E-Malt.com News article: Canada, ON & USA, OH: Ontario’s Cameron’s Brewing starts distributing in Ohio

Add yet another Ontario craft brewery to the distribution ranks in Northeast Ohio, cleveland.com reported.

Cameron's Brewing Co., a 20-year-old brewery from Oakville, Ontario, joins fellow Canadian breweries Flying Monkey, Lake of Bays and Mill Street in the retail market.

Brewer Curtis Jeffrey's goal in seeing his beers head south is for American consumers to know Canadian craft brews offer more than just Molson and Labatt, he said, and that it's no big deal to try a beer from his northern neck of the woods.

"Why not try a beer from Canada?" asked Jeffrey, in town for meet-and-greets, the Fabulous Food Show and to introduce Cameron's in the Northeast Ohio market. "It's like trying a beer from Texas."

With about 15 employees, Cameron's produces the equivalent of about 5,000 barrels a year - small by American standards, midsized by an Ontario barometer.

Ontario has more than 200 breweries, most of which are close to Toronto, he said. But Canadian distribution is structured differently than the American system, so many are not widely known. That said, the market is "constantly growing," Jeffrey said.

"It's booming and booming and booming," said Jeffrey, who added Cameron's is adding a canning line to complement its bottling system.

Jeffrey, 27, has been with Cameron's for about two years. He worked at a British Columbia brewery and attended Niagara College, which has Canada's first brewing school. He got into home brewing and quickly "decided this is what I wanted to do."

His memory is fuzzy when it comes to that one beer that kick-started his appreciation for good crafts, though he remembers having a Pilsner Urquell and thinking "this is something wildly different from a Coors Light."

While he remains passionate about brewing, Jeffrey is hard-pressed to guess a flagship or best-seller among his beers.

"We feel our quality and our standards are the best we can be. I'm the brewer, I'm in there every day," said Jeffrey, who eschews rigid styles and prefers to create what he calls the 'Cameronification' for the brewery's beers.

Whether that Canadian touch can transfer into sales in a crowded and competitive market like Northeast Ohio remains to be seen. Cameron's distributor, Esber, assesses the local market bluntly: "It's cluttered as hell."

When he chooses brands he knows he is doing so in a knowledgeable, healthy craft-beer market and wants to continue to "ride that wave."

Esber knew he was on to something with Cameron's at a beer festival in Frankenmuth, Michigan. Of the beers judged there, he said "95 percent of those that win medals are from Michigan. Cameron's won two. Deviator won a silver, and Obsidian won a bronze."

"The consumer is trained (to ask) 'what's new'?" Esber said. "Craft beer is tremendous for the consumer."


13 November, 2015