The Bar Towel

Does anyone have, or know where I can get, information about the brewing capacity (output) of the craft breweries in Ontario?

are you talking total HL / year?

matt7215 wrote:are you talking total HL / year?

That's right.

Maybe the Ontario Craft Brewers Association would have an idea.

Larry Kress

Depends why you are asking. I did a paper for school a while back and most were happy to tell me, others were... less happy.

Are you asking about capacity or actual production? Many of the smaller ones are operating at less than theoretical capacity I think.

I should explain why I was asking the question. I am doing background research on the Creemore Springs Brewey expansion and would like to know just where Creemore fits into the craft brewery market in term of volume output. Their current output is 50,000 hl per year. How does that compare to the other small breweries such as Mill Street and Steam Wistle?
I thought that there might be one place where all this info is available.

paulv wrote:I should explain why I was asking the question. I am doing background research on the Creemore Springs Brewey expansion and would like to know just where Creemore fits into the craft brewery market in term of volume output. Their current output is 50,000 hl per year. How does that compare to the other small breweries such as Mill Street and Steam Wistle?
I thought that there might be one place where all this info is available.

Data on brewery output in Canada is sadly lacking - which is pretty stupid given every province is so tightly controlled by government retail and regulation. Not sure if the article gave the output, but the Spring issue of Porter's airlines magazine/newsletter stated that Steamwhistle's annual sales were $20 million. You may want to check that article to see if the capacity or output figures were there.

I've also seen a list somewhere of US brewery output. Can't seem to find it at the moment. Might be your best bet for a comparison.

Bobbyok wrote:Not sure if the article gave the output, but the Spring issue of Porter's airlines magazine/newsletter stated that Steamwhistle's annual sales were $20 million. You may want to check that article to see if the capacity or output figures were there.

It's on page 45 of this document. The article says they have "reaped over $20 million in sales in just 9 years", though you could read that as either current annual or cumulative (probably the latter). There doesn't appear to be anything about capacity.

paulv wrote:I should explain why I was asking the question. I am doing background research on the Creemore Springs Brewey expansion and would like to know just where Creemore fits into the craft brewery market in term of volume output. Their current output is 50,000 hl per year. How does that compare to the other small breweries such as Mill Street and Steam Wistle?
I thought that there might be one place where all this info is available.

Creemore used to be significantly bigger but both Steamwhistle and Mill St have grown a LOT since then.

Call them and ask. If they don't want to tell you, send an ATIP request to Ottawa and ask Revenue Canada to send you the amount of federal excise tax collected by postal code... (This may cost money.)

Information about brewing capacity is certainly not easy to come by. Government sources have privacy issues. Self disclosed info by the breweries is incomplete. Here is what I have been able to discover.
The Ontario Ministry of Revenue has a definition of a micro brewery as one that has an output of 50,000 hl or less. This definition relates to when a brewery pays the lower or higher alcohol tax.
From the AGCO: The 5 big breweries by output are Labatt's, Molson, Sleeman, Brick Brewing and Moosehead. In total they produce 9.4 million hl/year. Creemore is included under the Molson figure. All of the other breweries in total produce 170,000 hl. So at its planned capacity Creemore Springs would be only slightly smaller than all of the other craft breweries combined.

From the desk of 'wild ass guesses':
Mill St. 35-40000 HL
Steamwhistle around 30-35000 HL
Cool around 25000 HL
Great Lakes around 20000 HL
Wellington around 15000 HL

At or below 10000 HL:
Muskoka
Amsterdam
Magnotta
King
Durham
Flying Monkees
F&M
Hockley
Camerons
Black Oak
Grand River
Railway City
Neustadt
Beau's
MacLean's Ales
Nickelbrook
Heritage
Trafalgar
Old Credit
Barley Days

I'm sure that Muskoka & Amsterdam are pushing to get up to the next level but I think they are probably in this range. I much prefer the US method of having to declare production volume which turns down some of the bullshit artists.

The reality of these numbers relates only to whether or not you are in the black or not. I know of a number of breweries that have spent years in the red and only survived because of the other financial interests of ownership. Others, like Great Lakes & Cool spent years virtually unknown building volume selling Blue/Cdn knockoffs under black taps in ethnic clubs around the province.

The question of Creemore volume is interesting when you survey a local area. Cambridge has almost no Steamwhistle taps. The number of Mill St. is growing but Creemore is in almost all Molson controlled chain bars plus a variety of others. So you go to a supercentre (In cambridge it's Hespler Road) and count the taps. Assume 2 kegs per week per tap and multiply by .586 HL. Now extrapolate across your regional area to give you a rough idea of the volume your dealing with. Then start to extend it across the province. Draught is 10-11% of big brewery volume on an annual basis. It quickly becomes apparent that the 50000 HL of the plant in Creemore can barely cover the draught volume they have in corporate accounts alone.

For Creemore, it's expand or contract production out to bigger volume plants.

Rob Creighton wrote:From the desk of 'wild ass guesses':

The question of Creemore volume is interesting when you survey a local area. Cambridge has almost no Steamwhistle taps. The number of Mill St. is growing but Creemore is in almost all Molson controlled chain bars plus a variety of others. So you go to a supercentre (In cambridge it's Hespler Road) and count the taps. Assume 2 kegs per week per tap and multiply by .586 HL. Now extrapolate across your regional area to give you a rough idea of the volume your dealing with. Then start to extend it across the province. Draught is 10-11% of big brewery volume on an annual basis. It quickly becomes apparent that the 50000 HL of the plant in Creemore can barely cover the draught volume they have in corporate accounts alone.

For Creemore, it's expand or contract production out to bigger volume plants.

From some self reporting sources I have seen I think your numbers are not that wild.
I am guessing that for Creemore the draft volume would be in the 40% range.
For Creemore the question arises at what point does is cease to be a craft brewery and when does it become just a premium brand in the Molson line up. Or is there no such demarcation and it all depends on public perception and marketing/branding.

Rob Creighton wrote:From the desk of 'wild ass guesses':
Mill St. 35-40000 HL
Steamwhistle around 30-35000 HL
Cool around 25000 HL
Great Lakes around 20000 HL
Wellington around 15000 HL

At or below 10000 HL

Are your guesses production or capacity? I'd assume some would have capacity quite a bit bigger than current production for expansion?

paulv wrote:

Rob Creighton wrote:From the desk of 'wild ass guesses':

The question of Creemore volume is interesting when you survey a local area. Cambridge has almost no Steamwhistle taps. The number of Mill St. is growing but Creemore is in almost all Molson controlled chain bars plus a variety of others. So you go to a supercentre (In cambridge it's Hespler Road) and count the taps. Assume 2 kegs per week per tap and multiply by .586 HL. Now extrapolate across your regional area to give you a rough idea of the volume your dealing with. Then start to extend it across the province. Draught is 10-11% of big brewery volume on an annual basis. It quickly becomes apparent that the 50000 HL of the plant in Creemore can barely cover the draught volume they have in corporate accounts alone.

For Creemore, it's expand or contract production out to bigger volume plants.

From some self reporting sources I have seen I think your numbers are not that wild.
I am guessing that for Creemore the draft volume would be in the 40% range.
For Creemore the question arises at what point does is cease to be a craft brewery and when does it become just a premium brand in the Molson line up. Or is there no such demarcation and it all depends on public perception and marketing/branding.

Creemore stopped being a craft brewery as soon as it sold to Molson. It already is "just a premium brand in the Molson line up."

Bobbyok wrote:Are your guesses production or capacity? I'd assume some would have capacity quite a bit bigger than current production for expansion?

Sold beer in 2009