Beer with your groceries

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It’s official, beer is here. You can now grab a 6 pack at the grocery store. It’s the biggest innovation to alcohol retail in a generation.

At the Fortinos near Lime Ridge mall in Hamilton you can find the major labels and a little taste of local. Provincial regulations state that 20% of shelf space must be dedicated to craft breweries, making this delivery from new Hamilton Brewery Collective Arts, a short drive.

It can be tough for craft labels to get into the beer store, Matt Johnston says Loblaws has pushed past the 20% minimum and is currently offering 50% craft beer, growing their business and ruining their forecast for 2016.

It may be hard to find a bottle of suds in your local grocery store because there’s only 25 locations in the GTHA that are carrying beer as of today but that number will change, and soon.

13 retailers have permission to sell beer in grocery stores, there will be close to 60 locations in the next month. But that comes with some concern, as Premier Wynne grabbed a 6 pack in Toronto this morning, she faced questions related to increased accessibility, for minors.

“We’ve got the same perameters around the sale of this beer as we do in the beer store, as we do in the LCBO.”

Beer can only be purchased at registers marked with a smart serve trained cashier and so far, the beer is moving, off the shelf.