Oklahoma Brewing Company Survives COVID Shutdown Just Days After Opening

The owners of Core 4 Brewing Company opened their doors last year, just days before the COVID-19 shutdown. 

“It was very scary, and very stressful,” Amy Simon, one of the Core 4 owners said.

But the four friends were too far into the process to turn around. So, they made some adjustments. 

“Because we couldn’t let anyone inside (the brewery) except employees and us owners, we could do to go sales. So, we sold everything out of one of the windows in our taproom,” Simon said. 

For the next two months they sold 32-ounce bottles of the beer out of one of the store windows.

Simon isn’t sure how that affected business because they had nothing to compare results to. But it did keep the business open. 

Those days are now far gone, and business is going well for the four friends.

According to the Brewer’s Association, the economic impact in the state for craft brewers in 2019 was $699 million. 

“It’s due to all the law changes in 2018. It’s very exciting,” Simon said. “It made a taproom model brewery viable, and that’s really exciting for us.” 

Core 4 will be at the inaugural Oklahoma Brewer’s Fest this Saturday at the Bricktown Ballpark. They will have several of their more popular beers at the festival. 

“We’re gonna bring three different beers. We’re gonna have our best seller American blond soul shine. We’re going to bring our passion fruit blond which has been really popular and our death before breakfast,” Simon said. 

Oklahoma’s Brewers Fest is Saturday, June 26. The first session is from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. and the second session is from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark. Core 4 is one of 40 Oklahoma brewers. Visit here for tickets.

The name Core 4 represents the four owners (two couples) all best friends. Also, the four ingredients to making the beer. 

Marty Simon has been working in the beer making process for a while.

“After a lot of bad beers and getting stuff better I finally convinced them to do this,” Simon said. 

This was a huge leap of faith for the group. There are no investors, just four friends that have put everything into making their dreams a reality.