These breweries started as contract brewers
With around 75 active businesses, contract brewing is a practice more prevalent in Ontario than any other Canadian province. In fact, Ontario has three brewing facilities dedicated to making beer for others: Common Good Beer Co. and Brunswick Bierworks in Toronto, and Equals Brewing in London.
What is contract brewing? Essentially, a contract brewer is a business that pays another brewery to produce their beer. They may perform the brewing process entirely on their own or have it done for them. A contract brewer typically possesses Manufacturer’s Licence issued by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO).
Contract brewers can only sell their beer through the LCBO, Beer Store, grocery stores, and bars and restaurants. Their beer can’t be sold at the retail store of the brewery where it’s made (sometimes there are loopholes).
This business model can be effective way to get a beer out into the market, for numerous reasons, without a large investment in equipment and space. Many contract brewers have gone on to open their own bricks-and-mortar brewery, while others are content sticking to the contracting model.
The overall contract brewing practice, however, is seen by some – consumers and breweries alike – as antithetical to the definition of craft beer. The topic is frequently debated (see: The Globe and Mail and CBC).
Here’s a list of breweries that started out on a contracting basis and went on to open their own facility:
| 4 Degrees Brewing 5West Brewpub & Kitchen All or Nothing Brewhouse Arch Brewing Bell City Brewing Bench Brewing Brothers Brewing Clifford Brewing Collective Arts Brewing Cowbell Brewing Descendants Beer & Beverage Elora Brewing Falcon Brewing Full Beard Brewing Junction Craft Brewing |
Kensington Brewing Lake Wilcox Brewing Left Field Brewery Manantler Craft Brewing Manitoulin Brewing Northwinds Brewhouse Outlaw Brew Co. Radical Road Brewing Rhythm & Brews Brewing Sawdust City Brewing Shacklands Brewing Spearhead Brewing Stray Dog Brewing Trestle Brewing Tuque de Broue Brewery |
This is a list of current contract breweries that are now in the process of building their own brewery:
| Bayfield Brewing Black Bellows Brewing Black Donnellys Brewing Bobcaygeon Brewing Canvas Brewing Fenelon Falls Brewing GoodLot Farmstead Brewing |
High Park Brewery Hometown Brew Co. Longslice Brewing Old Dog Brewing Orleans Brewng Weatherhead Brew |
Additionally, due to in-house capacity limitations, many bricks-and-mortar breweries source out a portion of their production to meet large LCBO or grocery store orders. Other established breweries work with outside brewing facilities for many others reasons.
For instance, Beau’s Brewing Co. in Vankleek Hill, operating since 2006, has no space onsite for a canning line; When Beau’s opted to put their Lug-Tread Lagered Ale and Full Time IPA in cans, they turned to outsourcing. Both beers are brewed at their Vankleek Hill brewery and then meticulously shipped via tanker to a Toronto brewery to be canned.
Many of your favourite breweries may be brewing, or have brewed, beer for others. It’s a smart way for a brewery to make use of extra capacity and to bolster their income. Over the years, some of these breweries have included Big Rig Black Oak, Broadhead, Cool, Forked River, Grand River, Great Lakes, Highlander, Innocente, Niagara College Teaching Bewery, Nickel Brook, Railway City, Wellington, and more.
Overall, contract brewing is very commonplace in Ontario, it’s helped many breweries get to where they are, and it’s not going away.
You can view a list of Ontario contract brewers here.
Looking for more information? Check out these slides from the 2014 Ontario Craft Brewers Conference.
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