On March 30th, 2010 Inbev Anheuser-Bush Labatt announced that they have decided to shut down the brewery in Hamilton ( on Burlington Street) and move the production to another facility. Labatt purchased the Brewery only 3 years previous, as many speculate was a move to take out a competitor that had become successful in the discounted beer business. The Brewery had become an enterprise of pride for the community and Hamilton has had a brewing tradition dating back over 160 years.

After the announcement from Inbev Anheuser-Bush Labatt stating that they would be shutting down the Brewery and would be laying-off the 143 union employees, the community expressed their disgust with this decision. There have even been 2 massive public protests on the matter in the last 2 weeks. After hearing this, Manjit and Ravinder Minhas publically announced that they would like to purchase the brewery, its assets (not including the current brands) and take over the contract for employees with the Teamster Union. The Minhas siblings, who are the youngest brewery owner in the world (Minhas Craft Brewery), had recently launched their flagship beer Boxer Lager in Ontario. Demand for Boxer Lager was so high in Ontario that the stores were having trouble keeping it on the shelves. The siblings have been in the beer business since 2002 and have grown tremendously in that time. They sell primarily in the discounted beer category in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. Their formula for success in the beer business has always been to take out no loans, have no partners or investors. This results in low-overheads allowing them to produce premium quality products and selling them at discounted prices.

Inbev Anheuser-Bush Labatt claimed that they would be moving all the brewing equipment to other facilities, a move many industries insiders find it hard to fathom. Industry insiders believe that while some pieces of equipment will be moved to other Labatt factories, but a vast majority of the equipment will be sold to “used equipment yards” who will sell most of it as scrap. Shortly after the March 30, 2010 announcement by Labatt, the Minhas siblings publicly stated that they would be willing to purchase at fair market value the brewery and the equipment Labatt would not be using in another of their own facility. The community was extremely supportive of this move, so was the Union and the Hamilton Port Authority (who owns the brewery building) for such a purchase. Inbev Anheuser-Bush Labatt decided to shut the Lakeport brewery down 2 weeks earlier than the initial closure date and suddenly announced to the employees on the Friday that they had just worked their last shift.

DO WE GIVE UP?
A few people have told us that we should simply give up and that we will never be able to fight the Big Companies worth hundreds of billions of dollars. We agree that it is not easy but if we listen to the naysayers, we will never be in the beer business and if we were not optimistic and were not fighters, we would not have the success we have had. Also, we ask the most basic question: If we as Canadians give up and let the foreign owned companies mega have such a large control on our lives, what will happen to us? We have to fight back and we have to fight back hard.

We have a strong interest in opening a Brewery in Hamilton – Lakeport site or not. We are asking for your support in this endeavour. Please click below and show your support.