Molson Coors Canada launches speciality beer company

They too have had to learn the hard way that you cannot seed, nurture and grow specialty and craft beer brands in an FMCG company. Like MillerCoors in the U.S., which outsourced its craft and import brand business to Denver under the name Tenth and Blake Beer Company in August 2010, Molson Coors decided to create a new stand-alone division to better promote these brands. The launch of the Six Pints Specialty Beer Company was announced at the end of May 2011.

Craft and specialty beer represent the fastest growing segment of the Canadian beer industry (22.4 million hl in 2009), which is controlled by heavyweights Labatt (AB-InBev) and Molson Coors. Their combined market share was 83 percent in 2009 according to the Hansmaennel/Barth report.

Canada, being a country of only 33 million people who are scarce and few on the ground the further west you go, makes it hard for craft brewers to operate in. The major market for craft beers is the state of Ontario with the capital Toronto, where craft breweries – about 30 of them are organised in the Ontario Craft Brewers Association – currently have less than a 5 percent share of the provincial beer market.

To better participate in this segment, Molson Coors Canada acquired the Creemore Springs Brewing Company in 2005. Creemore then acquired the Granville Island Brewing Company in 2009. The establishment of the Six Pints Speciality Beer Company in Toronto signals a further step in Molson Coors Canada’s ongoing commitment to participating in this growing segment.

The brands in the Six Pints portfolio, and the company itself, will operate separately from Molson Coors and develop their own unique strategies around price, product, distribution and promotion.

The company was named Six Pints in reference to a lesser-known bit of Canadian trivia. In the late 1700’s, British soldiers stationed in what would eventually become Canada were entitled to six pints of beer per day as part of their reward.

Nice idea.