(Montreal) Microbreweries want the right to deliver their beers directly to their customers’ homes. The Association des microbrasseries du Québec (ABQ) would like the Legault government to change the regulations in this direction.

“We want to highlight how nonsense it is that in 2023 consumers can buy just about any consumer goods from home, but microbreweries don’t have access to this distribution channel,” laments the director general of the ABQ, Marie-Ève ​​Myrand, in an interview in anticipation of Quebec’s micro beer week, which will begin on April 21.

This is not the first time that the association has tried to influence Quebec to obtain this regulatory relaxation. At the height of health restrictions, the ABQ had made this request while its members were hard hit by a decrease in traffic.

The Legault government had nevertheless adopted regulatory relaxations, in December 2020, by allowing restaurants – and by extension microbrewers who also sell food – to deliver alcohol provided that it is accompanied by a meal.

The ABQ would like the regulations to be relaxed and beer to be delivered unaccompanied, as is already possible in other Canadian provinces such as Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario. “I would say that things are changing very slowly when it comes to alcoholic beverages in Quebec,” judge Ms. Myrand.

Even if the sanitary relaxation measures have been lifted, the changes requested by the ABQ remain necessary, believes its director general. She points out that e-commerce is part of consumer habits and that microbrewers want to be where their customers are.

“There is nothing that you cannot currently find in an online sales channel, whether it is the explosion in the sale of food, clothing, consumer products. You order everything, except beer! »

She points out that this ban does not affect state-owned companies, however. The Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ) offers home delivery service. “Even the SQDC can do it (deliver online cannabis orders). »