Scramble for suds: Beer supply snafu plagues pubs

Some pubs and liquor stores across Canada have struggled to keep beer on the shelves this week because of an outage with an online ordering system.

Getting beer has been a challenge in many parts of the country this week after an online ordering system pubs and stores rely on went down.

And some local watering holes are scrambling until deliveries return to normal.

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One of them is Doyle’s Pub in northeast Edmonton.

Last Thursday, as staff at the establishment at Victoria Trail and 151 Avenue were preparing for the Labour Day weekend, they were told their beer order wasn’t coming.

Doyle’s typically orders their beer from distributors on Mondays for deliveries on Fridays.

The pub, like many, gets its supply of suds from Brewers Distributor Limited (BDL), but the company’s online ordering system experienced an outage.

Joe Klement, the general manager of Doyle’s Pub, said Friday if they can’t get their order from BDL, they’re forced to go to local liquor stores for product.

But liquor stores, too, get their beer from BDL.

Staff at some smaller liquor stores who CTV News Edmonton spoke with on Friday say the distributor issue, in some cases, left shelves empty of certain brands.

“Every liquor store in Alberta gets their beer from BDL, so this isn’t just affecting small pubs, it’s small pubs and basically every single business in Alberta (and) in the western prairies that sells beer,” Klement told CTV News Edmonton.

BDL wouldn’t disclose the cause of the outage, just that it wasn’t because of a cyberattack. Its ordering system came back online late Friday morning.

“I want to thank our valued commercial customers for their patience as we return to normal operations,” the company’s president and chief executive officer said in a statement.

Still, it means Klement will be scrambling for another week to get supply to keep Doyle’s Pub from going dry.

“It was a lot of extra work and a lot of extra stress, but in this line of work, we can’t serve our customers with excuses,” he said.

“We have to do what it takes to make it work.”