RIVERVIEW, N.B. – Robert Black takes pride in brewing his own beer in Riverview.
He is trying to setup a commercial craft beer company and began working on his business plan in February. He was supposed to present it to a seed investment company last week, but the day before his presentation, he got bad news.
“I found out the news about the ANBL new change,” Black said. “Where breweries are unable to sell their own product for their brewery unless they’ve made and sold 10,000 litres within 12 months through the ANBL ordering system.”
Black’s business plan was to try to sell 180 20-litre kegs a month, through pubs and restaurants, that would put him at 3,600 litres a month. He was going to off-set the distribution cost of getting his beer to the establishments by selling growlers out of his brewery.
“Now I have to start from scratch and probably scrounge up some more extra money in order to become successful with this microbrewery,” he said.
The rule change happened quietly last month. Black said he learned about the change not from NB Liquor, but from another brewery facing the same problem.
That brewery, Railcar Brewery, was set to open in August. Owner Mitch Biggar said he was submitting the final paperwork when he was told his application had been denied because of the rule change.
Because Biggar had been in the process of setting up the brewery late last year, he was able to meet with the president of NB Liquor. He managed to get an exemption for his business. But he worries about other start-ups.
“It would be my wish that they completely reverse this policy all together,” he said. “It’s a hindrance to any new brewery that wants to start.”
NB Liquor has agreed to meet with craft brewers on Aug. 15. Biggar thinks they may be open to reducing the amount down from 10,000 litres.
He said the main problem is NB Liquor didn’t consult with brewers before making the change.
Even brewers who are not affected by the change are speaking out. Shane Steeves of Hammond River Brewing in Quispamsis, N.B. agreed that the new rule should be scrapped.
“If I were starting out on a system of my size today, with the intention of selling growlers on-site for off-site consumption, it would be virtually impossible for me to produce 10,000 litres of beer within the year time frame,” he said. “Well I shouldn’t say impossible, but very difficult.”
In a statement, NB Liquor said, “The president will be meeting with a representative group of craft brewers over the next few weeks to discuss how we can improve the policy and to see where we can make the policy more user friendly for the brewers. Coming out of these sessions, we will review the policy with our board of directors at the end of August.”
Comments