A greedy monopoly proudly owned and operated by foreign interests.
"The Beer Store is owned by Molson Coors (Canadian and American owned), Anheuser-Busch InBev (the world’s biggest brewer, headquartered in Belgium) and Sleeman Brewaries (owned by Japan’s Sapporo Breweries)."
Time to give The Beer Store and the LCBO the raised digit: many of these small craft breweries are non-unionized and offer on-site retail purchases.
Gee, I wonder why they want the status-quo? We live 25 minutes from the Quebec border. When we make a beer run to the IGA in Grenville Quebec we save almost 10 bucks a case over the local Brewers Retail. Oh, and by the way, it's Sleeman's.
ReplyDeleteHaven't bought their stuff in years. They all teemed up (big breweries, wineries and distilleries) with McGuinty's bureaucrats to keep our wines out of the LCBO, and they fought tooth and nail to prevent us marketing and retailing our wines on site. We now brew our own beer and buy some brands directly from local small craft brewers.
ReplyDeleteIf you want an idea of what kind of control these jerks exert, when you open the link in this post, click on "store locator" and see where it sends you. Even though they have on site sales, the small craft breweries have no choice but to refer potential customers to "approved" stores: Beer Stores and LCBO.
I could write a book about these greedy, sneaky, underhanded, corrupt bastards.
Excellent post Wineguy! It is really nice to read the opinions of those involved in the industry and have your prospective on the topic.
DeleteI will put it this way. Nobody who values free enterprise should buy one pint from The Beer Store and they sure as hell shouldn't buy Coors, In Bev, or Sapporo beer.
DeleteAgreed wineguy. We have a couple of good little breweries within a 15 minute drive and that's where we buy our beer. After you drink the craft beer for a while all the beer store stuff tastes like the watery US fi-fi pee anyway.
DeleteI've been doing the beer runs to Quebec and yes, the price difference is substantial. But the problem is much deeper than just prices.. wineguy is right, these turds need a total boycott.
ReplyDelete