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American beer unavailable in Canada [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-03-15
St. Patrick’s Day is coming up and Canadians will celebrate with authentic Irish beer. But if they want American beer, they’ll have to go far out of their way. Doubt they’d want to anyway. Whatever American beer a Canadian likes probably has a pretty good Canadian equivalent.
Here in Michigan, liquor stores are regulated by the state, and it’s my understanding a similar situation holds in other states. But I doubt state regulators have the power to dictate product stocking decisions. Canadian provinces, on the other hand, have a lot more authority over what brands can be on the shelf.
For example, Ontario ordered liquor stores in that province to stop buying American beer, wine and liquor, and to move existing stock of those products off store shelves. Pictures show Canadian liquor store workers putting American alcohol products into boxes for presumably indefinite storage in the back.
Likewise in British Columbia (B.C.). Chad Pawson and Tessa Vikander for the CBC:
In response to U.S. ... Donald Trump's tariffs and annexation threats, alcohol from Canada's southern neighbour is now a thing of the past in B.C.'s government-run liquor stores. On Monday, [March 10,] B.C. Premier David Eby announced the B.C. Liquor Distribution Branch had stopped purchasing American beer, wine and liquor and has removed existing stock from its shelves. "We're doing this for a couple of reasons," said Eby from a store in Victoria's James Bay neighbourhood on Monday. "One is to respond to the escalating threats that we're seeing from the United States. The other is to recognize the feeling that many British Columbians have now when we look at American products. We don't even want to see them on the shelf anymore."
At first the ban was only for booze from American red states. But now it’s for all American alcohol products. However…
The B.C. Liquor Distribution Branch confirmed to CBC News that the ban only involves U.S.-made liquor products that are manufactured in the U.S. and imported into Canada. "This does not impact U.S. brands made in B.C or Canada," it said in a statement referencing Budweiser and Coors Light as U.S. brands produced by Canadian breweries Labatt and Molson, respectively.
But this trade war is going to hurt Canadian farmers and brewers regardless, because, for one thing, a lot of American beers use Canadian barley. Governor Bob Ferguson (D-Washington) pointed out how Washington farmers helped wineries in British Columbia during “a historic freeze” last year.
Premier Eby reiterated his call to boycott the American tourism industry, mentioning that he has postponed his family’s planned vacation to Disneyland indefinitely. Eby also took the opportunity to insult American beer as “watery.”
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