Sam Calagione never thought Dogfish Head would be in the hand sanitizer business, yet the veteran brewery that also has a distillery arm in its business — along with other such facilities across the nation, like Hawaii’s Maui Brewing — are working with relaxed rules from the federal government to give back to its community by producing small batches of hand sanitizer.
”I can’t really tell you too much of the legalities,” wrote a busy Garrett Marrero of Maui Brewing in a quick email reply to Brewer. ”We’re following the TTB guidelines that were sent out last week. That has the guidelines as far as percentages of glycerol and hydrogen peroxide along with ethyl alcohol.”
Calagione told Brewer that Dogfish Head — like Maui — is not selling the sanitizer to the public at this time.
“We are ramping up production and our priority customer is the Governor’s office and DEMA (Delaware Emergency Management Association),” he said. The sanitizer will be sold to the state at market price, and 100% of the profits will go into a fund to support Delawareans affected by the Coronavirus. “Secondarily, we are providing it for all our production coworkers in all facilities and keeping a list for interested parties whom we hope to be able to provide sanitizer for in the future.”
Maui — which is donating its products to EMS, law enforcement and hospitals — doesn’t currently denature but Marrero said orders for the chemicals to do so have been placed as well to prevent the ability for anyone to drink the solution.
“We are having everyone sign warning statements and delivering an SDS (Safety Data Sheet) as well as clearly making sure this is not safe for human consumption,” he said. ”We prefer to donate to organizations in need and they can get it to individuals on a large scale.”
At Maui’s two restaurants, they are giving away free sanitizer to consumers with a purchase.
While Maui is not working on a packaging solution, opting to allow consumers to bring in 16-ounce containers themselves, Dogfish Head is filling 100mL bottles and 64-ounce growlers and labeling them.
“At this time, these are the only two packages available, but we may add additional package sizes in the coming weeks as well,” Calagione said.
He added in a blog post on the company’s website: “I never thought Dogfish Head would be in the sanitizer business. But this is a time of crisis, and necessity is the mother of invention.”
Other brewstilleries are also producing sanitizer, such as Maumee Bay, Yellowhammer, 3 Daughters, Motorworks, Lexington, Griffin Claw, Lazy Magnolia, Broken Trail, Pocono and others.
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