I’ve received a number of press releases of late detailing how the industry is taking action to support the community during the COVID-19 pandemic. Whether it’s a specialized delivery service, collaboration benefit beers, raising money for causes, making hand sanitizer—these are stories worth sharing and reading during this time. I don’t usually run every press release that comes my way but I will be running these.

Urban South Brewery is a New Orleans-based company that opened in 2016, and early this year, opened an R&D brewery location in Houston, Texas. The brewery has been dedicating some time and resources to pandemic relief support, with the latest announcement yesterday about the Houston location joining a global brewery collaboration, All Together, brewing beer to support hospitality professionals impacted by COVID-19.

Here’s the press release release:

Urban South – HTX, Urban South Brewery’s new Houston location, is honored to join “All Together,” a worldwide beer collaboration created to raise awareness and provide relief for the hospitality industry. The research and development brewing team at Urban South – HTX will release their take on “All Together” today, April 21. Urban South – HTX will donate a portion of proceeds from “All Together” beer sales to Southern Smoke Foundation to support food and beverage industry workers in crisis. Since 2017, Southern Smoke has donated more than $2 million to food and beverage industry professionals in need.

“This is an extremely challenging time for the craft beer industry, as businesses are losing revenue and employees are losing their income,” said Dave Ohmer, General Manager of Urban South – HTX. “We are honored to participate in this collaboration with so many amazing breweries, and thrilled for the opportunity to contribute to our local hospitality community and the industry that we love so much.”

Spearheaded by Other Half Brewing Company, “All Together” invites any brewer to use the base beer recipe provided and add their own unique twist. The open source base recipe, label artwork and name are all provided free of charge in order for breweries to produce the beer at the lowest possible cost. The project asks that a portion of the proceeds from beer sales go to supporting hospitality professionals in each brewer’s local community, and the rest of the proceeds should be used to help keep breweries in business during these trying times.

The Urban South – HTX take on “All Together” will be available for fans to purchase to-go beginning Tuesday, April 21. During city-wide closures for bars and restaurants, fans can pick up beer to-go from 12:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. daily, with the option to order in advance online. Urban South – HTX has also partnered with HopDrop Houston to provide a limited delivery service. To learn more, visit: https://urban-south-htx.myshopify.com/.

Look for that beer if you’re in the Houston area to help support this All Together cause.

And last week, Urban South announced that its Louisiana brewery would pivot to producing hand sanitizer, planning “to produce more than 120,000 bottles of hand sanitizer for local government, hospitals, grocery stores, and others.” Here’s that release:

Urban South Brewery, the largest craft brewery in New Orleans, recently won a bid to produce 50,000 eight ounce bottles of hand sanitizer for the State of Louisiana Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. Through extensive research and outreach, Urban South was able to identify and partner with other Louisiana manufacturers to secure the raw materials necessary to take on this project. Orders for hand sanitizer have exceeded 120,000 bottles from local hospitals, grocery stores, nursing homes and other small businesses.

“In such unfamiliar and challenging times, it’s important for us to support other businesses impacted by this crisis and support our community in a time of need,” said Jacob Landry, founder of Urban South Brewery. “This is a unique opportunity to keep our team employed and working while meeting a critical need in the community that has supported us for the last four years.”

Urban South employees will use their beer production and packaging skills to instead bottle hand sanitizer amid the nationwide shortage. Both front of house and back of house employees will remain fully employed due to this new pivot. Businesses or healthcare agencies interested in placing wholesale orders for hand sanitizer can contact the brewery at info@urbansouthbrewery.com.

To serve the community in a responsible manner during city-wide closures of bars and restaurants, Urban South Brewery is open for to-go beer sales only until further notice. Fans can place orders online and pick up beer at the Tchoupitoulas Street taproom from 11:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily. To learn more about Urban South Brewery, visit https://urbansouthbrewery.com/.