Beer will be sold in Toronto grocery stores this year

Premier Kathleen Wynne announced today the province has inked a new deal with The Beer Store that will see beer finally hit grocery store shelves this fall.

The deal will also lead to more widespread availability of craft beer - 20 per cent of all beer shelving (not just in supermarkets, but also the LCBO and The Beer Store) will now be reserved for independent brewers.

The announcement of the new deal comes following a slew of leaked information about ongoing talks related to beer sales in grocery stores. While beer will now arrive sooner than expected, the province confirmed that beer sales will be capped to 279 six-packs per day for each retail location.

As previously reported, grocers can choose to exceed the sales quote but will be required to pay a 1 per cent penalty.

Timing for the start of beer sales in grocery stores is still a bit ambiguous but a government release suggests it could come as early as this December with 60 retail locations. 150 grocers are expected to sell beer by May 2017.

Photo by MrDanMofo in the blogTO Flickr pool.

by Ben Johnson via blogTO