Canada: Number of breweries up 17.6% last year

In some ways, 2017 was a historical year for the Canadian beer industry, Beer Canada said in its updated Industry Trends report. The number of operational brewing facilities across the country increased by 17.6% from 695 in 2016 to an all-time high of 817 in 2017. Over half of the 817 brewing facilities are located in either Ontario or Québec. In Canada, the number of brewing facilities per every 100,000 drinking age adults increased by 16.8% from 2.4 to 2.8 breweries for 2017 over the previous year. Using the same per capita measure, New Brunswick maintained the title for the most operational brewing facilities with 6.5, followed by Nova Scotia and PEI with 6.4 and 5.0 respectively. Coming in last was Manitoba with 1.0.

While the number of operational brewing facilities continues to climb, national production and national sales volumes have remained relatively flat. National production increased by 0.3% from 22.36 million hectolitres (hL) in 2016 to 22.43 million hL in 2017. Domestic sales declined 1.5% from 18.84 million hL in 2016 to 18.56 million hL in 2017. Over the same period, import sales increased by 1.0% from 3.58 million hL to 3.62 million hL. In total, national sales fell 1.1% from 22.42 million hL in 2016 to 22.20 million hL in 2017.

While the imports share of the Canadian beer market continues to grow, domestic brewers still account for 84% of the beer purchased in Canada - a contrast when compared with wine and spirits sales. Domestic wine accounts for 33% of Canadian’s wine purchases and domestic spirits account for 56% of Canadian’s spirits purchases.

In 2017, per capita consumption of beer in Canada stood at 75.5 litres, down 2.1% from 2016. Newfoundland has the highest per capita consumption rate at 93.4 litres, followed by Quebec and PEI with 82.4 litres and 79.7 litres respectively.

In 2017, national can sales rose 4.3%, keg sales were up 1.2%, while bottle sales declined by 10.7%. In total, cans currently hold 60% share of the Canadian beer market, with bottles and kegs holding the remaining 30% and 10% respectively. This is a contrast from just five years ago, when bottles accounted for 44% of the Canadian beer market, cans 46% and kegs 10%.

2017 also saw the price of beer rise nationally by 2.6%, while the price of spirits increased by 1.6% and wine decreased by 0.4%.

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