More craft breweries may open in Calgary after councillors approve regulation change

The city has officially passed a new bylaw that will make it easier for craft breweries to open in Calgary.

On Monday night councillors voted unanimously to amend land use bylaws to allow breweries, wineries, and distilleries to occur in nearly all commercial and industrial districts, whereas they were previously limited to industrial districts only.

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“We’ve had a big change over the last few years in consumer preferences,” city planner Laurie Kimber tells Calgary Buzz. “There’s been a demand and appreciation for all things local, and that includes local beers.”

Kimber says the bylaw change follows the province altering a law that required breweries to produce a minimum of 500,000 litres of beer per year.

“Once they removed that, it meant that you could brew beer in really small spaces, so now we’ve got an interest in saying ‘hey, I want a brewery in a neighbourhood location,’ so it’s created that demand and we’re hoping this will create some economic activity.”