How do you brew, bottle and sell beer for $1 that will attract consumers, taste reasonably decent and, at the end of the day, turn a profit?
Several craft breweries across Ontario say Premier Doug Ford鈥檚 buck-a-beer promise is too economically difficult to fulfill. Some have called the premier鈥檚 challenge 鈥渋nsulting.鈥�
But a brewer in Picton, Ont., thinks he can pull it off.
At the moment, Barley Days Brewery sells a bottle of its Loyalist Lager for $3 a pop. General manager Kyle Baldwin says he can produce a new lager for a third of that price 鈥渨ithout jeopardizing any of our ingredients.鈥�
鈥淥ur end goal is to try to make it affordable for all Ontarians to have a great beer -- and a great craft beer -- at a great price,鈥� Baldwin told 麻豆影视 Channel on Tuesday.
Ford visited Baldwin鈥檚 brewery on Tuesday to announce his buck-a-beer plan, which will see the minimum price of a bottle or can of beer under 5.6 per cent drop to $1 from $1.25. The measure is expected to take effect days before the Labour Day weekend.
Ford plans to use "non-financial incentives," such as prime spots in liquor stores and advertising in flyers, to promote buck-a-beer products.
Baldwin says Ford鈥檚 campaign promise inspired his brewery to look into making its own buck-a-beer. Asked how he鈥檇 create a quality beer without sacrificing quality, Baldwin said 鈥渢he proof is in the pudding.鈥�
鈥淲e鈥檙e making our lager the same as we always have, and we鈥檙e very confident that we can produce a high-quality beer for a great price,鈥� he said.
Other brewers weren鈥檛 so sure.
Doug Appeldoorn, owner of Toronto鈥檚 People鈥檚 Pint Brewing Company, said creating a buck-a-beer for his company would be almost impossible.
鈥淥ur cheapest beer costs us about $1.40 to make, and that鈥檚 just pure cost to make the beer. It doesn鈥檛 include anything else like, you know, our rent, paying our staff, insurance -- all the other costs of running a brewery,鈥� Appeldoorn said.
For $1, Appeldoorn said he鈥檇 only be able to offer 鈥渁 really, really small beer.鈥� And he doubts many other brewers will take the premier鈥檚 bait.
鈥淚 can鈥檛 see many doing it. It鈥檚 just not feasible for a lot of us to do it,鈥� he said.
鈥榊ou couldn鈥檛 be more tone deaf鈥�
Geordan Saunders, owner of Napanee Beer Co. in Napanee, Ont., says he鈥檚 concerned that Ford鈥檚 plan encourages 鈥渁 race to the bottom鈥� that could benefit big corporate brewers while penalizing smaller companies.
鈥淚t鈥檚 asking small businesses across Ontario 鈥� family-owned businesses that employ people in their communities 鈥� to make less money on the product that they work so hard for,鈥� Saunders said.
In reality, Saunders said, small brewers like his simply won鈥檛 be able to afford selling beer for $1.
鈥淏y encouraging things like better shelf space at the LCBO, that really only benefits the brewers who can afford to make buck-a-beer, which is big brewers like Molson and not the little guys,鈥� he said.
Toronto-based Great Lakes Brewery echoed that sentiment on Twitter, saying it has no plans to drop its prices.
"We believe in our brands, take pride in our quality and firmly feel that are current prices are very fair," the company tweeted.
Eric Portelance, who co-owned Toronto鈥檚 Halo Brewery, penned an open letter to Ford鈥檚 PC government calling the move 鈥渋nsulting鈥� as the industry struggles with steel and aluminum tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump.
"You couldn't be more tone deaf on this subject," Portelance wrote.
Buck-a-beer isn鈥檛 entirely new in Ontario. The province used to allow beer to be sold for $1, but the Liberal government increased the minimum price in 2008, citing a mandate of 鈥渟ocial responsibility.鈥�
With files from The Canadian Press
