A Kelowna brewery is jumping on the “Buy Canadian” bandwagon with its latest offering, Local Lager.
Copper Brewing owner Sean White says many people don’t realize a lot of ‘domestic’ brands have international owners.
“Molson Canadian is not owned by a Canadian company. It’s a domestic beer, it’s branded Canadian and yes it is brewed in Canada but all the profits that are made from that company leave this country,” he said.
“That’s the awareness that I’m trying to build because there isn’t very many domestic beers out there that are actually Canadian. That’s why we came up with Local Lager. Because it is a local company. All the money stays here in Canada.”
He points out that even smaller, regional brands like Okanagan Springs have foreign ownership. Okanagan Springs is owned by Sleeman, which in turn is owned by Japanese brewing giant Sapporo, although they do brew their product in Vernon.
White says that since launching Local Lager, “We’ve seen an incredible response from customers who are fed up with the disconnect between marketing and ownership. They want to know where their dollars are going, and they want to support local without having to sacrifice on price or familiarity.”
Copper Brewing Co. has significant capacity, with 21,000 litres of tank space. The new beer is currently stocked in about eight liquor stores in the Southern Interior, but White says Copper products can be found from Prince George to Osoyoos to the Kootenays.
He also helps other local craft breweries with production.
“We’re doing a beer for Barn Owl next week. The smaller breweries that don’t have the tank space to do their bigger volume, moving beers in the summertime, we do contract brewing for them just to help them keep up with the demand,” said White.
—This story originally appeared on Castanet
