Buck a beer?
 

People of Ford-tario. Is buck a beer a thing outside of Mr Ford's fevered mind? How much is a beer anyway? In Canada's most expensive (feels like) province to buy booze, a buck a beer, even for domestic swill, seems like an impossibility. How will a buck a beer change your lives? Should I consider relocating?

Re: Buck a beer?
 

No, he is dreaming!

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Originally Posted by Atlantic Xpat (Post 12544616)

How much is a beer anyway?

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Even 'value' p*ss-water like Lakeport Pilsener is still $80 (pre-tax) for 48 small cans

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Originally Posted by Atlantic Xpat (Post 12544616)

How will a buck a beer change your lives?

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Lead to considerable cost savings during hockey season!!!

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Originally Posted by Atlantic Xpat (Post 12544616)

Should I consider relocating?

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Nah - yer good on 'the rock'!

Re: Buck a beer?
 

Re: Buck a beer?
 

O'Doul's is $15 for a 12 pack (plus taxes) .. so not even 0.04% alcohol beer is that cheap.. but apparently will be!

But wait, there's more!

The Ontario government says it will offer “non-financial incentives” to brewers who sell their beer for $1 once the province’s buck-a-beer plan is in place later this month.

The Progressive Conservative plan will lower the minimum price of a bottle or can of beer with an alcohol volume below 5.6 per cent to $1 from $1.25 starting Aug. 27 – a few days before the Labour Day weekend.
https://globalnews.ca/news/4373758/ontario-buck-a-beer/


Oh joy - so what's the betting the Police will have a Ride program for that weekend now, lol (the Govt have got to make up the deficit somehow, so fines would work).


:)

Re: Buck a beer?
 

It would seem that I've turned in George Bush or BoJo or Betsy DeVos. I have no idea of the price of beer despite buying it every week. To me it's like petrol, it doesn't matter what it costs because I'm going to buy it anyway. Oh, and it's like petrol in that Doug Ford says he's making it cheap but he isn't.

Re: Buck a beer?
 

$1.25 is what you pay in a supermarket here. I believe that's the lowest price allowed in QC. That is probably why Walmart doesn't sell beer. It can't undercut the competition.

Re: Buck a beer?
 

I gather there are no breweries currently supplying beer for sale at the existing floor price of $1.25. By the time the Beer Store, supermarket and/or LCBO have taken their cut, there's not enough margin. According to a brewer I heard on the radio yesterday, the only way beer could be brewed down to that price and still make money is by brewing at around 8% abv and then diluting it for sale. That leads to even more gnat's piss flavour than the bottom-of-the-market swill currently enjoys. Drinkable beer will not be available anywhere near the floor price.

It appears the "non-financial incentives" will include things like premium placement in LCBO stores, inclusion in prominent position in flyers and in-store signage. All of those things have significant monetary value, so it's hard to see how they count as "non-financial incentives." Still, it lets Ford and his supporters think they're winning, so it's gotta be a good thing, right?

AX, if I were you I'd stay on the Rock. There's too much winning going on in Ontario, what with throwing the health and physical education curriculum into disarray, this buck-a-beer boondoggle, the cancellation of renewable energy projects, and so much more. Oh, but gas prices went down by a couple of pennies for ten days or so until the gas companies put them all back up again, so that's all OK.

Re: Buck a beer?
 

If beer prices are lowered wouldnt that mean people drinking more therefore more drunk people and all the problems that come with that? We seem to be living in an age where politicians are elected with the lowest amount of brain cells.If buck a beer happened in Alberta it wouldnt affect myself as I only buy craft beer and dont mind paying a few dollars extra for better quality,cant drink cheap swill ,tastes disgusting.I used like Goose Island but when Trump started playing silly bugger with tariffs on Canadian exports I stopped buying it.

Re: Buck a beer?
 

Ford is appealing to his base. Just like his Orc counterpart role model south of the border, his manifesto is comprised of bumper sticker slogans which resonate with the inner neanderthal that exists in us all.

