Brewing up innovation during pandemic | Columbia Star

Bierkeller Columbia founder/owner Scott Burgess and production manager Justin Purdy wait for their next customer to pull up to their weekly drive-through beer market.

In April of 2020, several articles came out in both The State Newspaper and The Post and Courier that warned of possible closures of many craft breweries in South Carolina due to coronavirus shutdowns and mandates. For those people who like craft beer and for these small businesses, the shutdown period was a difficult time, and for some breweries, it meant the end.

For one local craft brewery and its brewmeisters, it meant finding new ways to satisfy their love of making beer, but also a way to keep providing their beer to the large and growing list of loyal customers.

That local craft brewery is Bierkeller Columbia. Bierkeller, which translates as “beer cellar,” was founded and is owned by Columbia resident Scott Burgess.

“I’ve always been a beer lover and had also studied German in high school and college. Luckily, when I was at UofSC, I was part of an exchange program to Germany to study comparative literature. I was in the city of Bamberg in the Franconian region of Bavaria, and this is the beer capital of the world. Within an hour of Bamberg, there were more than 385 breweries, and I think within my first year there, I visited 125 or more,” he said with a smile. “You didn’t think I’d spend all my time studying, did you?”

Bierkeller Columbia Production manager Justin Purdy prepares an order of 32-ounce crowlers for a customer at the Bierkeller Columbia drive-through.

From the quality of the beer you can find at Bierkeller Columbia, it was time well spent.

Burgess said, “I considered it,‘R and D’, and I still go back every couple years to look for more recipes and new styles of beer.”

German beer is as different and varied as American beer. But at Bierkeller, Burgess and his production manager, Justin Purdy, follow the German/Bavarian purity laws of 1516 known as Reinheitsgebot that only allow the beer to be made of barley, water, yeast, and hops as carefully as possible. Purdy, who has also spent lots of time in Germany on “R and D” trips, added, “German beer is perfect for the Columbia area. The styles of beer we brew are so drinkable, and we brew with the weather in mind.”

Bierkeller Columbia was a regular event at Riverfront Park over the past several years and drew several thousand people each week.

Purdy said, “We’d see the same people week after week, and they would bring a friend the next week. It kept growing, and we were doing very well. We were planning a busy spring, but then of course, COVID happened. We had to come up with a new plan.”

The new plan was in line with the new COVID protocols and actually benefited from the shutdown.

Purdy explained, “When the shutdown happened, we modified our production and filled 32-ounce crowlers to sell at a drive-through site. We did very well those first few weeks of the shutdown. People wanted beer. They wanted our beer, and we provided it for them. We were selling 800-900 crowlers a week.”

The shutdown was a strange benefit for this small business, even with all the COVID protocols.

“Everything was safe and sanitary from the production to the deliveries to a customer’s car,” says Burgess. “The customer would put his or her order in via Facebook, pay for it there too, and we would hand them the order when they drove up.”

According to Burgess, customers can only purchase nine crowlers at a time in 24 hours. Still, there is an initiative being discussed with the state to increase that number to help bolster sales for craft breweries here in South Carolina.

Since the reopenings of restaurants and bars began in the early summer, both Burgess and Purdy said sales had gone down some, but were still steady.

“ We only have the drive-through Bierkeller Columbia set up once a week on Thursdays outside next to the Swamp Cabbage brewery near Williams Brice and Rosewood.”

If you think you’d like to try a German beer like Kellerbier, Weissbier, Rauchbier, or Fastenbier (and several more tasty brews), then log onto Facebook or Instagram and search for Bierkeller Columbia. You’ll see where and when, but also which beers are available that week.

Personally speaking, Das Bier ist Wunderbar.