From a Halifax farmhouse project to a Vancouver Island lager-only nano, here are the new Canadian craft breweries our editors are most excited about this…
From a Halifax farmhouse project to a Vancouver Island lager-only nano, here are the new Canadian craft breweries our editors are most excited about this year.
Canada's craft beer scene shows no signs of slowing in 2026. After a few quieter years of consolidation, a new wave of small, focused breweries has opened from coast to coast — most of them under 1,000 hectolitres a year, most of them led by brewers who cut their teeth at the household names of the 2010s. Atlantic Canada Halifax continues to punch above its weight. A new farmhouse-focused project in the city's North End is fermenting almost exclusively with mixed cultures, leaning into Nova Scotia-grown grains and orchard fruit. Across the harbour in Dartmouth, a former Garrison brewer has opened a tiny, lager-only taproom that's already drawing weekend lineups. Quebec The Laurentians and Eastern Townships keep producing breweries that feel like wineries — terroir-driven, slow, deliberate. Watch for a new saison house outside Magog and a Montreal cellar specializing in spontaneous fermentation aged in foeders. Quebec brewers continue to lead Canada on wild and mixed-culture beer. Ontario Toronto's east end has two openings worth a trip: a hazy-IPA specialist run by former Bellwoods staff, and a cask-conditioned English ales pub modeled after a London cellar. In southwestern Ontario