Lethbridge breweries attend inaugural Alberta Craft Brew Convention

Beer enthusiasts from Lethbridge’s two craft breweries made their way to Red Deer earlier this week for the inaugural Alberta Craft Brew Convention.

“It was a conference that was really needed in the industry,” said Kelti Boissonneault, co-owner of Theoretically Brewing Company. “It was great to sit down with industry officials, suppliers, brewers and regulators.”

Both Theoretically Brewing Company and their peers Coulee Brew Company have been in operation for about a year, but already they say the growth they’ve seen in the industry is undeniable.

Terry Rock, executive director of the Alberta Small Brewers Association, says three years ago Alberta had 18 brewing licenses — now there’s 54, with at least 30 more in the planning stages.

During the conference, Alberta Finance Minister Joe Ceci announced the government will invest $25 million into the Alberta Small Brewers Development Program, which launched last year.

He added plans are in the works to create a similar program for small distilleries and wineries.

“The grant program basically allows us to level the playing field and gives Alberta brewers in this fledgling industry a bit of a leg up,” Boissonneault said.

“It allows us to remain competitive — without that money, the taxes that are applied to beer would be very high compared to what we are able to get away with paying now with the grant structure that’s in place,” Cormican said.

Although changes to regulations have made things easier for small breweries, there’s still a lot of work ahead for these fledgling businesses.

“The small brewery does not have a large marketing budget so they really need to be able to build direct relationships with their customers and have their brewery become a community hub,” Rock said. “Right now our regulations prevent some of that activity from happening… we’ve had a lot of conversations with the AGLC about this and we’re pretty confident they understand what needs to happen.”

Boissonneault hopes the changes will one day allow her to focus on boosting tourism in the community.

“Right now our class B tourism facilities license doesn’t allow us to have community groups or events in our tasting-room space,” she said. “The AGLC wants us to get a class A restaurant license, and that’s not conducive to our business.”

Cormican hopes to use future funding to perfect his brews for years to come.

“It will allow us to grow our operation and continually improve what we’re doing, whether it’s quality or quantity — hopefully both,” he said.