Photo courtesy of Canadian Beer News

Okay, I have been in a bit of a dilemma. A week or so ago the Calgary Herald reported that Minhas Brewing had an invitation-only Grand Opening for its new Calgary brewery (well, it sounded like an Almost Opening Party). I have been sitting on the story, wondering if I should let it pass or make mention of it. Finally, after some thought, I decided I should write up a post. This is a blog about beer on the prairies. And Alberta getting its 10th brewery is something that should rate a mention on these e-pages.

So, Minhas Brewing is set to open in Calgary in the coming weeks. They won’t be producing any of their main line of discount beer – Mountain Crest, Boxer and so on – but instead focus on a new line of what they call craft styles. Some of the beer include Chocolate Bunny Stout, Mystical Jack Traditional Ale, and Imperial Jack Double IPA. They also won’t be producing huge buckets of the stuff either, predicting to brew about 1,300 hectolitres in the first year -a tiny fraction of their overall production (they were the 14th largest brewery in the United States last year).

Minhas has become fairly infamous in the  province, mostly for its marketing strategies, loose claims to be craft and their eligibility for the lower transitional mark-up rate despite their production being in Wisconsin. In the past I took them to task for their cloak-and-dagger approach (at the time) to branding their beer (here), and reported the controversy around the location of their brewery (here). Minhas also figured prominently in a piece I did recently for Alberta Venture Magazine (here). What is particularly interesting about the Alberta Venture article is that Minhas ackowledges that his priorities are different than most craft brewers, and that his overall business strategy is dissimilar to craft breweries.

Fair enough. Drummond’s approach is also quite different than Wildrose or Alley Kat. There is room for many in the beer industry. I won’t speculate on WHY Minhas is choosing now to open a smallish brewery in Calgary. I will just note that it is doing so in the months following a fair bit of public controversy over their Wisconsin operations. The two actions could be entirely disconnected.

I think what has rankled many beer aficionados about Minhas is not the quality or authenticity of their beer, but their strategy to over-sell their product, to try to make it seem more craft than the microbrewery next door. This is a complex area, but from my vantage point, those who are rankled may have a point. Take, for example, the sign on their Calgary brewery (pictured above). “Minhas Micro Brewery”. Micro?? Minhas is one of the largest breweries in the United States! That is a far cry from any definition of micro I have ever seen. Yes, that specific brewery is small-scale. But to peg it as a microbrewery is to hide the corporate reality behind a big white washed wall.

If Minhas quietly went about its business of selling discount beer and entry-level ales, I would quickly say “more power to ya!” and wish them the best of luck. What I find hard to swallow is their never-ending attempts to appear to be something different than they are. And now I am rankled.

So what does this all mean? It means I need to update my Prairie Beer page, for one. It also means Alberta has one more brewery option. But it also means Alberta beer consumers need to be a little more wary of what they pick off the store shelves. It may not be as advertised. Not that that is anything new (right, Alexander Keith?), but it is real.