E-Malt.com News article: Canada, ON: Gananoque Brewing Company to finally open brewery

After three years in business, the Gananoque Brewing Company will soon begin brewing beer in Gananoque. Company president Bruce Davis said the brewery will be up and running at its Bell Tower location in May. The company has hired a full-time brewmaster and is now cleaning up the Bell Tower in preparation for the brewing equipment to be moved in next month, Gananoque Reporter reported on March 26.

Davis said the beer production will continue to be split between Niagara Falls, where the beer has been brewed for three years, and the new plant in Gananoque. Eventually, Davis said, the plan is to move all production to Gananoque, but the Niagara brewery has a bottling plant, so it will continue to produce bottled beer until the Gananoque operation can afford to buy its own plant.

The new Gananoque brewery will be producing at full capacity when it gets going, to supply the 80 bars that now sell its draft beer. The brewery makes four beers: its flagship Naughty Otter Lager, Remarkable Session Ale, Bell Ringer IPA and Shiver Eisbock, a dark winter beer. Most of its beer is sold in Kingston, Brockville, Gananoque and Toronto.

Davis said the beer business is booming, with his company producing about three times the amount of beer that it did a year ago. The company produces two to three batches of beer a month, the equivalent of about 12,000 bottles in a good month, he said.

The company has moved back from the brink of the financial precipice that it faced a year ago. Faced with cash-flow problems, Davis appealed to the community to help his struggling brewery. “Help it, or lose it,” was the message.

Davis's appeal worked. He obtained new partners and new investors, allowing the company to finally open its brewery in Gananoque.

That's not to say that the Gananoque Brewing Company is flush with cash: “I'm always raising money; that's a constant,” Davis said.

The news that Davis is finally opening his brewery in Gananoque comes as the company is entering the bottled beer market.

The first six-packs of Naughty Otter Lager were delivered to LCBO stores in Gananoque, Brockville, Kingston, Peterborough and Toronto last week.

Davis said his company is looking at a phased-in approach for the retail market, starting with 10 stores mainly in eastern Ontario to see how the beer sells. The brewery will ramp up its bottled production depending on demand, he said.

About 80% of the beer in Ontario is consumed at home, said Davis, pausing to deliver his slogan: “Our customers have been getting Naughty in bars for years, now they can get Naughty at home.”

Davis said LCBO rules on labelling are frustrating. Naughty Otter is brewed with organic barley from Wisconsin and organic hops from Germany, yet the LCBO refuses to let Davis advertise his beer as “organic.”

The company takes great care and expense to use organic ingredients, yet “we can't blow our own horn,” he said.


28 March, 2014