Strike threatens cheer for Canada’s 150th
LCBO shelves are stocked with patriotic booze, but will their doors still be open next week?
It’s not every day that Ontario beer drinkers get to sample suds from the Yukon and the Northwest Territories, or that a Canadian prime minister gets caught up in the rebrand of one of the country’s biggest beer names.
But Canadian pride brought out the creativity in brewmasters — along with a slew of wineries and distilleries — who are pumping out liquid patriotism for this year’s special 150th birthday.
Too bad most of their products wouldn’t be available across Ontario in the event of an LCBO strike Monday, right before the most-anticipated long weekend of the year — the weekend for which it all was intended.
“It would suck if people can’t experience what craft brewers like us have tried to create,” says brewmaster Gary Lohin of Central City Brewers and Distillers in Surrey, B.C.
He and his crafty colleagues started brainstorming for the occasion last fall, and spearheaded a countrywide collaboration of craft beers called the Red Racer Across the Nation12-pack.
It includes a special-recipe brew from all 10 provinces and two of three territories (minus Nunavut) and is only available at the LCBO.
“It’s an even dozen. A 13-pack would have been awkward,” jokes Lohin, who hopes the provincial liquor retailer can avert a strike.
(Ironically, the LCBO doesn’t sell 12-packs due to an agreement with the Beer Store, so here East and West craft brews are offered separately, though a map of Canada is formed when the packs are pushed together.)
“There is a great sense of camaraderie amongst us craft brewers in Canada, and what better way to show our pride in our country than to bring together some of Canada’s best breweries on a celebratory mix-pack to commemorate this huge Canadian milestone?” he says.
Family-run Beau’s Brewing Company in Vankleek Hill, one of Ontario’s bigger and better-known craft breweries, took part, as did other brands that aren’t normally available in Ontario, such as the NWT Brewing Company from Yellowknife, Half Pints from Winnipeg and the 20year-old Yukon Brewing (whose tag line is “Beer Worth Freezin’ For”) from Whitehorse.
“Big breweries always wrap themselves in the flag, so this was a chance to unite the craft-beer market,” Lohin notes.
Calling themselves the Fathers of Fermentation, another group of seven craft breweries across the country, including Toronto’s Granite Brewery, have banded together, with each brewing a special batch of what’s being called “Sir John’s Special Eh-le” in time for the July 1 celebrations.
Molson has relaunched its Molson Canadian stubbies, with the LCBO running events at select locations to allow customers to get their names printed on the old-school labels.
What started as an April Fools’ Day suds joke by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau actually became a reality: Labatt’s changed its iconic Labatt 50 ale label to Labatt 150 this year. After Trudeau tweeted a photoshopped bottle with a 150 label on April 1, the company tweeted back that the lim- ited-edition rebranding was no joke and already in the pipeline.
“They took my suggestion! My favourite beer, now 3 times as patriotic. Can’t wait to try it,” Trudeau tweeted back.
Meanwhile, Moosehead happens to be celebrating its own 150th anniversary, with the brewery founded the same year as Canadian Confederation. Limited-edition cans of its new pale ale called Moosehead Anniversary Ale are a complete departure from the brewer’s signature green cans, featuring instead a striking blue-and-white map of Canada.
And Steam Whistle has teamed up with historic Canadian retailer Hudson’s Bay to offer co-branded retrostyle items such as bottle openers and coasters.
It’s not just the beer guys who are waving the flag this year. Canada’s whisky makers have also joined in, including J. P. Wiser’s One Fifty. Only 7,827 bottles of this special spirit have been produced — each one with a unique date printed on the label that corresponds to one of the 7,827 weeks in Canada’s history since Confederation in 1867. Whisky-maker Crown Royal has switched out its traditional purpleand-white pouches for a white-andred bag labelled Canada 150 until mid-July. And then there’s the wine list. Sandbanks Winery in Prince Edward County, Ont., has produced four wines with the 150 logo on the bottles. Of course, the vintage is 2016 because wines are typically made at the end of summer — and last year’s was particularly hot and dry, considered perfect conditions for producing good vino.
“Canada’s 150th is an important date to celebrate diversity and inclusion,” says proprietor and founder Catherine Langlois, who was raised on a farm in Quebec and trained in Burgundy, France.
“Starting from nothing in 2001, as women winemakers, a venture like ours would have been unachievable anywhere else on the planet,” says Langlois, adding that her mom designs all the labels.
Pelee Island Winery has produced Monarch Vidal VQA and red VQA with colourful commemorative labels, as did Peller Estate’s French Cross wines in their bag-in-box format. The LCBO has also been pushing new Ontario players in the trendy wine-in-a-can format, which gets colder faster than a bottle with no risk of breakage.
(In the event of a strike, you can order most wines from the winery’s website, and Peller Estates also sells its brands at The Wine Shop.)
The LCBO is also offering its own “Oh Canada Entertaining Box” that retails for $106.80 and includes, unsurprisingly, Wayne Gretzky Estates wine plus limited-edition bottles of J.P. Wiser’s One Fifty and Absolut Canada, though the vodka is actually a Swedish import.
“There’s no question that suppliers are embracing their national pride even more this year to mark Canada’s 150th birthday, with limited-edition and commemorative products and packaging,” LCBO spokesperson Christine Bujold notes. “The summer months, and long weekends in particular, are typically one of the busiest times for the LCBO. In terms of historical trends, the Friday of a long weekend is the busiest day,” she says in an emailed statement.
But with the deadline fast approaching for a potential strike, the liquor monopoly has started at some locations for Ontarians to stock up.
The LCBO website, which offers home delivery, warns that “because of a potential labour disruption as of June 26, 2017, the delivery of orders of products available online to stores or home cannot be guaranteed. While we are accepting online orders, estimated delivery dates may be impacted by delays in processing and shipping.”
It also states: “We expect an increase in customer traffic at LCBO stores this week.”
“Canada’s 150th is an important date to celebrate diversity and inclusion.” CATHERINE LANGLOIS OWNER, SANDBANKS WINERY