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<\/figure>\nI<\/span> have been considering as of late whether it is the craft beer scene in Ontario that\u2019s gotten boring or if it\u2019s me.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve decided it\u2019s a little of both.<\/p>\n I still maintain relationships with a lot of people in the beer industry and I still attend a small amount of events related to craft beer, notably the recent \u201cBrewer\u2019s Ball,\u201d an annual softball tournament ostensibly hosted by \u201cThe Southern Ontario Beer Boys<\/a>\u201d and in realty run and organized mainly by all-around-good-guy-and-oyster-enthusiast Steve Hukari. For the last few years, I\u2019ve invited a team of assorted beer-industry adjacent folks and brewery professionals who couldn\u2019t scrape together a full team on their own to join a crew under the guise of it being my podcast\u2019s team, The Lil\u2019 Bullshitters<\/em>. It\u2019s a great event and has raised a lot of money for charity and I have to hope it returns next year, despite Steve\u2019s protestations (again) that this was the final year (if you want to hear more about this event and Steve, you can listen to this podcast episode<\/a>).<\/p>\n This year, as the Lil\u2019 Bullshitters proceeded to lose every game and drink more beer than any other two teams combined (as is our custom), I received some (though not a lot of) questions along the lines of \u201cwhy haven\u2019t you recorded a podcast episode in so long\u201d or \u201cwhy don\u2019t you blog anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n There are myriad reasons, of course \u2014 it\u2019s time consuming, it actually costs me money to do the podcast as opposed to making me any, my job keeps me very busy, I have two kids that are active in a lot of sports and activities \u2014 but I realized recently it\u2019s also mainly that I just can\u2019t seem to muster much of a fuck to give lately.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I love this province\u2019s craft beer scene and clearly I\u2019ve made lasting relationships in it that are important to me. But \u201ccovering the scene\u201d or expending the energy to do any sort of in-depth commentary as of late all just feels rather\u2026\u201cmeh.\u201d<\/p>\n Partly, I\u2019m older and more boring now. I am past the point where I eagerly seek out new releases or line up for events \u2014 or even bother with tasting flights (Tasting flights are bullshit<\/a>).<\/p>\n I mainly drink beer from the breweries in my own city and I have a regular rotation of favourites from the LCBO and the grocery store \u2013 and who the fuck wants to read about or listen to a guy drinking his fifth Anderson Craft Ales Italian Pilsner of the week? That\u2019s not hot content.<\/p>\n But also, I think the \u201cnews\u201d around craft beer has also become rather ho-hum.<\/p>\n It\u2019s safe to say that the \u201cGreat Correction\u201d that\u2019s been foretold on this very blog and others like it for the last decade has happened. As craft beer boomed in the province, its commentators were repeatedly asked, \u201cCan we sustain all this growth?\u201d and historically the answer has been something like, \u201cI\u2019m not even sure how it\u2019s still growing now.\u201d<\/p>\n There were just too many breweries, too little shelf space. Too many former hockey league buds, marketing gurus, homebrewers with days job, and dudes who \u201cjust got sick of working for someone else and wanted to make beer they liked to drink.\u201d And as I\u2019ve written about many times before, this plethora of upstarts very rarely had the right mix of the brewing skills, marketing savvy, and business fundamentals to suggest they could all stay in business long.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, they persisted.<\/p>\n Enter COVID and suddenly the ability to be fast and loose with financial projections wasn\u2019t an option. Owning a craft brewery suddenly meant more than having some decent beer, tradeshow paraphernalia, and a twitter account and the breweries that didn\u2019t have their shit together started to disappear, whether it be by attrition, aquisition, consolidation, or a long, slow death involving a Dragon\u2019s Den plea for franchise investment, a closed location, and a recent email to customers announcing the ability to label and brand the company\u2019s beer whatever you want for parties<\/a>!<\/p>\n But I digress. <\/p>\n The short version is probably that the purge has been good for craft beer consumers: we\u2019re less flooded with contract brewers and shady upstarts who see craft beer as a gold rush \u2014 but I think it\u2019s also meant that those breweries that remain and succeed are those who are playing it a little bit safe. What I mean is that the big craft breweries seem to have leaned into what they know will work: Light lagers and copy and paste haze bombs now seem to reign supreme and the little experimental shops are increasingly being consumed by bigger ones. And that probably isn\u2019t great for fun, newsworthy reviews and developments. Do you really think the beer from Sleeping Giant, Merit Brewing, and Sawdust City, for example, will remain true to style now that they have all been purhcased by Lake of Bays under the umbrella of \u201cOriginal Gravity Beverage + Hospitality Group?\u201d Methinks not so much. Despite news releases claiming nothing will change whenever a brewery is bought out, it feels naive to think these smaller breweries and their recipes won\u2019t have their processes and ingredients reviewed by folks now making decisions with an eye to fiscal responsibility. That\u2019s historically not a great environment for experimentation and innovation. <\/p>\n Similarly, expansion into grocery didn\u2019t move the needle toward more interesting beer. It was a fun and interesting battle to get more retail space for craft beer (see my last post, almost a year ago) but grocery and convenience store beer has also made breweries stop to think about which beers they might focus on to sell at Costco so folks can load up on \u201ccrushable\u201d beer with their ground beef and Motts Fruitsations snack packs.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s new in craft beer?\u201d \u201c30 packs of Muskoka\u2019s Tread Lightly!\u201d \u201cBuckets of Northbound Lager!\u201d <\/p>\n Who gives a shit?<\/p>\n To quote Dr. Dre from his song \u201cThe Watcher\u201d on the album 2001<\/em>, \u201cThings just ain\u2019t the same for gangstas.\u201d The time when fortune favoured the bold seems to have passed and middle of the road beer with safe, practical go-to-market strategies is winning. I mean for fuck\u2019s sake, Toronto\u2019s Indie Alehouse location in the Junction is about to become a fucking McDonalds. I can\u2019t think of a more apt anaolgy for the state of Ontario craft beer than that. <\/p>\n The boom is over, man. And I just can\u2019t be arsed to get worked up about it.<\/p>\n A<\/span>nd yet\u2026<\/p>\n This neglected lil\u2019 corner of the internet called Ben\u2019s Beer Blog does actually represent 15 years of independent Ontario beer \u201cjournalism,\u201d for better or for (mostly) worse. <\/p>\n It resulted in me being named by fans as \u201cOntario\u2019s best beer writer\u201d a few times back in the day. It got me some national media bylines along the way, and afforded me a decent social media following before Nazis and bootlickers made all the social media awful.<\/p>\n Importantly, it\u2019s afforded me a place to rant and write, two things I arguably enjoy even more than I enjoy beer. <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bensbeerblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/original-5765cdee-bda3-4a53-9329-1cb8983aecfa.jpeg?resize=700%2C525&ssl=1\")
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