Beer Stats in Canada

This is interesting. Was just looking for the latest figures on sales of alcoholic beverages in Canada and it turns out they were published yesterday.

Unfortunately, this report doesn’t break down the figures by beer types  (regional, craft…). Another publication, including figures by domestic and import sales should come out shortly.

A couple of quotes:

As usual, beer was by far the most popular beverage. In terms of dollar value, beer captured 50.4% of sales. However, wine accounted for 25.2% of sales compared with 24.3% for spirits, the first time wine has jumped into second place.

From 1994/1995 to 2004/2005, sales of imported beer increased at an annual average rate of 18.6%, nearly six times the rate of growth of only 3.2% for sales of domestic brands.

Of all imported beer in Canada, 23.4% came from the United States, 20.5% from Mexico and 19.3% from the Netherlands.

(So, even import beer is mostly from large breweries…) 

A few quick observations.

• Quebec is the only province with a loss in “net income of provincial and territorial liquor authorities and revenue from the sale of alcoholic beverages” between 2k4 and 2k5. (Because of the SAQ strike.)
• The only places where beer accounts for less than 50% of total sales of alcoholic beverages are Manitoba (46%), Alberta (47%), British Columbia (44%), and the Northwest Territories (49%).
• Quebec is the province with the lowest percentage of spirits sales (11% of the total sales of alcoholic beverages).
• These proportions are quite similar for 2k4.

Aren’t beer statistics cool?

Tags: Canada, beer, alcohol, Statistics Canada, beer statistics, Quebec, StatCan, alcohol sales, wine, spirits, responsible drinking, alcoholic consumption