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12 Ottawa area craft breweries are excited to announce a collaboration to release a Holiday Craft Beer Calendar … like an Advent calendar but with beer! Each brewery will have two of their beers included in this unique offering. Would you like to know what beers they are? Sorry … that’s part of the surprise!
“One of the Nita Beer ideas people, Poncho, has been trying to get us to do an advent calendar with beer from Ottawa breweries for some time” says Andy Nita, Owner and Chief Beer Officer at Nita Beer Company. “Although it sounds like a simple but fantastic undertaking, executing takes time, planning and coordination.”
Everyone who purchases a Holiday Craft Beer Calendar will have 24 beers delivered to them in November. The beer calendar will include an identifier numbered for each day of December until the 24th. Every day in December until the 25th, people can get their beer surprise!
12 breweries from across the eastern Ontario region are participating, including as far west as Whitewater Brewing Company in Foresters Falls and as far east as Brasserie Tuque de Broue Brewery in Embrun. Kichesippi Beer, Covered Bridge Brewing, Crooked Mile Brewing, Vimy Brewing, Cartwright Springs, Broadhead Brewing, Stray Dog Brewing, Whiprsnapr Brewing, Clocktower Brew Pub and Nita Beer round out the twelve.
“We wanted to celebrate the collaborative nature of breweries in Ottawa by putting together this offering to bring more awareness to the Ottawa area craft beer scene. We have a lot of great beer in Ottawa.” says Nita. “This is going to be a ton of work to get the logistics to work properly but the twelve brewers are in for the challenge.
The rules for selling beer in Ontario get complicated with this type of offering. Nita Beer Company applied for and received a Manufacturer’s Representative License from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario to allow it to canvass for and receive orders on behalf of other breweries. But then the complicated part begins. Based on storage limits for manufacturers representatives outlined in Ontario law, Nita can only store 360 litres (about 30 cases) of another manufacturer’s beer. The company cannot deliver the beer directly out of its retail space on Colonnade Rd so instead, Nita will deliver the beer directly to consumers at their residence or place of business. Nita is working with the twelve brewers to manage the logistics to be legally compliant and everyone is on board to make this work.
Plans include sales throughout Ontario. Because liquor laws for shipping across Canada are quite complicated, sales will be limited to customers living in Ontario unless a lawyer with this type of experience magically appears to help the group through this quagmire.
To make the Holiday Craft Beer Calendar even more special, Nita is including engraved wooden coasters in the pack but for the first 100 customers only.
Sales begin October first and interested buyers can purchase from nitabeer.com or pre-order in person in the Nita Beer Colonnade bottle shop. Beer Calendars will be delivered starting mid-November. Quantities are limited, and Nita is taking orders until November 10, 2018.
For more information contact Andy Nita at giddyup@nitabeer.com or 613-688-2337.
