Updated on December 11, 2024
Listen.
Ever since The Growler Ontario transitioned from print media to a website, I had hoped that I would be able to somehow combine this tool with that resource in order to create a customer facing utility that would allow for craft beer tourism in the province of Ontario. It’s not really my place to make any announcements, but it is my place to attempt a fairly seamless transition informationally for craft beer fans within the province.
To wit, over the last several weeks I have gone over every piece of data in the spreadsheet this map pulls from an corrected addresses, emails, instagram accounts, and have even put in brewery phone numbers to the best of my ability. I’m following everyone that has an instagram account (I think. You do 40 or 50 hours of data entry and see if you don’t have the odd attention span issue.) and I have signed up for every brewery newsletter I can think to sign up for. I intend to continue producing something like a news and notes column here on St. John’s Wort for the foreseeable future, but probably on a monthly basis and probably without the six pack section. I will probably just review things more frequently on instagram, which has the advantage of being timely and might result in some beer mail.
You’ll be delighted to know that we are up to 379 open physical brewing locations selling beer, although it is quite likely that the number shall drop precipitously over the next several months. It was 374 just a couple of months ago, but there are a few Ottawa regional breweries that have opened downtown taprooms. My best guess, having done some back of the napkin math on ownership structures, is that we have to discount 37 of those locations as single companies with multiple heads. We don’t have any hydras left, but there are some cerberii. That means about 342.
If you look really closely at the listings, you’ll notice I’ve borrowed some detail from The Growler’s listings about whether a brewery has food, allows dogs, has retail stores, online sales. I have left out detail on growlers and flights to spare the feelings of the poor taproom servers. I will be contacting all of the breweries in the province in the next couple of weeks to ensure I have this information correct.
We are down to 39 contract brewers and dropping. Mirable dictu, all of that volume is being soaked up by small physical breweries who can’t afford to expand physically.
A word: Craft Beer relies on gentlemen hobbyists to an alarming degree. In a matter of days or weeks, this will be the only frequently updated public facing resource for craft beer tourists in the province. It is static and high quality. It is not maintained by AI. If you’re reading this and work for a brewery, consider donating a little something. I’ve set up membership tiers for monthly recurring donations. If we actually have some income from this resource, we might be able to build something worthwhile within the province of Ontario.