CRESTON, BC – The Creston Valley Advance reports that Labatt Breweries has announced plans to start brewing its Kokanee brand at its Edmonton plant, marking the first time in over a decade that it has been brewed outside of the Labatt-owned Columbia Brewery in Creston, BC.
In a similar arrangement to the distributed brewing of the Alexander Keith’s brands, the Creston plant will still be the main home for Kokanee, but an unstated percentage of the brand output will be produced in Edmonton, with Creston brewmaster Scott Stokes working closely with the Edmonton brewery to ensure consistency.
In addition to the Kokanee brands, the Columbia Brewery brews a number of other Labatt-owned and affiliated brands including Labatt Blue, Labatt Light, Wildcat, Keith’s and others. That line-up will be growing to include Bud Light, which was added to the Columbia production portfolio at the same time as the Kokanee plans were announced.
Columbia Brewery manager Murray Oswald told the Advance that these changes will have “no immediate impact on employment at Columbia Brewery and, in fact, one of our objectives is to minimize any impact at all.”
Haha they’re going to try again?
I was told by someone who worked QC at Labatt that they abondoned the last attempt because people complained of the change in flavour. Which was attributed to the different water supply. I am amazed that anyone who drinks kokanee has taste buds that are that sophisticated.
I’ve moved back to Onterrible, but still drink Kokanee, and here’s why. I’ve toured the Labatt’s and Molson’s plants in Toronto. They get their water from Lake Ontario. I don’t care how they filter it, it has been flushed down 7 toilets by the time it reaches Toronto. But perhaps you enjoy that dark amber taste.>>>Greg