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Incredible growth. Too much...or OK?

Discuss beer or anything else that comes to mind in here.

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BeerIsGood
Posts: 219
Joined: Sat Oct 07, 2017 1:04 pm

Incredible growth. Too much...or OK?

Post by BeerIsGood »

The other day I was in a place called The Brake Room in Belleville. Cool place. They do coffee, sandwiches, craft beer, and bike sales and repairs. Anyway, they had this map called Bay of Quinte Craft, so I grabbed a copy. There are currently nineteen beer/cider companies in the Quinte region, which for the purposes of this map goes from Cobourg to Napanee, stretching as far north as Frankfort and including Prince Edward County.

Going from memory, probably no more than five of these places were operating when I left Canada for five years in July 2012. Having been back for only three months, I don't have the information to form an opinion about the economics of craft beer in Ontario given the huge growth since my departure.

How is this all working out given the huge number of breweries? Who is doing well? Is the macro share taking a hit? Etc.

For the record, I think this development is positive, I'm just not sure of the sustainability at this point.

beerstodiscover
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Post by beerstodiscover »

The beer market is ginormous. Craft has a small, growing slice. I think there's room for much more craft beer, even if it's mostly bland offerings. Especially when a case of Heineken is $50 in Ontario, why not drink something fresh and local?

seangm
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Post by seangm »

beerstodiscover wrote:The beer market is ginormous. Craft has a small, growing slice. I think there's room for much more craft beer, even if it's mostly bland offerings. Especially when a case of Heineken is $50 in Ontario, why not drink something fresh and local?
I also don't understand why anyone would ever pay that much to drink such mediocre beer, but sadly a lot of people have really swallowed the marketing hype surrounding these "premium" imports. For instance I know a guy who only drinks Stella and insists it's the best beer, and he truly believes it. Some people are so attached to the manufactured image surrounding their beer of choice that it seems like sacrilege to think otherwise.

A lot of people are turned off by the perceived snobbery of craft beer too, it's hard to change that attitude as well. Inevitably in a lot of social gatherings I attend I get lots of sarcastic comments and questions like "what weird ass beer are you drinking today?" There are still a lot of uncultured rubes in Ontario lol :roll:

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Belgian
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Post by Belgian »

seangm wrote:
beerstodiscover wrote:a case of Heineken is $50 in Ontario, why not drink something fresh and local?
sadly a lot of people have really swallowed the marketing hype surrounding these "premium" imports.
It's because we are largely commodity consumers, which real craft beers aren't.

If you've ever been in the habit of buying the same brand of supermarket bread or yogurt or Honeybee honey or PC frozen vegetables it's exactly the same, because there's a comfort in the familiarity of getting the exact same thing every time. I think it's used to control buying behavior, they foster a culture of making people nervous about anything that might be local or specialty or different and perhaps even require getting to know your ingredients and developing a few basic cooking techniques beyond microwaving (semi-prepared and frozen foods are rampant, and can be a terrible scam.)

Great beer and wine and cider are traditional artisan products, not commodity products like Busch-Miller-Coors or MolBatts-Sleeman. They can't be managed and predictably traded on the same scale. With Coors product, absolute homogeneity and being moderately pleasing to nearly everyone is the goal.

On the subject of cider, I would say there can never be too many small producers because certain apples may thrive in some areas and also the market for interesting ciders may keep developing. Ciders can have real character.

Certainly it's an exciting time and Ontario has an awful lot of growing space to serve a growing Craft market. I hope that Orval-like 'funky' ciders such as Revel sometimes made a few years ago & which seem to be common to Normandy, France also enjoy a certain market viability, that's a niche that isn't usually covered and I feel some new ciders strive to be a little too easy and boring / sweet which is not setting them apart from anyone.
Last edited by Belgian on Wed Dec 06, 2017 11:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
In Beerum Veritas

GtownRandy
Posts: 321
Joined: Fri Apr 15, 2016 8:17 am

Post by GtownRandy »

Belgian, have you tried the Caple Rd No3 Cider from England, kind of barnyardy like an Orval. a great deal at $2.95/500ml. was even better when on sale for $2.65 in the summer
http://www.lcbo.com/lcbo/product/caple- ... iiKRLgpWVs
https://www.ratebeer.com/beer/westons-c ... -3/326726/ rating 88 by style
Image
Last edited by GtownRandy on Wed Dec 06, 2017 7:57 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Belgian
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Post by Belgian »

GtownRandy wrote:"Belgian, have you tried the Caple Rd No3 Cider from England?"
No but I will!
In Beerum Veritas

sofakingdrunk
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Posts: 925
Joined: Sun Jan 26, 2014 7:55 am
Location: Guelph

Post by sofakingdrunk »

GtownRandy wrote:Belgian, have you tried the Caple Rd No3 Cider from England, kind of barnyardy like an Orval. a great deal at $2.95/500ml. was even better when on sale for $2.65 in the summer
http://www.lcbo.com/lcbo/product/caple- ... iiKRLgpWVs
https://www.ratebeer.com/beer/westons-c ... -3/326726/ rating 88 by style
Image

I'll throw a vote towards it too, good stuff at a very reasonable price.
My all time fav cider is still spirit tree dry hopped, fantastic stuff

seangm
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Post by seangm »

Belgian wrote:
seangm wrote:
beerstodiscover wrote:a case of Heineken is $50 in Ontario, why not drink something fresh and local?
sadly a lot of people have really swallowed the marketing hype surrounding these "premium" imports.
It's because we are largely commodity consumers, which real craft beers aren't.

If you've ever been in the habit of buying the same brand of supermarket bread or yogurt or Honeybee honey or PC frozen vegetables it's exactly the same, because there's a comfort in the familiarity of getting the exact same thing every time. I think it's used to control buying behavior, they foster a culture of making people nervous about anything that might be local or specialty or different and perhaps even require getting to know your ingredients and developing a few basic cooking techniques beyond microwaving (semi-prepared and frozen foods are rampant, and can be a terrible scam.)

Great beer and wine and cider are traditional artisan products, not commodity products like Busch-Miller-Coors or MolBatts-Sleeman. They can't be managed and predictably traded on the same scale. With Coors product, absolute homogeneity and being moderately pleasing to nearly everyone is the goal.

On the subject of cider, I would say there can never be too many small producers because certain apples may thrive in some areas and also the market for interesting ciders may keep developing. Ciders can have real character.

Certainly it's an exciting time and Ontario has an awful lot of growing space to serve a growing Craft market. I hope that Orval-like 'funky' ciders such as Revel sometimes made a few years ago & which seem to be common to Normandy, France also enjoy a certain market viability, that's a niche that isn't usually covered and I feel some new ciders strive to be a little too easy and boring / sweet which is not setting them apart from anyone.
Very true, fear of unfamiliarity definitely plays into many people's purchasing decisions. That said, nowadays there are lots of consistent, safe offerings in the craft world that provide the same level of familiarity as the macros. Amsterdam Blond, Beau's Lug Tread or other similar beers come to mind. There's definitely a shift towards artisan, local products that's becoming more mainstream, so I remain hopeful that more and more people will switch to craft brewers.

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