“Buck a Beer”

Current exchange rate makes $1 CDN = $.77 USD. That could be tough while maintaining quality. Not even sure you could homebrew for that.

 

Why is there a government-set price floor in the first place?

I'd suggest a close examination of the Premier's campaign contributors.

BTW, in USA political-speak, "Progressive Conservative" is an oxymoron.

 

I don’t like the idea of a minimum price, if I want a $12 30 pack of some cheap adjunct lager I should be able to buy it.

 

I'm all for lowering costs, but with everything considered it can't be sustainable. You might pull off a retro roll back the price night every now and then, but I suspect they'll lose money.

 

This initiative simply lowers the minimum to what it was before it was increased to $1.25. From where I'm sitting, the closer they can get to $0 the better. If someone wants to make a sub-5.6% beer (what this initiative applies to) and sell it for less than a dollar, why is it any of the gubment's damn business?

 

I drink plenty of expensive beer, but recently I’ve been reaching for Hamm’s 6x16 for $4.50. You really can’t beat the price, and it’s perfect for yard work this time of year.

 

I had to read more into the legislation. For bars who buy Molson and Labatt en masse should be pleased because they can mark down those beers for specials, which should increase revenue. There are concerns that people can become too inebriated and be a nuisance and I understand that. But I don't see how this can improve the burgeoning craft beer market in Ontario. I'd like to see taxes in the ingredients brewers need to buy to lower the cost of the product.

While on a trip to Banff and Canmore, I was talking to some of the brewers about some of the difficulties they were facing. One of them was a tax on buying ingredients. I'd also like to see the taxes to sell to other provinces as it'd help breweries grow outside of a region.

http://www.albertabarley.com/craft-...introduction-to-albertas-beer-mark-up-policy/

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/supreme-court-beer-ruling-alberta-1.4627374

 

Perhaps it would be easier if they cut down on the liquor tax!

 

A dollar for a beer? You don't have to twist my arm with that one, I'll take it!

Joking aside I think with advances in brewing, increased automation and the like it could certainly be possible. What you have to ask is in regard to the craftier of the craft beers is this possible? Some things require a human touch, but if somebody can innovate and produce a quality product for cheap I have no qualms. Nothing wrong with reaching for a nice cheap beer to alleviate palate fatigue.

 

The other day I bought a 15-pack of Milwaukee's Best Premium for boiling bratwurst. With tax and deposit, it worked out to just under 48 cents per beer. Everybody's happy. Where's the benefit to having some nanny-state bureaucrat telling me I have to pay more than twice that for it?

This has nothing at all to do with production costs, quality, or marketing. This is about behavior control. Pure and simple.

 

Pricing minimums have meant that crappy beer is rather expensive here. It hasn’t affected craft beer that much though. Similar quality craft beer is priced at around the same level as US equivalents if a little higher.

The funny thing about this initiative is that a couple of the more lowly regarded craft breweries are the only breweries that have announced they will take up the challenge. The benefit to them will be prime placement in the goverment run liquor stores without the usual cost of such placement.

Of course, as we all learned in the thread regarding the world’s worst beer scenes, Canadian beer is garbage to begin with, so no one should worry if quality goes down even further in an effort to reduce price. Is a Saison that tastes like dog piss better or worse when it is less expensive?

 

It's not even a matter of allowing it or disallowing it. If there's no money to be made, then lowering the price floor is a pointless gesture because no one is going to bother making it. The OP mentions that nearly all of the craft brewers in the region are not participating - gee, I wonder why they aren't lining up to sell product at a loss.

So that leaves the macros. What motivation do they have to lower their prices? People are already paying $35.50 for 24 bottles of Busch in Ontario. Yes - really. They already know people will happily pay that much, so dropping the price on that case is tantamount to AB-InBev flushing money down the toilet.

If they (the macros) had any interest in selling buck-a-beer, they'd at least be selling beers at the current price floor (which is somewhere in the vicinity of $1.25-1.50 IIRC). Interestingly, it's not easy to find a regular-sized serving of beer anywhere in Ontario for that price, which suggests that $1.50/serving is already too cheap to be worth the effort. Sub-premium macro lagers are the only ones that get that cheap, and that's only if you're buying by the case.

There were many buck-a-beer labels in Ontario about 10-15 years ago. All of them were bought out by the macros, and all of them have languished in sales over that time span. Why? Because there's no money in them, so the macros are happy to let those labels languish and die. They bought them out to get rid of competition, not because they were valuable brands in and of themselves.

And if a macro corp can't leverage its size to make buck-a-beer profitable, what are the odds of a much smaller craft brewery being able to make any money off this scheme?

$12 thirty-packs do not exist anywhere in this country. In fact, I'd be surprised if $30 thirty-packs exist anywhere in Canada. Maybe in Alberta?

 

If you homebrew a pale ale with only an ounce of hops, you can make 5 gallons for about $25, which comes out to $5 a gallon, $0.46 a bottle. That's if you are doing all-grain, about 5% ABV. Rough estimate.

 

And I thought PA was bad. I can still get Hamms 30x12 for under $14 and High Life 24x12 bottles for $15 when on sale. Cans are a bit less but I love the sexy bottle and it taste better to me. More bite than the can.

Enjoy

 

So, is part of the issue the local taxes? Why is beer so expensive in Canada?

 

Ontario must be a sweet place to live if the pressing political issue includes a need for cheaper beer!

 

Pandering is as pandering does....