Vancouver is more and more becoming known as a home for craft breweries, driven in part by changes to provincial liquor laws allowing for tasting lounges in breweries. The independent players are taking on the big boys--like Molson Coors. Just a few decades ago, just one craft brewery existed in Canada. This year, a total of 286 breweries were producing in Canada, a jump from 236 operating in 2012. (We know because we tasted all of them... for journalism.) By number of operating breweries, British Columbia was second only to Ontario with 72 breweries in the province, 39 of which had fewer than 20 employees.

Colliers released a study looking at this interesting commercial real estate development, and how it’s impacting industrial areas in Vancouver, Burnaby, and North Vancouver--unique pockets of industrial buildings not suited for modern warehousing or distribution businesses. Bisnow spoke with Colliers senior associate Matt Smith who points to Brassneck Brewery, Deep Cove Brewers and Distillers and Powell Street Craft Brewing as personal favourites. He says he’s worked with a number of startup and existing breweries in their search for a new home or expansion in the Vancouver market, so, “we have an inside track on how this industry has been growing.” (Growing along with this trend? People's confidence in their own dancing abilities.) In the image is the Deep Cove team.

The industrial areas in Vancouver and North Vancouver the breweries are moving to have rents that are higher than other municipalities, but are “significantly lower” than retail locations where you would find your typical restaurants, Matt says. The supplemental revenue from people consuming beer on site that complements the wholesale business becomes even more of a factor as you locate closer to higher density residential markets like East Van and Mount Pleasant locations. Most of the breweries Matt works with are exhausting all options in the Vancouver area, but look for more growth in Burnaby, going forward. In the image is Craft Beer Market in Olympic Village.