BC Breweries by Production 2013
The LDB just released their 2013 payment numbers, which includes payouts to anyone they owed money to. Since all breweries in the province must by law technically sell their product to the LDB instead of to customers (even if the LDB never physically touches the money or the beer), these numbers act as a rough approximation of brewery production size.
I sat down and did all the math on this last year based on some inside info from a couple of breweries. Looking back, though, I feel those numbers weren’t quite right. I’ve adjusted my dollars to hectolitre conversion slightly, reflecting the improvement in my knowledge of how beer is sold in BC over the past 12 months. Below, I’ve put the 2013 numbers alongside the revised 2012 numbers, along with a percentage change.
As always, the hectolitre numbers are not directly derived from simple math. For instance, if Joe’s Brewery does $2,125,894 in sales, I divide that by 400 (on average, beer sells for 3.75-4.25 per litre) to get 5,314.735 hL. That’s an absurdly precise number for such a generalization. I take that number, and add into it my knowledge that Joe sells his beer mostly on draft (draft beer is more like $3.25 per litre; packaged varies but can be $6.00 or more). So I round Joe’s number up a bit because he had to sell more beer to make his numbers. Let’s say 5,500.
Seriously, that’s how I did this. It goes without saying that these are not precise numbers. If any brewery reading this wants to give me more accurate numbers for their production from March 2012 to March 2013 I’ll be happy to update.
Some fun tidbits:
- Driftwood has slowed their unbelievable growth, and have only increased 50% since last year instead of doubling as they did every year previously.
- I have no idea why the numbers for Red Truck dropped off a cliff. Maybe they’re focusing on building a brewery instead of brewing beer?
- Yes, those numbers for Prohibition / Big Surf are correct. I checked twice.
- Rock on, Sean Hoyne! Hoyne’s numbers were based off an estimate last year, so that might impact the growth number, but even so making that much beer in a 10hL family run brewery shows major demand for product. Congrats!
- R&B is down more than I’d like. Everyone go have an East Side Bitter.
Disclaimers (repeated from 2012):
- The value that seems to best translate dollars to hectolitres for my control breweries is $400. Obviously this is a very rough guess. Draught-only producers will have their production adjusted higher, while bottle-focused producers will be lower.
- Yes, the final production numbers smell like ass because that’s precisely where I got them from.
- Because of the craziness of shadow brands and contract brewing, it’s hard to split out some of these numbers. OK Spring, in particular, also produces Sleeman locally, and those sales are blended in.
- Some breweries are missing, including: Coal Harbour, Steamworks amoung others. I have no idea why. They are likely running under either a numbered company or a name I don’t recognize.
- I have excluded Labatt’s (Kokanee) simply because it would be impossible to separate out beer produced in-province from imports.
- Likewise, I have skipped Mark Anthony Group (Turning Point/Stanley Park) because most of their money comes from wine (Mission Hill)
- Breweries with no distribution to speak of (mostly brewpubs) have been dropped from the list.
