October 4, 2023

Canadian Beer Facts

We Canadians certainly love our beer and to celebrate this wonderous day, here are a few Canadian beer facts for all you keeners. Bottoms up!

CANADIAN BEER STATS

Beer is the most popular alcoholic beverage in Canada with 36% of Canadians saying they drink beer over wine (31.4%), spirits (25.4%) and ciders/coolers (7.2%).
- Although BC and Quebec prefer wine to beer (I’m offended and wholeheartedly disagree)
In Canada, beer has 3 times the economic impact of wine and spirits combined
85 to 90% of beer consumed in Canada is manufactured in Canada. Drink local!
The highest sales volume of beer per capita by province is the Yukon
Canadian brewers directly employ 21,000 Canadians and the sale of beer supports 149,000 jobs
In 2022 there were 1,224 licensed breweries in Canada
Canada has the highest alcohol taxes among al G7 nations
In 2022, Canada exported 102 million dollars of beer in to the US. Conversely, Canada imported 77 million dollars worth of US beer

HISTORICAL CANADIAN BEER FACTS

Beer was first introduced to Canada by European settlers in the seventeenth century, as Canada had an ideal climate for making beer before refrigeration was introduced
The first brewer registered in Canada is the Jesuit brother Ambroise, who began making beer in 1646 after the founding of New France.
In 1688 the Grand Intendant Jean Talon founded Canada’s first commercial brewery, La Brasseries du Roy, in Quebec City
- But there is some debate over this as claims have been made for Frère Ambroise and Louis Prud’homme as the first commercial brewers in Canada.
The oldest brewery in North America is the Molson Brewery, founded by John Molson in 1786.
Moosehead is the largest and oldest Canadian owned brewery still in existence
Canada went through a Federal prohibition from 1918 to 1920 as a “war time measure” but in Prince Edward Island prohibition lasted until 1948 and started in 1901!! Those poor, poor Islanders.
Canada still has 19 dry communities, mostly in the Northern Territories
Prior to the World War I, Canada was home to 117 independent breweries. By the 1980s, that number was reduced to just 10, with 3 of them owning 96% of the market (Labatt’s, Molson and Carling O’Keefe)
In 1982 Canadian beer pioneer, John Mitchell, opened Canada’s first craft brewery since the prohibition era. Horseshoe Bay Brewing. RIP, John.
The aforementioned Horseshoe Bay Brewery poured their “Bay Ale” at the Troller Ale House in Horseshoe Bay, BC. The first pub to serve microbrews in Canada since prohibition.
Canada’s oldest brewpub, Spinnakers, was opened in Victoria, BC in 1984 and is still operating today.

RANDOM CANADIAN BEER FACTS

Canada’s most expensive beer was produced and sold by BC’s own, Storm Brewing. “Glacial Mammoth Extinction” was a sour beer that clocked in at 25% ABV and had a sticker price of $1000! The price tag came more from the handblown bottle which featured an ancient ivory mammoth pendant that was over 35,000 years old.
Ice Beer was invented in Canada with both Molson and Labatts claiming to have invented the style closely resembling an Eisbock.
According to Untappd (for whatever that’s worth) the top 3 breweries in Canada are; Brett & Sauvage (Quebec), Brasserie du Bas-Canada (Quebec) and Temporal Artisan Ales (BC).
- 7 of the top 10 are located in the province of Quebec
The top rated Canadian beer on Untappd is “Invictus (2016)” Imperial Stout by Flying Monkeys Craft Brewery in Barrie, Ontario.
Spruce Beer was invented by the Indigenous Peoples of Canada and was used the help early explorers stave off scurvy
The “Puppers” beer from the show Letterkenny started out as a fake beer brand developed for the show but in 2017 Stack Brewing in Sudbury, Ontario got the rights to produce the beer and label with it’s likeness. in 2021, Labatt took over the rights and developed a new recipe, the “Puppers” Golden Lager. “Get this guy a f##kin’ Puppers!”
In 2018, over $500,000 worth of beer and pepperoni was stolen from delivery trucks in Quebec. Police found the trucks but never recovered the beer.
Victoria, BC has more craft breweries per capita than any other “major” Canadian city with 12 breweries for 90,000 people.
A man from New Brunswick trying to buy “cheap beer” in the neighboring province of Quebec brought a case all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada after he was fined $292.50 from a RCMP “sting operation”.
One of the greatest Christmas songs ever recorded was made by Canadians, Bob & Doug McKenzie and beer plays a prominent part in the lyrics. Listen to it HERE. Okay, okay, this may be more personal preference than “fact”.
As much as I hate to admit it, the old “Canadian beer is stronger than US beer” adage is more fiction than fact. The rumor stemmed from confusion in the different measures of alcohol being used in each country, alcohol by volume in Canada versus alcohol by weight in the US. Sorry, Bob McKenzie, Canadian brew doesn’t have “more juice in it”.