BC Breweries by Production 2015
UPDATE: Heard from a brewer, who checked my bullshit hectolitre numbers and concluded they were, indeed, bullshit. He also kindly gave me some guidance and, as such, I have update the hL column to try and be a little more accurate. It’s still all guesswork, though.
Every year I dig through the dumpsters outside the BC LDB’s corporate offices for a few days, then spend a couple of months painstakingly taping their shredded financial reports back together to bring you my Annual BC Brewing Financial Report. It’s a long, boring job, but someone has to do it.
Okay, fine. As a public company, they post it here, and I develop a series of scripts to parse out the data and do all the math for me. It takes, like, 30 minutes tops. Happy now?
So here’s the juice, folks. Read away. Fun tidbits: some breweries had banner years, Bomber chief amoung them. Dead Frog, on the other hand, might be doing poorly… (or they might be contracting excess brewing capacity out more and more). Also, there are a LOT of new breweries. For any brewery that hadn’t been open 12 months as of March 2015 their numbers will be lower than one might expect since they didn’t sell 12 months of beer when this report was written. Basically, be carefully before reading too much into this folks.
Disclaimer about hectolitres calculations from last year:
Below I’ve tabulated the 2014 2015 financials for each brewery that I can identify in the report, along with their 2014 numbers, and an approximate guess for beer production in hectolitres. I’m using a soft divisor to get from raw income to production stats, based on my knowledge of the brewery and their market. For instance, an all-draft company will have a lower income per hL because kegs sell for less per hL than bottles.
Lastly, note that these are sales to the LDB which only concerns itself with liquor sales in British Columbia. Companies like Parallel 49 or Central City, who ship a lot of product across the border, will produce a lot more beer than is reported here.
The degree to which these hectolitre calculations should be trusted is reflected by how easily I just changed them out: don’t trust them. These are very approximate numbers only, and should only be used for rough relative comparisons.
All columns are sortable. Just click.
Disclaimers (repeated from 2013, 2014):
- 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 and 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)
Click headers to sort
Brewery | alias/aka/notes | 2013 Income | 2014 Income | 2015 Income | 2015 Production (hl) | Growth |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
33 Acres Brewing Company Inc | 341586 | 1319467 | 3000 | 286% | ||
Allen Brands Inc | Big Surf / Prohibition | 2212115 | 2926208 | 3109969 | 6500 | 6% |
Arrowhead Brewing Company | 69882 | 301396 | 450094 | 1000 | 49% | |
Bad Tatoo | 0 | 0 | 80601 | 150 | 100% | |
Barley Mill Brewpub | 27327 | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | 100% | |
Big Ridge Brewing Company | 32591 | 31508 | 0 | -100% | ||
Big River Brewing Company | 46422 | 76883 | 66297 | 100 | -14% | |
Big Rock Brewery Inc | 6487218 | 5349530 | 4077594 | 8000 | -24% | |
Black Kettle Brewing | 0 | 0 | 230683 | 500 | 100% | |
Bomber Brewing Corporation | 69503 | 1414258 | 2500 | 1935% | ||
Bridge Brewing Corp | 58606 | 354781 | 716924 | 1250 | 102% | |
Cannery Brewing Co | 1391236 | 1338593 | 1370312 | 2500 | 2% | |
Category 12 | 0 | 0 | 100930 | 225 | 100% | |
Chilkoot | Yukon Beer | 0 | 0 | 153847 | 300 | 100% |
Central City Brewing Co | 2717936 | 4043560 | 8885765 | 18500 | 120% | |
Craig Street Brewing Co Ltd | 63910 | 43137 | 48710 | 100 | 13% | |
Crannog Ales Limited | 367742 | 399852 | 425399 | 950 | 6% | |
Cumberland Brewing | 0 | 0 | 54298 | 100 | 100% | |
Dageraad Brewing | 0 | 0 | 334524 | 650 | 100% | |
Dead Frog Brewery | 1893880 | 2065463 | 1211968 | 2000 | -41% | |
Deep Cove Brewers And Distillers Inc | 68699 | 125774 | 250 | 83% | ||
Driftwood Brewing | 4049056 | 5843817 | 7613331 | 16500 | 30% | |
Fernie Brewing Co | 1468056 | 1670146 | 2095171 | 4000 | 25% | |
Fireweed Brewing Corp | Tree | 5391621 | 5328876 | 5668754 | 12000 | 6% |
