Minhas Brewery to build distillery in Calgary, creating 20 new jobs
Minhas Brewery is toasting plans for a new distillery in Calgary.
At an event Thursday attended by Premier Rachel Notley, the company announced it would build a distillery in its northeast Calgary microbrewery.
Minhas is already in the hard liquor business but its lines of vodka, gin and Irish cream are produced in Wisconsin.
Ravinder Minhas, co-founder and CEO of the company, said much of the production will be moved to the new distillery in Calgary, which is expected to be up and running by May 1, creating 20 new jobs, initially.
He said the company’s distillery plans stemmed in part from the NDP government’s reduction of the mark-up on spirits for producers who sell from their production facility, as well as a reduction in red tape in liquor regulations.
“We kind of understand it as prohibition-era rules that still existed, but those now are gone and that gives us an opportunity,” said Minhas, adding the company also plans to add a Canadian single malt whisky to its offerings.
Minhas said the company had also been able to expand its brewing operations eight-fold in Calgary over the past 18 months, in part because of the NDP’s subsidy program for small brewers.
That program has come under heavy criticism, as well as legal challenges, but Minhas said it helped spur development in the industry.
He said the company lost out when the NDP changed the beer regulations because it had been receiving the now-eliminated small brewers’ mark-up despite having most of its production in Wisconsin.
But Minhas said instead of complaining, the company adapted to the new rules.
“Anybody can do what we did,” Minhas said.
The government said the number of small brewers in Alberta grew from 45 to 60 in the first year of the program’s operation.
Notley said despite the attacks on the small-brewers program, Alberta has the “most open liquor market in the country.”