NIK wESt 28 BCBusiness SEptEmBER 2018
In front of the cameras, Central City
brewmaster Gary Lohin and vice-president
of sales Daryn Medwid announce that the
company will be selling its most popular
brand, Red Racer beer, in 500-millilitre
cans at 355-millilitre pricing for the fore-
seeable future.
"We've been making great, consistent
beer since 2003; nobody can argue with
that. But with the technolo„y today, it's not
hard for lots of people to make good beer,"
Medwid explains. "So you have many small
competitors; they continue to open up at
the bottom end of the market, they continue
to nibble at your heels. And from the top
end, the scale brewers like Anheuser-Busch
and Molson Coors are trying to
go after the craft market. So,
being one of the larger craft
brewers in the country,
where can you go? The only
thing to do is to ‹ght up."
It might not seem like a
game-changing move—what's
145 millilitres, after all? But
there are about 140 breweries in
B.C., and it's a safe bet that every single one
of them hears the news that day.
Some competitors shake their ‹sts and
playfully utter "Damn them," while oth-
ers opine that the switch devalues Central
City's product. There are even rumours
that a new B.C. Liquor Distribu-
tion Branch rule on the size
of single cans—meaning
brewers can sell 473 milli-
litres instead of the usual
500—forced Central City
to make the change so it
could use up its 500-millilitre
inventory.
But all of those rivals know
that one of the province's biggest craft
beer producers is separating itself from the
pack, a must for every brewery in an indus-
try that sees more competition each year.
"You've got two loaves of bread that cost
the same and taste the same," Lohin says.
Full-scale riot
morgan moreira, Ralf
Rosenke and aly Tomlin of
Riot Brewing in Chemainus
