'Beer is not beer is not beer': Thunder Bay brewery won't take up buck-a-beer challenge

A Thunder Bay, Ont., craft brewery won't be lining up for the province's new buck-a-beer challenge, and one of the co-owners says a lot of their craft beer contemporaries won't either.

On Tuesday, the Doug Ford government announced the buck-a-beer challenge, which isn't mandatory, but rather allows breweries to cut the price of certain bottles or cans of beer to $1 if they choose to do so.

"It doesn't really impact us very much," said Matt Pearson, one of the co-owners of Sleeping Giant Brewing Company. "The former minimum price for beer was $1.25, and we weren't selling beer at that price."

"So to drop it to a dollar doesn't mean a lot to us in terms of what we do."

Pearson said the new buck-a-beer is more suited to large, international brewers who can make a lot of product at a low cost.

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"To do what we do, you can't sell it for a dollar," he said. "But to do what they do, they could definitely sell it for a dollar. Actually, down in the U.S., you can get that macro-produced beer for 33 cents-a-can."

American craft breweries, however, sell for higher prices, Pearson said.

"I think there's going to be some big breweries that take advantage of this, but, again, I don't think it's going to hit the small producers very much," he said.

"A, we can't do it, and B, it's just not what our customers have a priority [for] when they're shopping for beer. The craft consumer is looking for a well-made, natural, high-quality product, and we can't deliver that for a dollar."

Complicating things is the fact that the announcement doesn't reduce taxes or input costs breweries pay, Pearson said.

"They just allowed breweries to sell beer for less."

Promotional incentives

Ontario promised various incentives for breweries who do hit the buck-a-beer target. They'll take the form of promotional and advertising advantages at the LCBO. There are no financial incentives.

The buck-a-beer campaign only applies to cans or bottles — draft sold in restaurants or bars isn't affected under the new rules — of beer that are less than 5.6 per cent alcohol, and the base $1 price doesn't include the bottle deposit, either.

"It looks like customers that choose craft beer are going to continue to use craft beer, because of the quality that goes into the product, and the flavours that they're producing, or maybe even what the brewery stands for in each person's community," Pearson said. "So beer is not beer is not beer, I guess, is the easy way to put it."

Premier Doug Ford said he would introduce the buck-a-beer legislation in time for the Labour Day Weekend.

"I'm not for keeping cheap beer out of peoples' hands," Pearson said. "If you love Coors Light, and they can make it and sell it to you for a buck, I love that the government's going to say 'let them do it.'"

"But that's not our business," he said. "We do our thing, and they do their thing, and we think we capture different customers."