How to host an isolation beer crawl at home

It’s been weeks if not months since you’ve had the chance to visit your favourite local beer venue since Coronavirus has spread across the globe. With shutdowns and restrictions likely to be in place for many months to come, those cravings for a classic urban beer crawl will continue to grow.

So, why not host a beer crawl in the comfort of your own home?

Whether you are home solo and want to play alone or have some friends or family who can play along via video chat, an isolation beer crawl is a great way to spend a few hours chatting and drinking with friends.

If you’re wondering how to host an isolation beer crawl at home, read on for some step by step tips.

Select your favourite craft beers

This is our favourite step here at Beer Is OK – selecting 5 of your favourite craft beers (one for each room), or 10 beers if you’re feeling extra thirsty in isolation (two for each room). Try to mix up the beer options to have a different style of beer for each room in the house.

This makes it a bit more of an adventure and gives your group the chance to discuss how they like (or dislike) that style of beer over video chat.

For example, you might purchase a pale ale, lager, stout, pilsner and neipa. Where possible, remember to support your local independent breweries and bottle shops as they’re being hit hard during the coronavirus pandemic.

If you’re plannning to host a few isolation beer crawls in the coming months, why not make them themed. For each isolation pub crawl, pick from:

• One location of origin for all beers (such as an Australian state)
• Only one type of beer can be enjoyed
• Only drink beers from one local brewery

Allocate your rooms (pubs & breweries)

With the inability to drop past your favourite local pub or brewery, you’ll need to replace them with different rooms in your house. For an isolation beer crawl covering 5 rooms, start off with these and add some more at the end if your group is willing to keep going.

• Kitchen
• Laundry
• Backyard/Pool
• Dining Room
• Bedroom

Get on to a video call

Time to get the call set up.

Jump up on your video call app of choice (such as Facebook Messenger, Zoom, Skype, etc.) and join a group conversation with all participating households.

Sort out any technical difficulties and get the pleasantries out of the way before commencing your isolation beer crawl at home.

If you’re in groups (such as families or roommates at each household), we recommend only having one video up for each household. This reduces background noise and makes it easier to communicate, especially when you have quite a few households joining.

Time to start your isolation beer crawl!

And you’re off!

After discussing with your group over video call where to start the isolation beer crawl, head over to the first room with your beer(s) of choice. A good starting topic involves everyone showing their beer of choice for that room, giving it a taste and providing feedback on the taste and style of beer.

After doing this a few times, everyone will be cheery enough to keep up relaxed conversation.

Before moving on to the second and subsequent rooms, all groups on the isolation beer crawl must have finished their beverage. Put on some light music in the background to give this isolation beer crawl a nicer ambiance.

After the crawl has finished, any of the groups willing to keep going could set up a laptop to play some isolation drinking games via Zoom.