Click headers to sort
Brewery | 2012 Income | 2012 Production (hl) | 2013 Income | 2013 Production (hl) | Growth |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Arrowhead* | – | – | 167716 | 400 | – |
Red Truck | 985213 | 2500 | 353808 | 850 | -64% |
Bridge* | – | – | 78141 | 200 | – |
Cannery | 1238733 | 3000 | 1391236 | 3500 | 12% |
Central City | 2508961 | 6000 | 2717936 | 6500 | 8% |
Crannog | 332799 | 850 | 367742 | 950 | 10% |
Dead Frog | 1680211 | 4200 | 1893880 | 4700 | 13% |
Driftwood | 2653713 | 6700 | 4049056 | 10500 | 53% |
Fernie | 1134768 | 2750 | 1468056 | 3600 | 29% |
Tree | 5415175 | 13250 | 5391621 | 13250 | -0% |
Granville Island | 24732615 | 62500 | 23597424 | 60000 | -5% |
Gulf Islands | 308883 | 700 | 494823 | 1200 | 60% |
Howe Sound | 1924350 | 4800 | 2371393 | 6000 | 23% |
Hoyne | 391032 | 950 | 1204082 | 3000 | 208% |
Lighthouse | 4684083 | 12000 | 5156097 | 13000 | 10% |
Longwood | 250872 | 625 | – | ||
Molson | 57240081 | 150000 | 55402987 | 140000 | -3% |
Moon Under Water | 67124 | 175 | 97534 | 250 | 45% |
Mt Begbie | 1484419 | 3700 | 1701101 | 4300 | 15% |
Nelson | 2383267 | 6000 | 2444327 | 6100 | 3% |
Northram | 10469291 | 26000 | 12412210 | 31000 | 19% |
OK Spring | 93446929 | 233000 | 100826104 | 250000 | 8% |
Old Yale | – | – | 178992 | 450 | – |
Pacific Western | 32725605 | 80000 | 37038122 | 92000 | 13% |
Parallel 49 | – | – | 1452960 | 3600 | – |
Phillips | 12142566 | 30000 | 14527143 | 35000 | 20% |
Plan B | 107520 | 250 | 111483 | 275 | 4% |
Prohibition / Big Surf | 276261 | 650 | 2212115 | 5500 | 701% |
R&B Brewing | 1428113 | 3600 | 1218933 | 3000 | -15% |
Russell Brewing | 3682097 | 9200 | 4162692 | 10500 | 13% |
Spinnakers | 179447 | 450 | 386987 | 950 | 116% |
Storm Brewing | 375628 | 950 | 353287 | 900 | -6% |
Tin Whistle | 472565 | 1150 | 449938 | 1100 | -5% |
Tofino | 360314 | 950 | 532850 | 1350 | 48% |
Townsite | – | – | 561253 | 1400 | – |
Vancouver Island | 7689047 | 19000 | 8663020 | 21500 | 13% |
Wolf Brewing | 217347 | 550 | 200198 | 500 | -8% |
* Arrowhead and Bridge numbers are adjusted to approximate annual production, as they were not open for the entirety of the reporting period.
Holla! enjoy your posts dude! It would be interesting to also compare the totals from last year and this year. I.e. Is there more money being put into beer in BC overall?
A numbers dude
3 Oct 13 at 12:52
Hey Chuck, very interesting. Question, I’m assuming those payouts are the mounts paid to the brewery after removing gst/pst and LDB markup from their retail price, plus any commission they would receive if they sold it directly. Can you confirm that? If that is the case, did you adjust for this in your per litre cost?
Adam
3 Oct 13 at 13:00
@A numbers dude — Overall the beer market is slightly up, but for smaller breweries it’s up dramatically. You can see these trends quarter to quarter at the LDB site, where they release their Quarterly Market Review.
@Adam — I would also assume the same. My $4/litre number assumes these are post-tax/mark-up. $4 is a blended value for packaged and draught product. It works out to ~$2.60 for a bomber and $200 for a keg (Low for the bottle but high for the keg), but is probably a good balance since breweries try to sell as little draught as possible compared to the much higher margin packaged product.
chuck
3 Oct 13 at 13:08
Interesting, is beer exported to the US/other provinces included in the totals?
Al
3 Oct 13 at 14:56
Very interesting post. Weird to see some of those drops. Maybe Red Truck is ramping down the north Vancouver location so that once the new location is built they can start moving some of their brewing equipment.
mikescraftbeer
3 Oct 13 at 14:57
I think Red Truck is down because of Taylor Crossing’s shut down last year.
Nucking Futs
3 Oct 13 at 16:29
And Steamworks is Dead Frog…
Nucking Futs
3 Oct 13 at 16:31
@Nucking Futs — Red Truck has been widely available on draft for quite a while, so the dropoff shouldn’t be as severe.
Yup, DF brews Steamworks under contract, so that’s going to be a chunk of the DF totals, but they also brew in-house and they appear/disappear from the records over the past few years (as Quarterdeck Brewing), which is confusing.
chuck
3 Oct 13 at 16:46
Red Truck is widely available, yes, but they sold a metric shit ton through Taylor’s. Don’t underestimate the affect of a TRUE tied house (which is why the gubment suppressed them for so long)
Nucking Futs
3 Oct 13 at 16:56
* effect
Nucking Futs
3 Oct 13 at 16:57