Today Brick Brewing announced that Labatt Brewing has sued them over trademark issues between Brick’s Red Baron brand and Labatt’s Brava brand.  The announcement certainly raises an eyebrow regarding the conflict of interest that our beer retail network is owned by the major breweries (48.5% Labatt, 48.5% Molson) and their products dominate the network at […]

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Since the LCBO is a Crown Agency, the salaries of employees that make over $100,000 per year are disclosed as part of Ontario’s Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act.  This act exists to make the public sector “more open and accountable to taxpayers.” If you’re interested, you can see here how much LCBO employees make to […]

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Here’s a funny story about what I needed to do to ensure that the Garrison private order met with the LCBO’s paperwork policies. After I submitted the order paperwork, all 104 pages of it, I was contacted by the LCBO’s private ordering department about Garrison’s address.  For background, about three years ago Garrison moved locations […]

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Nova Scotia has a provincial liquor commission that operates retail stores similar to Ontario, called the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation, or NSLC.  Their stores do a fine job of providing a range of wine, spirits and beer to consumers.  For a province of about 1 million, there isn’t a huge market for specialty products, or […]

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The way a private order works conceptually is simple.  There’s a certain number of cases of beer to sell, so consumers are found who are willing to buy the cases until the set number is hit.  In an attempt to simplify how consumers can participate in private orders, I created a web site whereby consumers […]

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As you can imagine, a lot goes into the price of a case of beer that you pay.  It starts, of course, with the cost from the brewery itself.  I’m sure this is the case with many industries – the original price is topped up with all kinds of stuff, just like an airplane ticket. […]

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Once all the agent paperwork was finished, it was time to get down to business.  Working with Brian Titus, the president of Garrison, we decided the best first step to bring Garrison to Ontario was a private order. Basically there are three ways beer can be distributed in Ontario.  The first is to have a […]

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