What are the top 3 brewing provinces?

1. Quebec
2a. BC
2b. Ontario

 

This

 

Forgetting all of the really micro stuff, they've still got DDC and Unibroue, which can't not be in any conversation when referring to "Canada's Best." The size of these, combined with the quality weigh really heavy in favour of Quebec. While Ontario and BC likely have much smaller breweries doing much bigger things in some regards, the reach of the aforementioned QC breweries has to keep them at the top (imho).

 

More good breweries and more good beers in more styles than anywhere else in Canada.

 

1) Beautiful British Columbia (Driftwood !!) = Unibroue , (yeah I said it )
2) Quebec (As I live in BC , easier to get certain brews Singularity , Naughty Hildegard , Fat Tug , Sartori Harvest ... , never see Brasserie Dieu Du Ciel or Microbrasserie Charlevoix or Le Trou Du Diable and if you can find them , $$ compared to $ , at least on Vancouver Is
3) Ontario

 

I'm biased BC > Quebec > Ontario.

 

One thing that I love about Quebec over Ontario is ability to buy beers at a grocery store or deppaneur instead of LCBO or (ugh) the beer store.

It's easy to find great beer in Quebec. You have to work a little bit in the rest of this country

 

Quebec
B.C.
Ontario

Then a real large gap...

And why Quebec #1? The number of quality breweries. Dunham has super impressed me lately.

 

Quebec wins for their distro in my eyes. Love the stores we have here in Aylmer/Gatineau. You can get most everything released in bottles there, the rest is almost all covered in bars. Tons of readily available releases among the best I've had in Canada, and semi-frequent limited and seasonal releases in the way of barrel aging and sours.

Ontario and BC seems like a toss up. I feel like most people in both provinces don't drink each others higher end beers enough to rank them more than a 1a/b. The distro sucks and everything needs to be acquired through trades. That isn't always so easy and cost effective. Bellwoods, GLB, and Amsterdam have been doing crazy one-offs over the last few years. I need to get those all shipped to me in Ottawa every 6-8 weeks, and often times that doesn't even cover all of what has been released. I will gladly put the higher end stuff released in Ontario up against the rest of the country and not feel like even the slightest homer.

It all depends what you have access to, I guess. The beer scene in Ontario has come so far in just the last few years (no doubt this thread would have been slightly embarrassing for us Ontarians not too long ago) and I feel like they don't get a fair shake when it comes to these discussions. I really enjoy the scene here, even the lower end breweries. It's a shame the entire country can't be on the same sort of distribution scale.

 

This thread just invites homerism

I can only weigh in on anything east of Alberta, since I havent had enough BC brews (mix pack in LCBO, that may change soon)... and living in Ottawa I get to sample best of both Ontario and Quebec... and its Quebec... and its not even close taking the lead here.

Just a sampling of beers I figure have no close competition from anywhere else in Canada:

- Trois Mousquettaires Double IPA
- Trois Mousquettaires Brandy & Bourbon Barrel Baltic Porter
- DDC Morality
- DDC Peche Mortel
- Dunham Assemblage 1
- Dunham Old Ale
- Hopfenstark Bourbon Stout
- DDC Exorciste
- DDC-TDD Purgatoire Porter
- BDT Buffalo Trace aged Obscur Desir
- Castor Yakima Double IPA
- Trois Mousquettaires Gose
- Boquebiere hydromel barrel aged scotch ale
- Aphrodisiaque on cask...
- Benelux Anniversary IPA
- BDT Framboyante
- TDD Buteuse Brassin Speciale
- TDD Nez de Poivrot (when it was fresh)
- TDD La Chose

... but like most good Ontario and probably canadian ales, most of that isnt in bottles... so only locals get to taste these godly drinks... hence the homerism.

 

Atomeyes... PQ's next Gen: Trou du Diable (massive distro coming soon), Lagabière (completely insane products at the Repentigny oktoberfest festival this year), Le Castor (only a couple of products but most are sensational...), Dunham (if you havent already noticed... just read up on their limited release brews.).

