A decline in beer purchases were found at the beginning of the pandemic but sales have since bounced back and are noted as being close to where sales were at this time last year.

Since March, beer sales dropped by 2.4 percent, 4.8 percent in April and 2.5 percent in May, allocating for the additional closures of restaurants, bars and sporting events. Once patio season hit, there was an increase in sales where Beer Canada reported domestic sales of 10.4 million hectolitres which is an increase of 0.1 per cent.

Canadian Malting Barley Technical managing director Peter Watts said national beer sales in June were up 3.6 per cent with July at 3.5 per cent.

“We saw a quicker recovery than many people may have expected so that’s really positive news for our industry domestically and of course for Canadian brewers,” said Watts. “It will be interesting to see what happens with future beer consumption with fewer outdoor patios and decks.”

“The beer industry has been innovative over the last four or five months and I expect them to do so as we move into winter,” Watt said.

Watts also notes consumers may not know that Canada is one of the world’s largest producers and suppliers of malting barley and most of that comes from Alberta and Saskatchewan.