In Labatt’s north end brewery, the water will flow like beer

The sun is beating down, the UV index is high, temperatures are sky-rocketing and the people, well, the people are thirsty.

In other words: it’s beer time.

Breweries around Atlantic Canada are pumping out beer like water, with the exception of one, that is actually pumping out water like beer.

The Oland Brewery in the north end of Halifax will now add canned fresh drinking water to its production line so that it’s ready and waiting in case of an emergency. It’s part of Labatt’s ongoing commitment to giving back to the community.

Since launching its disaster relief program in 2012, Labatt has produced water cans at its brewery in London, Ont., providing safe drinking water to communities affected by disasters across the country—from ice storms to hurricanes to forest fires. By pausing beer production to focus on emergency water production, Labatt Breweries of Canada has donated more than one million cans of water to support communities across Canada.

Now that production is moving to Halifax.

“Right now our London brewery is at capacity, but we aren’t and haven’t been at full capacity in Halifax for a while,” said Wade Keller, director of corporate affairs for Atlantic Canada. “So that means that we can produce water here and also store it in our warehouse here and ship it to other parts of Canada as it’s needed.”

With incidents of extreme weather on the rise, it’s safe to say it will most definitely be needed. And contrary to popular belief, water is better to reach for in a crisis than beer. Keller said that because the Halifax brewery operates at about 70% capacity—capacity is 900,000 hectolitres and they produce about 600,000—it can absorb the production of water without affecting the output of beer.

“We can produce about a thousand cans per minute, so it’s not like we’re shutting beer production down for a week to produce water,” said Keller. “We’re pretty nimble, so if we’re making Alexander Keith’s and then switching to Bud Light, we can plan it between those when we can flush out the line of beer—which we’d have to do anyways—and we can just run water for a few hours.”

That’s right, the lines are fully cleaned out between beer and water production, so there’s no subtle beer flavour in the water. The water is then packaged in branded Labatt water cans and put in storage where it can be quickly accessed and distributed when communities need it most.

“I often joke that with the heat this time of year, it’s beer drinking weather,” said Keller. “But it’s also the time of year when we see a lot of natural disasters and if the heat is prolonged, we do also send water to shelters so that people can come in and get some fluids when they need it.”

Keller said that it’s fitting that the water production has been relocated to the Halifax brewery because while they are a big multinational company, in Halifax, they consider themselves a local company that has reaped the benefits of local support over the years.

“The brewery was founded in 1867 and we remain the number one brewer in Nova Scotia by quite a large margin,” said Keller. “We take a great deal of pride in the ability to give back.”