The team at a Whitby, Ont., brewing company is in high spirits, as they’re hopeful a new joint venture will bring in big business.
Brock St. Brewing Company has partnered with Province Brands to produce a new kind of beer, a brew that may get you high, which the head of the company says will hit the market once edibles become legal in Ontario.
The brewery has signed a licensing agreement with Province Brands, which touts itself as the developer of the world’s first beers brewed from the cannabis plant, so that it can produce a new line of products.
“You always have to grow in this business,” said Mark Woitzik, the president and co-founder of the brewery. “It’s exciting to be a part of it.”
Brock St. plans to make a non-alcoholic beer that’s infused with THC as soon as it’s legal to manufacture and sell edibles in the province.
But Woitzik says that as soon as next month, the brewery will start making a beer inspired by marijuana — a hemp-based product. He says Province has a proprietary way of extracting sugars from hemp, and that allows them to make this type of beer that’s gluten- and THC-free.
A pot partnership like Brock St.’s may soon be in high demand at other beer companies, says cicerone Tara Luxmore, who adds that 70 to 80 per cent of cannabis producers are also beer drinkers.
“It’s the same market,” she said. “It’s the same consumer.”
But, she warns the cannabis beer trend may not brew as much business as some may think. “I think it really depends on what it tastes like and how much it costs because we don’t know how much a… pint of THC-infused beer is going to be.”
Woitzik says while he is unsure about the exact pricing for his company’s cannabis beer, he says it will cost at least 50 per cent more than a regular can of beer. For example, a Brock St. blonde costs nearly $3, but a THC-infused beer may cost at least $4.50.
While the Brock St. team will have to wait to debut this type of beer, they plan to roll out their hemp beer next month.
“Every brewery has to evolve with the times,” said Woitzik.