Continued Collabs with US Breweries

[u/helikoopter]

Is anyone bothered by the fact that Canadian (Ontario/Toronto) breweries continue to collaborate and include US breweries?

I received an email from Blood Brothers today, and within the email was an ad for the Spectapular Beer Fest. The beer fest is including 2 US breweries. While I don’t know what beers those breweries will bring, they may very well be collab beers, the idea of promoting US breweries right now feels off.

Bellwoods had a recent collab released, I see Counterpart at my local watering hole with collab beers. Just brewery after brewery that is promoting US breweries.

Can’t one of them take a stand? Can’t one of them say “if they’re in, we’re out”.

We see people making an increased effort to buy local, people supporting more local businesses with local products, and the breweries saying “yea, we don’t care about that…but please buy local”.

Just a rant, but it’s something I hope others can take a stand for. I hope people can start boycotting places that are promoting US breweries.

[u/canadian_bacon_TO]

There’s contract and agreements in place. You can’t just agree to collab with someone, make the beer, and go “hey you know what, fuck your government and country, we’re taking your name off the beer”. You’d get sued into oblivion or at the very least still be responsible for the collaborators share of the profits.

Regarding the festivals and what not, it’s the same situation. These would start being planned a minimum of 6 months out. There are contracts in place, fees paid, etc. The organizer would need to find a way out of the contract, pay back the fees, and then scramble to find other breweries to replace them. It’s not feasible. For festivals down the line I’m sure you’ll see US breweries excluded.

It’s also a terrible look for the Canadian breweries. Reneging on their agreements would likely nuke any future relationship with those US breweries and impact their revenue longterm. When this shit eventually ends, our breweries are going to want to be part of US beerfests and continue to be able to partner with US breweries. Souring the relationship isn’t worth it longterm.

For what breweries are doing, I’m seeing many who have switched to Canadian and European suppliers for hops and grain. Certain hops are going to be extremely difficult to source outside the US though so who knows what will happen there. Nobody is brewing an IPA with hallertau or perle. Cans are another issue. Our access is extremely limited here and I’m not certain there’s any plant actually manufacturing cans, most are brought in by distributors from the US and then sold.

[u/baospodcast → u/canadian_bacon_TO]

Nailed it. Thanks for being a voice of reason on this post. Kinda shocked at the lack of critical thinking here, so it’s nice to see some thoughtful comments from folks who actually understand how the world (and beer) works.

[u/canadian_bacon_TO → u/baospodcast]

I spent nearly 10 years working in CPG beverage production with some of that time in brewing. People don’t seem to grasp how reliant we are on the US for our base ingredients in beer. Pretty well all hops are coming from Yakima or BSG.

[u/baospodcast → u/canadian_bacon_TO]

Yeah once all the hop contracts end, say goodbye to haze coz those hops are gonna be pricey af and not everything can be made with either Aus, NZ or local stuff. Both countries are reliant on each other. The US are screwed due to their reliance on Canadian malt. We’re screwed for our cans coz they’re mostly made there (some in EU I hear too). It’s like folks wanna burn all bridges coz of one guy who will be gone in less than 4 years anyway, it’s hilarious to see the reaching and “all or nothing” attitudes that help nobody. Exasperating.