When it first opened its doors on Cassells Street in North Bay, Ont., in 2015, New Ontario Brewing was a small, 900-square-foot shop with little overhead. “It was easy to run, and it was very profitable for a few years, being the only craft brewery during that huge craft brewery boom,” says Jacob Ricci, former president and sales manager. In the years when sales did well, Ricci became a face of the business in the community, selling cans at the farmer’s market, tending the bar, and MC-ing events. But it wasn’t built to last.
For a while, it seemed like craft beer was a promising bet. Less than three years after New Ontario opened, the province dedicated over $5 million to 16 Northern Ontario microbreweries, arguing they created jobs and attracted tourists. Breweries in the region had already provided more than $8.4 million in direct economic activity, the government said, and created 109 jobs prior to the province's cash injection. These jobs were important to the north, where economic growth lags behind the rest of the country. New businesses are also few and far between: government data from 2026 shows the number of Northern Ontario businesses increased by just 1% between 2019 and 2024, compared to 6% in the rest of Ontario and 4% Canada-wide.
At the time, the province saw craft beer as a “rapidly expanding sector” capable of employing thousands of people. In 2017, the industry itself saw sales of $370 million in Ontario alone, up from $240 million in 2015. Craft beer was, simply put, cool. It quickly developed a big fan base that saw it as an opportunity to shift drinking culture from mass-produced beers to flavourful, niche cans reflecting local pride. Instead of drinking Molsons brewed in Toronto, New Ontario’s customers could sip on Frisky Pete’s English Pale Ale, named after the chipmunk living underneath their original location.
There was reason to believe the business would keep growing. New Ontario quickly outgrew their space and had “too many sales and not enough product to sell,” says Ricci. They found a huge new space in a 15,000-square-foot former Honda dealership, and got their keys just before Covid-19 lockdowns began in 2020. That was the beginning of the end.
Pandemic lockdowns threw a wrench in their plans. “The brewery almost shut down right then and there,” says Ricci. “Our expenses had increased fourfold, fivefold easily, and we had lost all of our sales.” The business accrued significant debt over the pandemic, as rising manufacturing costs threatened to pull them under. Suppliers no longer trusted them after missed payments. "We had no credit with any of these companies,” Ricci says. "I did the best I could for a while, but it just wasn't flying."
But through lots of hard work – and a short-lived rebrand to Wildwoods Brewing as part of an attempt to start fresh – New Ontario remained an important community pillar for a couple more years. North Bay is a small, car centric city of 52,000 people where social isolation and a chronic lack of local hangouts is acutely felt. With its regular trivia nights, concerts, and non-profit events, Wildwoods became an important, versatile venue, one of just two breweries in town where people could reliably find a fun night out.
And yet, by late 2024, the business couldn’t make ends meet. Wildwoods closed its doors just before Christmas that year. Losing that “meaningful” space for people to enjoy is “the heartbreaking part, putting aside the dollars,” Ricci says.
Communities across the region have experienced similar losses in the last two years, nearly a decade after the height of the craft beer craze. So far, Northern casualties also include Manitoulin Brewing Company in Little Current, which closed in April 2026 after 12 years due to “changing market conditions,” and Sleeping Giant Brewing Company in Thunder Bay, which also ran into money trouble and closed its popular taproom this year. They, too, had their fair share of government support, both monetary and otherwise: then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was photographed wearing a Sleeping Giant shirt back in 2016, and the brewery received $800,000 from the province in 2017 and $100,000 from the federal government in 2022 to expand their operations.
“Over the course of the last three years, the number [of breweries] has dropped off at a pretty steady rate,” says Jordan St. John, an Ontario beer expert who co-authored the Ontario Beer Guide. “You might be losing one every couple of weeks.” While Ontario was home to 440 breweries by the end of the brewery craze in 2023, St. John estimates the number is now down to about 350, adding that he would not be surprised to see another 50 or 60 more breweries close in the next couple of years.
"In Thunder Bay or North Bay or Manitoulin Island, these breweries are really popular. In many cases, they're tourist destinations."
Part of the problem is that already-tight margins are being squeezed further by sharp increases in production and packaging costs. Aluminum for cans, for example, has become 40% more expensive over the past two years. At the same time, data shows Canadians are drinking less, driving the biggest drop in alcohol sales in two decades. Beer sales by volume have fallen for nine consecutive years.
Those pressures are felt across the entire industry, but Northern breweries face additional issues of geography. “Especially in rural Ontario in the north, shipping and freight for all the inputs that go into a brewery are increased, and therefore it can be quite expensive to do business,” St. John says. Once it’s brewed, sending beer produced in Northern Ontario to larger markets in southern or central Ontario adds additional costs, too.
The trade war has only made matters worse. “Every can of beer is in an aluminum can; our hops come out of the United States,” says Chris Fuoco, chief strategy officer at Original Gravity, an Ontario beverage and hospitality group. “All of those things are affected by price increases and tariffs, and you combine that with increased fuel costs to ship your beer around the province.”
Against those challenges, Fuoco says, the strength of craft beer lies in how it resonates in its local community: “That's why in Thunder Bay or North Bay or Manitoulin Island, these breweries are really popular. In many cases, they're tourist destinations,” Fuoco says. That same strength, however, becomes a challenge when breweries try to tap into larger – and more distant – markets. “Those economics are tough,” Fuoco says. “Especially in a province as big as Ontario.”
Mergers may be the future, with breweries consolidating to reduce production costs and centralize their sales and distribution.
For struggling breweries, survival may mean giving up their independence, if not closing altogether. After running into financial trouble and entering insolvency proceedings, Sleeping Giant’s brand and recipes were bought by Original Gravity, a growing amalgamation of craft beer brands with its start in Baysville, Ont. Sleeping Giant’s flagship brews, Northern Logger and White Out, will join a roster of products from breweries including Merit, Lake of Bays, and Sawdust City brewed in central Ontario while its Thunder Bay location taps out.
According to a press release on Sleeping Giant’s website, Original Gravity “saw an opportunity to help preserve something special,” and to “keep the Sleeping Giant legacy alive.” Fuoco said the local brewery appealed to his company in part because it was “doing a surprising amount of volume out of Thunder Bay,” with award-winning beer. “From afar, we looked at it and went, ‘That's a great success story,’” Fuoco says.
Given these challenges, Fuoco said consolidations and mergers may be the future, with breweries consolidating to reduce production costs and centralize their sales and distribution. “We're at the forefront of this consolidation,” he says. “I think you may see more of that.”
While the merger may have been good business for Fuoco, the local taproom’s closure was surprising to Thunder Bay locals and beer enthusiasts alike. The social media post announcing the closure earned hundreds of comments expressing sadness and disbelief, especially about upcoming events being cancelled. The business, the post said, “has been about the community we live, work, and play in.” Under Original Gravity, Sleeping Giant’s beer will still be brewed. But for Thunder Bay, it’s the end of an era.
