Beer in Canada - Craft Beer

Craft Beer

As of 2008, about 4% of the market was controlled by craft brewers, less than a third of that controlled by the Country's bestselling brand, Budweiser. The first modern Canadian craft brewer was Horseshoe Bay Brewing, founded in Vancouver in 1982. This was followed by Granville Island Brewing of Vancouver (1984), Brick Brewery of Waterloo (1984), Wellington Brewery of Guelph (1985), Big Rock Brewery of Calgary (1985), and McAuslan Brewing of Montreal (1989). Microbreweries and brewpubs have continued to expand since.

One way the foreign-owned "macrobreweries" have dealt with the threat of this slow but steady growth of domestic brewers is by buying them outright. For example, Creemore Springs of Creemore, Ontario was bought by MolsonCoors in 2005, and Granville Island Brewing became part of the corporation in 2010.