The Bar Towel

4. Beer or malt liquor of alcohol strength greater than of 11.9% is excluded from the definition of beer in section 4 of the Excise Act and falls within the definition of spirits. This means that all producers or importers of such high alcohol beer or malt liquor are considered to be producing or importing spirits even though the product is produced without distillation.

Cass wrote: ↑Sun Nov 27, 2022 9:59 am It's a good question and you're right, not easy to find info about it. The importing page on the LCBO website doesn't specify % splits between beer and spirits. However, on this page it still says:

4. Beer or malt liquor of alcohol strength greater than of 11.9% is excluded from the definition of beer in section 4 of the Excise Act and falls within the definition of spirits. This means that all producers or importers of such high alcohol beer or malt liquor are considered to be producing or importing spirits even though the product is produced without distillation.

https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency ... irits.html

So this would seem to indicate that the 11.9% split still exists. Looking at the LCBO site, there are a couple of Ontario beers exactly at 11.9, such as one from Henderson's:

https://www.lcbo.com/en/henderson-x-rus ... -ale-25453

Nickel Brook Kentucky:

https://www.nickelbrook.com/product/Ken ... gory_id=38

So I guess there's nothing stopping an Ontario brewer from doing a beer higher than 11.9, but it will be taxed as a spirit. The LCBO releases beers higher than 11.9 (such as Bourbon County Stout), so they do come in.