Ontario breweries facing major headwinds but they'll be able to weather the storm

After an onslaught of craft breweries in Toronto and across Ontario, it seems as though the craft brewing gold rush of the early 2010s has finally reached its saturation point. The proverbial keg runneth dry.

In 2025 alone, the city lost local favourites Saulter Street Brewery, Indie Alehouse, Beaches Brewing Co., and Northern Maverick (for the second time), to name just a few of the major players.

Closures are, indeed, part of a healthy lifecycle for any industry — not unlike the process of evolution we're all beneficiaries of: some lose out while the strong survive. But the volume of recent closures seems to point to a greater, and more concerning, trend afoot.

If the strong survive, why couldn't stalwarts with evangelical followings such as Saulter Street and Indie Alehouse make it, then? If there's a blueprint for success that these businesses can follow, they were doing just that.

Riverside's Saulter Street Brewery closed down in June 2025. Photo by Hector Vasquez.

Scott Simmons, president of the Ontario Craft Brewers Association, tells blogTO that no, residents aren't imagining things: the province's craft brewing industry has been facing major constraints that have led to a modest net rate of closures that's higher than the rate of openings so far in the 2020s. From 2010 to 2019, the opposite was the case.

"In 2020, we had this worldwide pandemic, and a lot of things have kind of happened. Then I like to call it the perfect storm," Simmons explains. Bars and restaurants closed down and, in the years following, record-breaking inflation increased overheads to a degree that, for many small, independent businesses, was insurmountable.

But it's not just the backwash of the pandemic that has been holding the industry back from realizing its full potential. For years, the industry's growth was at the whim of a restrictive retail structure wherein the LCBO and Beer Store held a monopoly on distribution.

In the summer of 2024, the provincial government finally moved to allow the sale of alcohol — including a designated proportion from local breweries and wineries — in expanded retail contexts, which, Simmons says, has helped to lighten the load on the local craft brewing industry somewhat.

But there's another, greater challenge that Simmons points to as the largest hindrance to the prosperity of the industry: "It's also the tax structure in Ontario for Ontario Craft Beer that has historically been the highest in Canada, if not North America."

Troy Burtch, General Manager at Etobicoke's Great Lakes Brewing (GLB), echoes this sentiment.

"That burden has really hindered the continued survival of some of the smallest of the small breweries," Burtch says.

In the summer of 2025, the government announced a 50 per cent reduction to the Basic Beer Tax Rate for microbreweries to the tune of 35.96 cents to 17.98 cents per litre for draft beer and 39.75 cents to 19.88 cents per litre for non-draft beer.

Despite recent attrition, Ontario still boasts over 300 breweries. Photo by Andrew Williamson at GLB.

It was a move that both Burtch and Simmons say the industry was, and continues to be, immensely grateful for, but there's still more that can be done. Any revenue saved by the tax cut, Simmons, is immediately eaten up by rising inflation, so the small businesses are still losing out.

Despite the challenges, though, the province boasts well over 300 successful craft breweries and an equally vibrant consumer culture keeping them alive.

High-volume producers like Cowbell, Steamwhistle, Mill Street and Collective Arts continue to raise the tide for up-and-comers in Ontario, while slightly smaller stalwarts, like, not for nothing, GLB, are still holding fast by navigating the rapids of consumer trends.

"For someone like Great Lakes, what we've been able to do over the years is, I would say, not only adapt to the changing demographic of craft beer drinkers, but to create new demographics," Burtch tells blogTO.

"We like to say for Great Lakes, we're Ontario's local brewery. That's our vision. That's what we want to be known for."

And there's a lot for residents of the province to love about the Ontario craft brewing industry. From 2010 to 2019, craft brewing was the fastest-growing manufacturing segment in the province, beating out major players like automotive, steel and batteries.

Perhaps the best part of the local craft brewing culture in Ontario, Simmons points out, is the way that these businesses are innately embedded in their neighbourhoods and communities.

"What sets [local craft breweries] apart from just a generic, maybe foreign-owned business is their investment in their local community. They care. They live in the community. They want to support it. The amount of attention they give to their local community, the charitable supports. The craft breweries kind of become meeting hubs for the neighbourhood," Simmons says, citing GLB as a perfect example of this.

While your local craft brewery offers a place to gather, have a pint, and connect with your neighbours, the business it generates also supports the community fiscally.

Local craft breweries in Ontario have become much-needed community supports. Photo by Hector Vasquez at Blood Brothers.

"I love this stat from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business that said that when you and I spend $1 at a locally owned business, 66 cents of that dollar stays in that local community, whereas if we spend that dollar with a foreign-owned business, only 11 cents of that dollar stays in the local community," Simmons says.

"So, multiply that by millions and billions of dollars that we as consumers have at our spending disposal, and think about the impact to our communities, our cities, our province and our country."

Simmons tells blogTO that, when they announced the basic beer tax cut for microbreweries, the provincial government also promised further interventions that would support the craft brewing industry. To date, they have yet to be announced.

"We're really pushing hard for the government to finish the play and announce the rest of the changes in the upcoming spring budget, which is scheduled to come out at the end of March," Simmons says. "And if those changes are implemented. I think it's a very positive outlook for our industry here in Ontario."

Simmons urges anyone interested in voicing their support for the Ontario craft brewing industry to visit craftbeerpromise.ca and contact your local MPP.