How do you brew, bottle and sell beer for $1 that will attract consumers, taste reasonably decent and, at the end of the day, turn a profit?
Several craft breweries across Ontario say Premier Doug Ford’s buck-a-beer promise is too economically difficult to fulfill. Some have called the premier’s challenge “insulting.”
But a brewer in Picton, Ont., thinks he can pull it off.
At the moment, Barley Days Brewery sells a bottle of its Loyalist Lager for $3 a pop. General manager Kyle Baldwin says he can produce a new lager for a third of that price “without jeopardizing any of our ingredients.”
“Our end goal is to try to make it affordable for all Ontarians to have a great beer -- and a great craft beer -- at a great price,” Baldwin told CTV News Channel on Tuesday.
Ford visited Baldwin’s brewery on Tuesday to announce his buck-a-beer plan, which will see the minimum price of a bottle or can of beer under 5.6 per cent drop to $1 from $1.25. The measure is expected to take effect days before the Labour Day weekend.
Ford plans to use "non-financial incentives," such as prime spots in liquor stores and advertising in flyers, to promote buck-a-beer products.
Baldwin says Ford’s campaign promise inspired his brewery to look into making its own buck-a-beer. Asked how he’d create a quality beer without sacrificing quality, Baldwin said “the proof is in the pudding.”
“We’re making our lager the same as we always have, and we’re very confident that we can produce a high-quality beer for a great price,” he said.
Other brewers weren’t so sure.
Doug Appeldoorn, owner of Toronto’s People’s Pint Brewing Company, said creating a buck-a-beer for his company would be almost impossible.
“Our cheapest beer costs us about $1.40 to make, and that’s just pure cost to make the beer. It doesn’t include anything else like, you know, our rent, paying our staff, insurance -- all the other costs of running a brewery,” Appeldoorn said.
For $1, Appeldoorn said he’d only be able to offer “a really, really small beer.” And he doubts many other brewers will take the premier’s bait.
“I can’t see many doing it. It’s just not feasible for a lot of us to do it,” he said.
‘You couldn’t be more tone deaf’
Geordan Saunders, owner of Napanee Beer Co. in Napanee, Ont., says he’s concerned that Ford’s plan encourages “a race to the bottom” that could benefit big corporate brewers while penalizing smaller companies.
“It’s asking small businesses across Ontario – family-owned businesses that employ people in their communities – to make less money on the product that they work so hard for,” Saunders said.
In reality, Saunders said, small brewers like his simply won’t be able to afford selling beer for $1.
“By encouraging things like better shelf space at the LCBO, that really only benefits the brewers who can afford to make buck-a-beer, which is big brewers like Molson and not the little guys,” he said.
Toronto-based Great Lakes Brewery echoed that sentiment on Twitter, saying it has no plans to drop its prices.
"We believe in our brands, take pride in our quality and firmly feel that are current prices are very fair," the company tweeted.
Eric Portelance, who co-owned Toronto’s Halo Brewery, penned an open letter to Ford’s PC government calling the move “insulting” as the industry struggles with steel and aluminum tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump.
"You couldn't be more tone deaf on this subject," Portelance wrote.
Buck-a-beer isn’t entirely new in Ontario. The province used to allow beer to be sold for $1, but the Liberal government increased the minimum price in 2008, citing a mandate of “social responsibility.”
With files from The Canadian Press
