Raise a glass to online beer sales

Of all the reforms to Ontario’s beer retailing market over the past few years, the vast majority have been about where and when people can buy. Few have been about what.

This summer that changed, with the advent of the LCBO’s new online ordering system.

While most of the products offered for online sale are already available on store shelves, close observers will realize that there are a few exceptions. Search the “online-only” category, and you’ll find a small but growing collection of brews that you can’t find on the shelves of any LCBO, Beer Store or grocery store.

“It’s definitely opening things up for small brewers who wouldn’t otherwise be in a position to get into the LCBO,” said Tomas Morana of Keep6 importers, an early leaders in the online-exclusive category. Among the breweries Keep6 offers online are a small Quebec craft brewery, Danish-American Evil Twin and Italy’s Birrificio del Ducato.

To be listed in stores, a product has to be selected by the LCBO, a lengthy, sometimes-frustrating process for breweries and their import agents. To be listed online? It just has to be something the agent has already brought into the province.

Eventually, Morana expects more importers to add some of their own beers to the online-only LCBO.com list (at last count, there were just three).

“I wouldn’t be surprised if more agents end up putting some of their portfolio on here,” said Morana. Es- pecially, he says, if some early glitches are ironed out. A smaller glitch? Online inventory doesn’t always show up on the website as soon as it’s available. A larger one? The onlineonly products are only available by the case.

“I think that if enough people ask, that might change,” said Morana hopefully.

Already, some other import agents are applying to sell their beers through the LCBO’s website.

“We’re applying to list online. We didn’t before as we’d already submitted many of these products for regular LCBO product calls,” said Liliana Pavicic of Roland and Russell, an import agent which represents several craft breweries from around the world, including Belgium’s renowned Het Anker, and Schmaltz Brewing from the U.S. josh@thestar.ca

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