Re: Buck a beer?
 

I see some sort of legal challenge in the offing. The so-called "non-financial incentives" offered to brewers who take up this nonsense amount to government-funded promotional considerations in LCBO stores (owned by the government) worth upwards of $500 per month per store (so for all 650 stores x $500 per month = $325,000 per month per buck-a-beer brewer) . With that kind of "free" promotion given away only to those multinational swill producers who can swallow the losses, and at the expense of local Ontario brewers who will be missing out on the opportunity to participate in the promotion even by paying for it - as all the available promotion space will most likely be given over to AB/InBev/SAB Miller and Molson-Coors - there is a rather obvious tilt to the playing field. Craft Beer Ontario, to which many local breweries belong, is apparently examining their options for a court challenge - not about the floor price, as they'd never go there anyway, but about the incentive program offered to participants.

Re: Buck a beer?
 

Would it not be easier for him to open up the liquor store market to private operators? Would anyone other than those employed by LCBO object to that?

Re: Buck a beer?
 

For everyone except the multinational brewers who operate an effective monopoly in the beer distribution marketplace (the Beer Store, which runs retail outlets and has a stranglehold on supplies of both draft and bottled beer to bars and restaurants, is owned jointly AB-InBev and Molson-Coors), that would be by far and away the most sensible and successful policy. The previous government took some steps towards liberalizing the beer and wine retail environment when they allowed supermarkets to sell alcohol, but there are still a number of restrictions on what can be sold and how it can be packaged (and I believe beer sold through supermarkets is still distributed by the Beer Store). So the big brewers are even more vociferously opposed to any further deregulation than the LCBO is.

Although one of the loudest voices in opposition is the public service union that represents LCBO workers, so perhaps Ford's mind is torn between supporting his donors/cronies in the big breweries on one hand, and his natural antipathy towards trade unions on the other...

Re: Buck a beer?
 

Personally think that even that's too expensive. It should around 50 cents a can, maybe up to 75 cents a glass in posh places.

Re: Buck a beer?
 

A pint of craft beer for a $1 would be lovely but alas we know that's not going to happen!

Re: Buck a beer?
 

It did strike me as being a bit odd given the current laws regarding alcohol are quite restrictive - in terms of convenience, age and public drinking. It all seems a bit contrary.

And then there's the UK always talking about a high minimum price

Re: Buck a beer?
 

I think it's bs, as Oakvillian pointed out. If they have to brew high alc/vol and dilute it to save money it will have that chloroform taste the high alcohol domestic beers have. The first Minhas (advertised as the cheapest one) marketed here had a whiff of it and I never tried it again. Ford can't back a few struggling breweries to get his swill made without a lot of push back from the industry, and he can't start a government brewery to make no name BEER so if he tries and fails then says, well I tried go blame the brewers, at least he tried. Doug Ford was the high-school pot dealer so he should have some better ideas for selling cannabis.

Re: Buck a beer?
 

I was just in Alberta and saw lots of those, many of which were part of gas stations. I guess that is how Manjit Minhas made her money selling swill beer.

Re: Buck a beer?
 

I paid $4.25 for a 473ml can of locally brewed craft beer yesterdat. Swill from the major brewco's is $2.50odd for a 341ml bottle. Buck a beer would be rather a stretch here but I think I'll sat on the Rock rather than moving to Ontario....:-)

Re: Buck a beer?
 

I was in BC a week ago and in the town we were in (Radium Hot Springs) there was a private liquor store and a BC government liquor store across the road from each other. I bought a local can (341 ml can) of a beer I had tried at a pub at the private liquor store. Then a few days later I went into the government run store (bigger, nicer, cleaner) and the same beer in a 500 ml can was cheaper than the 341 ml can at the private store.

Re: Buck a beer?
 