Four Mile Pub | 0 | 0 | 251947 | 500 | 100% | |
Four Winds Brewing Company Ltd | 365473 | 1471268 | 3000 | 303% | ||
Freddy’s Brew Pub | 26466 | 32842 | 100 | 24% | ||
Gladstone | 0 | 0 | 30765 | 50 | 100% | |
Granville Island Brewing Company | 23597424 | 22831746 | 19501869 | 40000 | -15% | |
Green Leaf Brewing Corporation | 66654 | 398267 | 850 | 498% | ||
Gulf Islands Brewery Limited | 494823 | 656752 | 596088 | 1250 | -9% | |
Hearthstone Properties | Hearthstone Brewing? | 0 | 0 | 372509 | 750 | 100% |
Howe Sound Brewing | 2371393 | 2560623 | 3032658 | 6750 | 18% | |
Hoyne Brewing Company Ltd | 1204082 | 2384445 | 4243236 | 9000 | 78% | |
Lighthouse Brewing Company Inc | 5156097 | 4962174 | 5113634 | 11000 | 3% | |
Longwood Brew Pub Limited | 250872 | 495047 | 707964 | 1400 | 43% | |
Low Countries Brewing | Strange Fellows | 0 | 0 | 133721 | 300 | 100% |
Mission Springs Developments Limited | 39391 | 114057 | 248890 | 550 | 118% | |
Moody Ales | 0 | 0 | 175314 | 350 | 100% | |
Moon Under Water Brewery Ltd | 97534 | 310847 | 406729 | 850 | 31% | |
Mt Begbie Brewing Company Limited | 1701101 | 1874282 | 2112428 | 4500 | 13% | |
Nelson Brewing Company | 2444327 | 2405093 | 2677768 | 5500 | 11% | |
Northam Brewery Lp | Whistler / Bowen | 12412210 | 14093947 | 16166478 | 35000 | 15% |
Old Yale Brewing Co Limited | 178992 | 248412 | 444725 | 900 | 79% | |
Pacific Western Brewing Company | 37038122 | 33563099 | 31066148 | 65000 | -7% | |
Parallel 49 Brewing Company Ltd | 1452960 | 4699953 | 6674874 | 14500 | 42% | |
Patricia Hotel Vancouver | 38787 | 40202 | 31552 | 50 | -22% | |
Persephone Brewing Company Inc | 247804 | 1024781 | 1900 | 314% | ||
Phillips Brewing Co | 14527143 | 17209987 | 19407439 | 40000 | 13% | |
Powell Street Craft Brewery Inc | 137405 | 224252 | 450 | 63% | ||
Quarterdeck Brewing | Steamworks Brewpub | 0 | 0 | 25601 | 50 | 100% |
R&B Brewing Inc | Bought by Howe Sound mid-2015 | 1218933 | 1047154 | 812058 | 1600 | -22% |
Red Truck | 0 | 0 | 1885160 | 4000 | 0% | |
RDO Brewing Ventures Ltd | Barkerville | 36046 | 506135 | 1100 | 1304% | |
Rossland Beer Comp | 0 | 0 | 109116 | 225 | 100% | |
Russell Brewing Co Limited | Filing as Fort Garry | 4162692 | 3917373 | 3598273 | 7500 | -8% |
Salsbury Drive Holdings Ltd | Brassneck | 514694 | 1298719 | 2500 | 152% | |
Sherwood Mountain | 0 | 0 | 50854 | 100 | 100% | |
Shuswap Lake Brewing Company | Barley Station Brewpub | 52840 | 62931 | 60157 | 125 | -4% |
Sleeman Breweries Ltd | Sleeman / OK Springs | 100826104 | 97421073 | 95989942 | 200000 | -1% |
Spinnakers Brew Pub Inc | 386987 | 611865 | 782757 | 1600 | 28% | |
Steamworks Brewing Company Ltd | Burnaby location | 788268 | 4379644 | 8500 | 456% | |
Steel & Oak | 0 | 0 | 350944 | 700 | 100% | |
Storm Brewing Limited | 353287 | 336433 | 430246 | 900 | 28% | |
Three Ranges Brewing Company Ltd | 28436 | 201256 | 400 | 608% | ||
Tin Whistle Brewing Co | 449938 | 100515 | 222399 | 450 | 121% | |
Torchlight | 0 | 0 | 56910 | 100 | 100% | |
Townsite Brewing Inc. | 561253 | 799821 | 838229 | 1750 | 5% | |
Tuff City Brewing Ltd | Tofino | 532850 | 956717 | 1649613 | 3250 | 72% |
Vancouver Island Brewing Company | 8663020 | 8082863 | 7161904 | 15000 | -11% | |
Wheelhouse Brewing | 0 | 0 | 149938 | 300 | 100% | |
Wolf Brewing Company | 200198 | 100045 | 142801 | 300 | 43% | |
Yaletown Brewing Co | 44347 | 45243 | 75 | 2% | ||
Yellow Dog Brewing | 0 | 0 | 294108 | 600 | 100% |
Any idea what happened to Big Ridge Brewing? Showing 0 for 2015.
Chris M
23 Oct 15 at 16:01
@Chris – Hard to say for sure. Although, expenses below 25k are not reported by the LDB, so if they dropped below that they would disappear.
Note, though, that sometimes breweries just disappear for a year or two off the report for reasons I am unable to divine.
chuck
23 Oct 15 at 16:41
Hey Chuck – Darren from Hearthstone here. “Hearthstone Properties” unfortunately is not us, I believe it is associated with the Hearthstone Lodge property chain. We actually only have been selling beer starting on March 3rd, 2015.
Very much looking forward to seeing how we rank next year though.
Darren
26 Oct 15 at 09:25
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