(Halifax, NS) - NSLC Announced Q1 results for April 1st to June 30th and saw sales rise to $174.9 million an increase of $18.1 million or 11.5% primarily due to cannabis. Beverage alcohol sales were $158.8 million and recreational cannabis sales were $16.1 million.
Nova Scotia ready-to-drink products had a strong quarter with sales increasing by 107.7% to $3.3 million with this strong growth primarily driven by coolers and ciders. Beer over all decreased 2.6% to $70.5M or 40.3% of sales over all with Nova Scotia craft beer sales growing by 17.8% to $4.9 million. The Ns craft beer sales now attribute to 6.95% of the beer category. The NSLC now lists products from 30 local breweries, about half of the breweries now open, up from six breweries just six years ago.
(Shelburne, NS) - Boxing Rock Brewing opens its newest location today at 218 Water Street in Shelburne. The original location on Ohio Road will remain dedicated to production and packaging and the Test Kitchen in Halifax will remain brewing small batch projects.
The new taproom will have about 70 seats inside and another 30 on the patio. The 10 taps at the bar will have one cider and one guest tap in addition to their own line up.
Production onsite will be dedicated to expanding Boxing Rock's barrel program as well as their product line. Kitchen to open later this fall but until then food provided by the Finest Kind mobile kitchen, who have been at the Ohio Road brewery since 2017. The new tap room will also have a space for live music.
(Oak Mountain, NB) - Cross Creek Brewing (CCB) has announced they have crossed, no pun intended, their final regulatory hurdle and will have their first beers available to the public by August 12th.
CCB consists of Patrick Sullivan ( technical, sales, government contact) who is originally from Saint John and now lives in Fredericton. Tom Neal ( main brewer ) who was originally from Woodstock area, but grew up in Montreal and now lives at Oak Mountain. Neal Brewer & Helena (retail experience, business, accounting and book keeping) from Stanley area and now also
lives in Fredericton.
Patrick says "Like a lot of beer fans I tried the extract kits many years ago. Had mixed results, but I had a couple friends who were really good at it, so I realized home made beer could be pretty good. My friend Tom Neal and I talked about all grain brewing several years ago and he decided to try it and did quite well. And about two years ago he really got serious by building a larger home-built brewing system and made even more excellent beer. That's when the plan for Cross Creek starting incubating".
The brewery will start with a 2 BBL brewhouse but producing 1 BBL batches for now as they ease into it. CCB beer will initially be going into kegs for bars and festivals and later bottling for ANBL later and ultimately their own tap room. They are also excited to attend Woodstock's First Town Craft Beer Festival next month.
Patrick says they like to make ale that they like to drink, but they expect to branch into other styles and maybe lagers eventually. Five ales they will launch with are Two Divas Blonde Ale, Cross Creek Pale Ale, Copperhead Amber Ale, Headpond Cream Ale, and Blueneck Kentucky Common Ale.
CCB will be testing the market for a while and if it's positive they will open a taproom somewhere, probably Woodstock NB.
