The First Beer Brewed With Cannabis Crafted In Canada

With the recreational cannabis expected to become legal later this summer in Canada, drinks makers are in a race to capitalize on the opportunities including a startup who’ve enlisted the aid of a team of scientists to develop a beer that’s actually brewed with weed.

Province Brand’s beer is developing a beer brewed with the “stalks, stem and roots of the cannabis plant,” chief executive Dooma Wendschuh told the Guardian.

So far cannabis beers being developed in Canada and in the USA are brewed with hops and barley before having their alcoholic content removed and then infused with cannabis oil which contains THC, the psychoactive component of the plant.

But in July Province Brands, an emerging brewer in the alcohol-free beer sector (it’s already a sector?), filed a patent to brew with cannabis plants directly INSTEAD of traditional grain

And now the Drinks Business is reporting that the “Toronto-based startup is in a race against established drinks giants and to launch its new weed-inspired product when Canada officially legalizes regulated use of the drug later this year.”

Last year, Constellation Brands, a multi-billion-dollar drinks company that’s home to prominent brands such as Corona, announced that it was  partnering with Canopy Growth , one of only 84 licensed cannabis producers in Canada, to research the possibilities in the market, a move which has already secured around $300 million for the company in its most recent financial report.

Wendschuh also noted that the fact that Constellation was the first Fortune 500 company to invest in the cannabis space, rather than a tobacco firm, confirms that a market for cannabis beverages not only exists, but that it’s a space that bears watching..

“We started our company in 2016 when it was not known whether alcohol free beverages which intoxicate using cannabis or its phytocannabinoids would ever be legalized in Canada. The government, just a few months ago, made it clear they’d allow [these types of products], and I’d suspect that’s what made Constellation Brands step up.”

 

Pot Beer Image Credit: Mitchell Maglio