Beer deal clears way for grocery sales in Ontario | Toronto Star

Syrian refugees, blah blah blah, federal election blah blah blah

BEER WILL BE SOLD IN SUPERMARKETS

These are key statements:

Beer will be sold in 450 supermarkets as well as 448 Beer Stores, 651 LCBO outlets, and 210 rural LCBO agency stores.
Supermarkets can each sell the equivalent of 279 six-packs per day. If they exceed their quota they will pay a penalty worth 1 per cent of the cost of the beer to the LCBO, which will then compensate the Beer Store.

This will in many ways just help sell more swill in six packs. The little guys with the more unique brands will get little traction as the supermarkets will be risk adverse and will sell Molson Canadian, Blue, Coors Lite etc.

And who said that entrepreneurism is dead in Ontario..oh wait, if you sell too much then you have to pay a penalty. Who came up wit 279 six packs as a quota limit.

Being so close to Quebec, I'll probably continue getting beer there.

Says specifically one-fifth of shelf space must be independent brewers.

I'll believe it when I see it. The provincial government here and the big beer companies are in pretty close and this, to me, is just a shell game to try and convince the public that they are opening up the beer distribution industry.

Meanwhile we continue to be able to buy wine in a couple of the main supermarkets here.

Been a year and a half or so.

They sell domestic wine in supermarkets here. The brands are named for people thought locally to be sophisticated; Wayne Gretzy, Don Cherry, Stompin' Tom and so on.

Cherry wine...I got slaughtered by a bottle of that in 1976.

Supermarkets restock what has been sold, and increase the space for things that sell at the expense of those that don't. As interest in craft beers has increased in the US over the past ten years or so, supermarkets (in states which allow supermarkets to sell beer) have gone from selling no craft beer, or maybe some Sam Adams, to having IME as much as 50% of their beer space devoted to craft beers, and even then late in the day the craft beer shelves are heavily depleted.

Unless Canadian supermarkets have some mechanism for directing customers to buy certain products, I suspect the same drift away from swill towards craft beer will happen and the 20% minimum shelf space will quickly become irrelevant.

For those who are sceptical, I was too, and never would have believed how far the craft beer market in the US would come and how quickly. The big brewers are worried, and are now snapping up craft brewers themselves, and inventing their own "crafty" beer brands (that aren't craft beers at all) as the traditional big brand beers are losing ground year on year.

I remember buying 6 packs of little bottles of wine called Lonesome Charlie. There's a story but I won't put you through that.
The LB in Sask gets free coolers from distributors and that determines which beer is available cold. Graft but waddaya gonna do?

They have to sell at the same price as the beer store and can't put anything on sale unless the beer store does. And no own-brand beers- the PC beers will only be sold at the Beer Store.

Apart from convenience this just locks us in to zero competition for the next ten years.

And hoo bloody rah for Ontario having the cheapest beer in Canada. So what?

My experience is that Quebec is cheaper. This is about a 20 minute drive from me. Note that the prices do not include tax or deposit ($0.10/bottle). If you want swill the prices are better in Quebec and the hours of operation are better and the age is 18.

Our beers

I hope you are right. I was in NH and VT recently and the craft beer selection at supermarkets was excellent. The price can't compete with Bud, Coors etc but then the taste makes up for it.

Blue Moon and Goose Island are prime examples of beers that were once craft/indie beers but have been dumbed down to allow for mass appeal.

I believe Blue Moon is identical to Rickards White. Which I quite like.

Blue Moon is a "crafty" beer - brand developed by SAB Miller.

When is BC going to implement this???