The majority of the sanitizer will be donated to HonorHealth and to the city of Chandler, according to the company. The community will be able to purchase bottles of the hand sanitizer when they order food from SanTan for takeout, curbside pickup or delivery.
“SanTan beers are best served fresh. We insist on serving each beer within 90 days of brewing. So this idea struck me as a great way to repurpose and give back to our Arizona community. We want to do our part to help flatten the curve, save lives and get Arizona back to work,” said Anthony Canecchia, founder and brewmaster at SanTan Brewing Company.
Crescent Crown Distributing will deliver SanTan's beer back to its production facility April 3, according to the company.
The majority of the beer set to be repurposed is IPA-style, so the "SanTanitizer"—as the brewery is calling it—will have a tropical, hoppy aroma.
Then, early next week, the team at SanTan will begin distilling and kegging batches of sanitizer to get ready to deliver it to HonorHealth.
“With local bars and restaurants closed to dine-in business, we have an abundance of keg beer that is going past the 'best before' date," said Joe Controneo, EVP general manager at Crescent Crown Distributing. "Under normal circumstances at Crescent Crown, we would simply destroy the out-of-date beer. However, once Anthony from SanTan found out about this process, he asked us to send his beer back to him so that he could distill it and turn it into medical-grade hand sanitizer."
Eventually, the company hopes to have the sanitizer available for public purchase.