitality businesses.
“Lion are well-known supporters of country pubs, so with regional venues facing a long road to recovery ahead, it is fantastic that suppliers like Lion are providing such substantial support to our industry.”
Ryan said March 23 was the most difficult day the WA’s hospitality industry has ever seen.
“At Lion, we did our bit to minimise the financial burden, announcing within hours that we would credit venues for their unused kegs – which equated to $30 million nation-wide,” he said.
“Since then we’ve had our team of draught quality specialists cleaning more than 15,000 beer taps and couplers to ensure the beer tastes especially good when the kegs are connected once again.”
