We here at Beer + Food / Weekly have focused on the service industry lately, and will continue to do so. Servers, cooks and bartenders, especially, are getting their butts kicked. (Time to donate your tips, if you haven’t already.)

But it’s also worth mentioning that those in the medical field, especially those in hospitals and on ambulances, are in some of the most vulnerable positions. They’re also the most needed. And they are about to see the outcomes of bad decisions people made a short while ago. This is a weird bug that is asymptomatic for up to a week in some cases, PPE is in short supply and still – STILL! – people were going out and encouraging others to do so just two weeks ago.

Hopefully, we’ve wisened up some since then. Restaurants have. I was speaking to a friend at a local-owned spot with a couple locations, and they’ve adjusted. To-go orders are holding them afloat. Most brewers I’ve spoken with have adjusted similarly. And the adjustments have been constant as we’ve gone from a recommendation to stay at home (that some people ignored), to an order to leave public places and to what I bet will become a shelter in place order by the end of the month. With each move, the breweries have made it possible to get beer to people.

Hey, we’ve still got beer.

Zack Roskop, owner of Knox Brew Tours, president of the Knoxville Area Brewers Association, and all-around great guy, is helping keep those suds in your cup with his licensed and insured drivers. Today, for example, they’ll do the second round of the Local Love Box.

Tonight’s lineup: Starting at 6:45, Jeffrey DeAlejandro of OliBea & Jon Newman of HenHoc. Then beers with Devan Reynolds & Zach Tarver of Abridged Beer Company. A Virtual Concert with Cruz Contreras from 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM.

“I’ve always been on the bright side – optimistic to a fault,” Roskop said. “I’m not ignoring or pretending there are challenges, but we’re trying our best to highlight the good things … we’re just trying to be a light in a dark place.”

If you order the Local Love Box, then you can select the option to have Knox Brew Tours deliver your dinner and beer. But they’re also working with local breweries to deliver their beer and food around town on other days.

The general schedule will look something like this for the coming weeks:

Tuesday – Taco Tuesday with Last Days of Autumn
Wednesday – Balter (and a special nacho dish only available with Knox Brew Tours delivery)
Thursday – A likely rotating local brewery
Friday – Shrimp Boil with Last Days of Autumn

They’re pushing through as much as possible, Roskop said, and he estimated he’s worked more in the past two weeks than he has in prior two months. When or if the time comes for a full shutdown, he said, he’ll make those moves.

“I think the scariest part of this is the uncertainty of the future,” Roskop said. “Questioning the future is questioning our identity. Knox Brew Tours has been supporting the community … we’ve distracted ourselves with it.”

And until that future arrives, in whatever form it takes, at least we’ve still got beer. (But you might want to stock up, anyway.)