Cider makers seek free market

Say craft drinks should be sold on par with beer

Cider makers say they are being discriminated against by Ontario’s refusal to let them sell their products like regular beer.

Craft ciders sit alongside old-fashioned and newfangled beers in liquor stores, but they aren’t allowed in Beer Store outlets even though they are increasingly popular — sales grew 284 per cent between 2009 and 2014.

The cider producers are also shut out from the proposed reforms that would see beer on supermarket shelves.

That’s because cider is technically classified as a wine in Ontario, a ruling the Ontario Craft Cider Association says disadvantages its 22 members.

“When these rules were being written, cider didn’t really exist and so we were treated as fruit wineries,” said Thomas Wilson, a chairman of the association and owner of Spirit Tree Cidery.

“Now, with the cider industry exploding, we are falling into this anomaly where we are delivering to the bars, in kegs and bottles” but are classified as wine.

“We’re basically the next generation of craft beer, but we don’t fit into anyone’s definitions so we are left behind.”

Wilson had asked to be included in the government asset review, being led by Ed Clark, former president of TD Bank.

Clark recommended the new grocery store model for beer sales this spring and is now working on improving wine and spirit retail options.

The cideries essentially “want to make sure we are not forgotten in the rush to get the final announcements finished,” Wilson said.

VQA wines, which are certified, Ontario-grown and made, and local craft beer both get special programs and listing fees at the LCBO. Ciders don’t fall into either group.

“We fall outside of both programs so we receive nothing,” Wilson said.

MPPs Sylvia Jones, a Tory, and Liberal Arthur Potts tabled a private member’s bill Tuesday to support the industry.

Jones’ Dufferin-Caledon riding contains both struggling apple orchards and burgeoning cideries.

“The Ontario cider producers play a vital role in communities across the province by using 100% Ontario grown apples,” he said.

Todd Smith, another Tory MPP, has a bill on the books that would allow brewers, cideries and wineries to sell their own products and those of neighbouring producers’ beers, wines and ciders on site. This would be an easy way of liberalizing the market, he argues, giving drinkers more choice.

Neither Clark’s panel report on beer sales nor the budget mentions the word cider.

The LCBO touts the growing sector in press releases — the retailer knows its customer s. But the government has remained mum on how, or if, cider will be included in the second phase of Clark’s review of Ontario’s liquor laws, most of which date to the end of Prohibition.