Just a few years ago, there were only a handful of craft breweries in B.C.
But today there are 75, and another dozen are slated to open before the end of the year.
The flip side of the increased demand for local, craft beers is a hit to the bottom line for the high-volume, traditional breweries like Molson.
Molson’s sales in B.C. have dropped 18 per cent, while craft beer has doubled its market share in just five years.
Two weeks ago, Molson laid off 10 per cent off its staff in Vancouver. The 15 employees affected were “bottle line” workers.
And despite some attempts at trying to market themselves as the “local Kitsilano brewer,” consumers’ thirst for craft beer is here to stay.
When Leigh Stratton and her husband launched Bridge Brewing Company in North Vancouver two years ago, they kept their fingers crossed hoping to fill 30 growlers a week. Now they are doing 600.
“You can walk in here from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m….you can’t walk into Molson’s and have something filled,” says Ken Beattie of the B.C. Craft Brewers Guild. “Chances are you aren’t going to meet the brewer.”
At the Blackbird Pub and the eight other pubs owned by the Donnelly Group in Vancouver, Granville Island Brewing is the only product by Molson you’ll find on the menu.
But bar and beverage director Trevor Kallies says there will always be room in the market for the conventional multinational brands.
“They have a global reach, they have set themselves in multiple countries,” says Kallies.
“You really think a small Vancouver company will get to sponsor a FIFA World Cup, or an NFL contract — it’s just not going to happen.”
A union representative for the workers laid off at the Molson brewery in Vancouver told Canadian Beer News that craft beer is a fad.
“We look at these as fads. It happened with Mike’s Hard Lemonade and Smirnoff Ice – they become popular and then they fade out,” says Gerry Bergunder, business agent for Brewery Winery & Distillery Workers Union Local 300.
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