Brisbane-based The Good Beer Co has teamed up with independent breweries around Australia to this morning launch A Good Beer Always Helps.

The social enterprise company’s latest campaign lets Australian drinkers thank essential services workers on the frontline of the Covid-19 crisis by purchasing them a four-pack of beer and leaving a message of support.

The Good Beer Co founder James Grugeon says the idea is to not only show gratitude towards healthcare professionals, police, teachers, supermarket workers, cleaners and other essential services workers, but to support a craft beer industry doing it tough under federally mandated social-distancing restrictions that on March 23 forced the closure of taprooms and bars.

“We’re a beer company that exists to do good with beer,” Grugeon told Brews News.

“We’ve worked with some really great breweries across Australia to brew our Great Barrier Beer for the Marine Conservation Society, our Love Beer for marriage equality and our Pale Tail for the RSPCA. So it was a no-brainer for us to want to do something for essential services workers.”

For the campaign, The Good Beer Co has allied with Modus Operandi Brewing in New South Wales, Stomping Ground Brewing Co in Victoria, Newstead Brewing Co in Queensland, Otherside Brewing Co in Western Australia, Sparkke in South Australia, Van Diemen Brewing in Tasmania and Capital Brewing Co in the Australian Capital Territory. Queensland-based non-alcoholic craft beer company Sobah is also involved in the scheme.

“When James approached us and asked us if we would like to be involved we jumped at the chance,” Sparkke co-founder Kari Allen said in a news release this morning.

“To be able to say thank you in a tangible way … is really important right now. Yes, we’re doing it tough at the moment – but being part of an effort to express our gratitude to the people keeping us safe is really good for our morale. And of course, the sales support is just so valuable to us.”

The campaign is being run via Pozible, with a $20 donation buying a four-pack of a core-range beer that’s then allocated to a local brewery. The donation covers the cost of brewing, canning, packing and delivering the beer. Donors can also leave a message of support via the pledge page.

Essential services workers [register to receive a four-pack via The Good Beer Co’s website. They can illustrate their credentials with a work email address, or by uploading a pay slip or other form of identification.

“No one’s making a profit from this,” Grugeon says. “This is about helping our essential services workers first and foremost and obviously giving our local craft breweries a shot in the arm as well.”

Grugeon says A Good Beer Always Helps was inspired by the work of Alan Mahon’s UK-based Brewgooder’s One On Us campaign, which has been taking donations to send four-packs of beer to National Health Service employees.

It also echoes recent crowd-funded coronavirus inspired schemes in Australia such as Feed the Frontline, which provide restaurant-cooked meals to healthcare professionals.

“I think people want to say thank you,” Grugeon says. “Whether it’s an individual, a business or an organisation, I think they want to say thanks [to these people] for going above and beyond right now.”

Grugeon says it was also important to cast the net wider than just healthcare: “Obviously, our doctors and nurses are doing an amazing job and they’re quite rightly the focus of everyone. But it’s the cleaners and admin staff and teaching staff and all those unsung heroes who need a beer as well.”

A Good Beer Always Helps starts taking donations today, with the first beers delivered mid- to late April. Grugeon says that as the campaign builds steam, the idea is for lead breweries in each state to collaborate with other local breweries to help fulfil orders.

Support the campaign.