My latest Vue Weekly column offers a re-take on a recent post on this website (read here) that looked at the relative strength of the craft beer scenes around the continent. The article (read it here) doesn’t really contain any new information (except I somehow screwed up the data reporting, I talk about per capita when I meant to say per 100,000 – it doesn’t change the concept but can be misleading if you are reading carefully). But I want to discuss it here because I am amazed at how quickly things change.

The numbers, themselves have not actually changed. What has changed is the potential. At least for Alberta. When I wrote the article a few weeks back (I tend to work ahead due to my busy schedule – it saves me last second deadline panics which can be hard one a person) I discussed eight Alberta-based breweries in the planning stages. In the time since, I have almost doubled that number as I have followed leads on various new breweries. My latest calculation is that there are at least 15 breweries in the planning stages in Alberta.

That would more than double the current number and is quite the transformation, just in a few months. One might be tempted to credit the AGLC policy changes in late 2013, and I do think they deserve some of the credit. The relaxation of minimums, location and other changes likely made a number of people shift their dreams into plans; the changes did create more potential for a small brewery.

However, I personally think it is mostly timing. Alberta has lagged in terms of beer culture for quite a long time, but I have sensed a palpable shift in the past couple of years. When I talk to beer drinkers, I find more familiarity with craft beer, and in particular local beer. I find, slowly, more establishments are improving their beer offerings, again including local. Something has been slowly shifting for a while. And that usually is a portend for more breweries.

I have no idea how many of those new breweries (some of whom I have told you about and some who have asked me to wait) will actually produce beer a year or two from now. I hope most of them. But if even if only half make it to production, they will transform Alberta’s beer scene.

And isn’t that a good thing?