 

I'm with Atomeyes on scepticism of the Quebec scene. For me it's about quality and consistency. It may be sacrilege, but their brewers just put out too much and, IMHO, most of it just isn't very good. Yeah, there are standouts, but buying beer in Quebec is a crap shoot. I know experimentation counts for a lot in most people's books, but I just want brewers to nail styles and not put stuff out there on a whim.

On the otherhand, I find I can buy from Ontario's best and know exactly what I'm getting. Product lines (outside of one-offs for events) are focussed and consistent.

My gut reaction was to put BC on top, but I'd struggle to justify that. As above, probably the Driftwood factor.

 

I agree with this.

 

You seem to really be trying hard to argue that Ontario is #1, or at least #2, but you have yet to present a great argument.

I think the bigger debate is BC vs. Ontario, as most of us tend to agree on Quebec being #1. So here are my points:

- Bellwoods: I will give you that they are up there with anybody in Canada in terms of quality, creativity and breadth of their portfolio. That said, they are small and they are still young. It will be interesting to see how they grow and if they can find a way to get their beer in to more peoples' hands. They also, IMO, have very little competition in Toronto/GTA, which makes them seem better than they are in some ways.

The rest of Ontario.

- GLB is solid but they seem to evolve far too slowly and (IMO) are not really doing a great job capitalizing on the market growth. It is nice to see the Tank 10 stuff finally getting LCBO distribution, but these guys should be bottling much more than they currently are. I would also make the argument that they seem to have a great bunch of IPAs but the rest of their portfolio lags a little. They have lots of creative one-offs that they bring to tap takeovers and festivals, but they seem so slow in getting those to the market.

- Amsterdam. I really like what these guys have done over the past year but like GLB, they move very slowly. It was nice to see Tempest show up at the LCBO and Boneshaker is a solid IPA. But the rest of their "barrel program" that you referred to is so scarcely produced that it might as well not even exist. They need to step up production of these more interesting one-offs.

- Nickel Brook. These guys have progressed significantly in the past 12 months, but their starting point was so low that I think us locals tend to often overrate them now. The bottom line is that they have yet to bottle a beer that I would proudly ship in a trade to someone in the US. They don't even warrant consideration among the top 10 breweries in either BC or QC.

- Indie Ale House. These guys might be the most underrated brewery in the province, but sadly they are so small and without bottling, no one has tried their stuff. If they started bottling, we'd be talking about them a lot more.

- Flying Monkeys. I don't know what happened here. They went from one of Ontario's best, to an afterthought in the span of about 18-24 months. They still struggle to consistently brew their flagship beer. And aside from their recent gimmicky collab beers, which have received mixed reviews, they have't really done much that is either interesting or creative in the past 18 months IMO.

- Beau's. For every casual craft beer drinker that loves Beau's, there is one craft beer nerd that thinks their portfolio struggles to be average (myself included). The fact that they are even in this discussion shows you that Ontario is still way behind BC.

- Black Oak. Starting to get a little more creative and it is nice to see seasonals finally showing up in the LCBO. Solid, but certainly not worthy of consideration among BC and QC's best.


The point of what I did above was to show you that Ontario is still a ways behind both QC and BC. There's no question that we've made the most significant progress over the past year, but we aren't there yet. I realize that this is just my opinion, but I am sure there are others who would agree.

That said, I would wager that 3 years from now, the story will be a lot different because Ontario will continue to progress and push BC and QC.

 

I'd suggest that's because of distribution. In Ontario it is hard to get new beers into stores so the product lineup changes much more slowly than in Quebec. You can become much more familiar with what it available, know what to avoid and know what to look forward to. How many new beers have Ontario's best put in the LCBO in the past year? Outside of Great Lakes maybe a couple of beers each.

 

One thing that keeps Ontario back is the dumbed-down beers in the core lineup of some of the bigger breweries. Great Lakes is notorious for this. Green Tea Beer? Orange Peel Beer? I just couldn't imagine a brewery that's trying to be an innovator having such garbage gimmick beers in their core lineup.

If Ontario wants to be at the top of this list, a real trimming of the fat needs to occur.