Wow. Either that LCBO guy was yanking your chain, or he has absolutely no idea what he's talking about.
shintriad wrote:1) That there's an importer in Canada somewhere for every micro in the U.S., it's just a matter of finding them.
Not true. There are many, many US microbreweries who have no agent or importer representing them in Canada, or at least in Ontario. Great Divide and Hair Of The Dog are two examples - if they had an agency repping them up here, we would not have been able to do private orders with them. The LCBO would have told us to go through the agency, the same way that orders for Rogue, Dogfish Head, etc. have to go through Esprit.
shintriad wrote:2) Also, that Vintages will occasionally stock beer as part of its "In Store Discoveries" campaign, and not announce it or advertise it.
Vintages used to carry beer, but they stopped doing so several years ago. All speciality beers are now brought in via the regular LCBO stock system, either as part of the seasonal releases or as one-off releases.
The one exception to this are the rare occurrences where consignment orders are not picked up, so they are shelved at Queen's Quay or that store in the north wed (Weston & 401, I think?) that has a large clearance section. These items are generally quite limited and not listed in the online inventory, so you have to just stumble across them to know about them.