Beer Company Now Selling 'Punk Sanitizer' to Help With Shortages

Hand sanitizer is in such short supply people are turning to drastic measures to find some. Some folks are making their own hand sanitizer, to mixed results. Some folks are using prison labor to make hand sanitizer that prisoners, a vulnerable population, are not allowed to use themselves. Some folks are buying up all the hand sanitizer, even though hospitals and immunocompromised communities are struggling to find adequate lifesaving supplies, then talking to the New York Times about it and being surprised about backlash. And some people are beer companies that seem to have pivoted toward coronavirus care.

The Guardian reports that Scotland-based brewer BrewDog has started manufacturing hand sanitizer in their distillery, in an apparent effort to help bolster some of the world’s now-dwindling supply. They’ve branded it “BrewGel Punk Sanitiser”—not because clean hands defy authority, but because “Punk IPA” is the name of their first brew—and say they’ll be giving away it away free of charge.

“We are determined to do everything we can to try and help as many people as possible stay safe,” BrewDog’s founder, James Watt, said in a statement.

It seems BrewDog’s not the only alcohol-based company working on producing hand sanitizer. The Guardian says a number of UK-based ginmakers are trying to pivot to sanitizer, and Louis Vuitton is turning its perfume factories into sanitizer production spots as well. Perhaps I read a few too many of American Girl doll Molly’s World War II books as a child, but this is starting to feel quite a bit like wartimes of yore.