I bet Manjit Ninjas doesn't drink her own beer, Boxer larger is disgusting . Here in Calgary we have a Solo Liquor 1 block away from the apartment saves having to drive to Safeway. It's pretty much the same in every neighborhood.

Re: Buck a beer?
 

Yes, the joys of public monopolies on booze sales. Rooted in control and prohibition, they are now too lucrative for provincial governments to give up the revenue stream so consumers suffer. Although I suspect the competitive landscape would be rather different here in St John's with 500k people than BC!

Re: Buck a beer?
 

In the case in BC, the government run liquor store had cheaper beer. The only advantage to the private store was it was open later.

Re: Buck a beer?
 

Manjit Minhas is the main reason I don't watch Dragons Den anymore. Such a smug dismissive investor.

Looking at her companies beer selection it looks to be bland swill or novelty flavours.

Re: Buck a beer?
 

She has expanded her brewing and distilling enterprises into Saskatchewan, so it is growing.

Re: Buck a beer?
 

In Alberta, private liquor stores sell the liquor, but they can only buy it from the government. So it is not "private" as sensible democracies would understand it.

Re: Buck a beer?
 

I'm happy for her but it's Saskatchewan we're talking about and they will drink any old piss so long as it's made there. Have a taste of Old Style Pilsner one of the top selling "brews" in SK and you know what I mean lol.

Will do! I drink Pil, and I must say the peer pressure around here is incredible! I didn't like the Minhas beer when I tried it ages ago though. It's been so long since they've brewed Pil in Saskatchewan you're easily tagged as a newbie.

Re: Buck a beer?
 

Ha, Ha...that Old Style Pilsner is so bland. I bought a can of it as a joke this summer when it was my turn to bring the beers for the footie team. The one guy on the team with SK roots drank it.

I did see Old Style Pilsner being sold for $7.99 a bottle at the rest area mid way up the Icefields Parkway. You would have to be pretty desperate to drink that. The same rest area sells petrol at $2.01/litre.

Re: Buck a beer?
 

lol it's brewed in Ontario now I believe, formerly brewed by the aptly named Sick's brewery Lethbridge but still popular in the craft beer wasteland that is SK.

Re: Buck a beer?
 

Old Style Pilsner the official piss water of the Rough Riders lol says it all. Even if it was a buck a beer I would rather drink the petrol, unleaded.

Re: Buck a beer?
 

Old Style Pilsner was featured in last Friday's cooler (or chillbox as described by some) for our post footie beer and was purchased by the team cheapskate. His 6 pack of Old Style wasn't touched but the other bland lagerish beer he brought was readily consumed.

Re: Buck a beer?
 

Molson's makes it all over, ours comes from Vancouver. They alter the recipe to suit regional tastes, so a Molson's Pilsner in Ontario will be different from one in Saskatchewan. Nearly all major brands get that treatment. The Sick's Brewery in Prince Albert made it in the old days, then was bought out by Prince Albert Brewing and they took the big 6 off the label (I still have some bottles), then Molson took over. Saskatchewan was the wasteland that helped pioneer the craft beer movement in the very early 80's with some of the first brew pubs in the country, back when people were still bringing back Granville Island beer from Vancouver. Those first ones are (almost without exception) still going strong, despite greatly increased competition. The good news for patrons of the bar where I work is that in addition to all the brew pubs/restaurants there are several craft breweries that actually make enough to supply the clubs so in addition to all the usual domestics plus Big Rock (who keeps expanding their line) we can have an extra 3 or 4 taps going with just local product.

Re: Buck a beer?
 

Something similiar happened when I lived in Winnipeg.I had a bbq and bought some beer at the US border on the way back from a trip .In my defense I didnt know much about US beer only Bud gut rot and bought a 24 pack of Milwaukee "Best" for $10 US lol.I should have known by the price but no-one would drink it at the bbq not even my son,couldnt even give it away! I eneded up drinking the piss water myself,didnt taste too bad after 5 or 6. A lesson learned.