N.B. microbrewery faces beer shortage

New Brunswick microbrewery Picaroons is being forced to cut down on its summer brands to cope with the season's high demand for beer.

Heading into the August long weekend, Sean Dunbar, owner of Fredericton-based Picaroons Traditional Ales, said his company cannot keep up with the demand for its specialty beers and that could mean empty shelves at NB Liquor.

Dunbar said Picaroons will have to cut back on eight of 11 brands of beer starting this week.

The brewery's June sales were up 60 per cent from last year.

Dunbar and his staff are racing to get bottles off the conveyor belt and into liquor stores. But he said they're already at full production.

"We've been making the utmost capacity of this brewery all the way along, all year. People are just drinking more than we can make," he said.

The company's shelves are sitting empty when normally, Dunbar said, it would have 18 pallets of beer ready for shipping.

The shortages include their newest brand, Melon Head beer, which boasts a combination of citrus and watermelon flavours, and the brewer's most popular summer beer, Dooryard Summer Ale, an organic beer.

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Sean Dunbar, the owner of Fredericton-based Picaroons, says the company will have to cut back on eight of 11 brands of beer starting this week.

[B]Drinking local[/B]

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The sudden spike in beer sales could be attributed to people searching to buy local suds.

Dunbar said he believes more people are buying his beer because it's brewed in New Brunswick.

"It just shows that customers are thinking more and more about what they purchase, making conscious choices," Dunbar said.

"Choices to buy locally, choosing locally, buying specialized products that actually taste good."

Picaroons is only available in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

Randy Foster, a bartender at a downtown Fredericton restaurant, said the beer is also popular with tourists.

"When tourists come in the first thing they ask for is a local beer. We do have Picaroons on tap but we also have it in the bottle," Foster said.

Nora Lacey, a NB Liquor spokeswoman, said the corporation has stockpiled Picaroons and is hoping its supply lasts until September.

"Based on demand in August, you know we may run through that inventory quite quickly, but based on the sales for July, we look like were in a good position right now," Lacey said.