The other day I randomly got curious about where in Alberta has the most breweries. The cities? Small towns? And where are their the biggest holes? So I jumped on the google machine and pulled out my calculator and starting tabulating. The results, I think, are fascinating.

If I ask almost anyone which city/town has the most breweries, everyone will say Calgary. That is true in terms number of brewing operations. There are currently 47 breweries operating in Calgary. But, Calgary is also Alberta’s largest city, so we would naturally expect they would also have the most breweries. A better metric is breweries per capita. If we run the calculation to control for population, a different picture emerges. (Note I am not using my usual definition of brewery which excludes multiple sites owned by the same brewery, but instead using brewing operations in this post as I think it makes more sense).

First I looked at what Albertans consider the Big Seven cities. More than half of Alberta’s population is found in these seven centres as are the majority of Alberta’s breweries. However, while these cities have about 65% of the population, they have only 56% of breweries. A small discrepancy, for sure, but notable nonetheless. I ran a per capita analysis on the big cities.

Suddenly Calgary doesn’t seem so dominant does it? Medicine Hat takes the title for the most breweries per capita, while Red Deer and Grande Prairie land around the same place as Calgary. The results also show that Edmonton and Lethbridge continue to lag. And I will talk about the sad state of Fort McMurray below. (I don’t report the population numbers as it clutters the table, but I am using 2022 data from the Alberta government).

However, what we consider the big seven are no longer the seven largest municipalities. Strathcona County (Sherwood Park) comes in at number four, Airdrie at number six, and St. Albert at number eight – all larger than Grande Prairie and Medicine Hat. Other large suburban areas like Spruce Grove, Leduc, Cochrane, Fort Saskatchewan and Okotoks are not far behind. So I ran the same analysis for Alberta’s 18 largest municipalities that have a significant urban centre. This also happens to be the municipalities over 20,000 in population (note: there are six rural municipalities with populations over 20,000 but none have a collection of residents of more than a few hundred, and thus are excluded from the analysis). The table below reports the 11 not included above.

It is a bit of a mixed bag but Spruce Grove, Leduc, Chestermere, Okotoks and Lloydminster have high per capita numbers, surpassing Calgary and other larger urban areas. There is an appetite for breweries outside the big cities. Interestingly the other municipalities surrounding Edmonton lag behind, copying the experience of the bigger city to which they are connected.

I am not going to report the numbers for smaller municipalities as I believe that a per capita analysis of populations under 20,000 is unreliable. One brewery can create large shifts in the numbers, thus skewing the results. However, if we – just for fun – take a look at municipalities over 5,000 people, the most breweries per capita belong to:

• Canmore, 4 breweries, 0.28 per capita
• Innisfail, 2 breweries, 0.26 per capita
• Banff, 2 breweries, 0.21 per capita

How about we go the other way? What is the smallest centre hosting a brewery? If we use official Alberta government classifications, that title easily goes to Rosalind, population 184, which is home to Detention Brewing, followed by County of Spirit River No. 122 (pop. 796) with Dunvegan Brewing. However, if we look past the official categories, we could also talk about Lundbreck (pop. 289) which is home to Oldman River Brewing, Plamondon (pop. 303 – Fat Unicorn) and Westerose (pop. 63 – Familia Brewing). Those towns do not have legal incorporation and are instead a part of a broader county.

What is with the Brewery Deserts?

On the other side of the coin are the brewery deserts – municipalities that do not have a single brewery. Here are the 10 largest Alberta municipalities (again excluding rural municipalities without a centre of 1,000 people) that do not have a brewery:

• Wood Buffalo (Fort McMurray): pop. 74,532
• Fort Saskatchewan: 28,045
• Beaumont: 21,918
• Wetaskiwin: 12,317
• Blackfalds: 11,962
• Taber: 9,212
• Coaldale: 9,121
• Drayton Valley: 6,802
• Redcliff: 6,104
• Bonnyville: 5,915

Of course the two Forts (McMurray and Saskatchewan) previously had breweries but are currently without. Beaumont has a tap room for Sea Change Brewing, but there is no active brewing at that location (there is also a contract brewery which claims to be “inspired by Beaumont”, but that is not the same thing).

A couple of observations jump out at me. First, many of the brewery deserts are bedroom communities. Fort Saskatchewan and Beaumont abut Edmonton, while Redcliff, Blackfalds and Coaldale are just outside Medicine Hat, Red Deer and Lethbridge, respectively. While that doesn’t fully explain the situation – lots of other bedroom communities have breweries, including Leduc, Spruce Grove, Airdrie and Cochrane (just to list a few). However, suburban communities can have different patterns. Some have developed a vibrant local entertainment and business scene, while others have evolved to be more like a “bedroom” community with less interest in developing local entertainment options. I don’t have the space to examine each of these cases individually, but the pattern is noteworthy.

Taber is in a very socially conservative area in southern Alberta, which is a likely a factor for its inclusion on this list. Nearby Raymond remains a dry town and Cardston only this year lifted prohibition. I have less explanation for why Wetaskiwin, Bonnyville, and Drayton Valley have yet to produce a brewery of their own, as I am not sure what makes them different from other small central Alberta towns.

I think the situation of Fort McMurray merits some further discussion. There have been two attempts at a brewery in the northern city, both in the same location. In 2013 the Bear Hills group opened the Wood Buffalo Brewpub downtown. They walked away in 2019, leaving the brewing equipment behind. A year later, a new group took over the space, changing the name to 57 North Kitchen and Brewery. They closed last year after less than two years in operation.

A key turning point for the situation was the devastating 2016 Fort McMurray forest fire forcing the evacuation of the entire city. The social and economic disruptions lasted for years. Many residents never returned and those that did focused on rebuilding their lives. And then COVID hit, with all its associated turmoil. The folks at Bear Hill have told me they were struggling but viable before the fire but things never recovered afterward. Likely 57 North never stood a chance given the upheaval of COVID.

But there is also a structural issue in Fort McMurray. Its downtown is, frankly, lifeless, and the city lacks a strong gathering place. The community is profoundly impacted by the fly-in-fly-out nature of work at the oilsands operations just north of town. Many residents view their time there as temporary and focused on earning money. I know there are many people who have lived in Fort McMurray their whole life and are dedicated to building a vibrant community there. It is not a lack of desire that is the issue. I believe the economic base of the city is too susceptible to boom and bust and too reliant on transient populations to create the space for something as rooted in local as a craft brewery.

We can only hope someone figures out a business plan that works in Fort McMurray. And who knows? Maybe this post will inspire some enterprising businessperson to explore the possibilities of becoming the first brewery in one of these under-served towns.

[Edited to correct an accidental omission regarding a second brewery in Okotoks, and to correct the list of largest municipalities without a brewery to reflect some recent openings of which the author was unaware.]