‘Truly bittersweet’: Saskatoon’s 9 Mile to brew Black Bridge beer

A Saskatoon brewery is now handling all beer production for a Swift Current brewery. Laura Woodward reports.

Saskatoon’s 9 Mile Legacy Brewing will now handle beer production for Black Bridge Brewery.

Black Bridge’s taproom in Swift Current will close, but the brand — and the beer — will continue.

“This next step for Black Bridge is truly bittersweet,” owners Clayton and Kari Stenson wrote in a Facebook post.

“We’re not going anywhere, we’re just evolving.”

Shawn Moen, the CEO of 9 Mile, said he’s excited for the expansion, while acknowledging the “curveballs and speed bumps” the industry has faced.

Craft breweries boomed in the 2010s.

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Since that time, businesses have faced a pandemic, changing consumer habits, and now, tariffs driving up the cost of aluminum cans.

Mark Heise, owner of Rebellion Brewing in Regina, said those pressures have changed how brewers operate.

“A lot of folks are coming up on ten-year leases expiring, or needing to be renewed,” said Heise, who is also the interim executive director with the Saskatchewan Craft Brewers Association.

“Some folks just maybe aren’t seeing the market conditions are all that ripe. It’s been a pretty tough five or six years, and they’re thinking, ‘I’m not sure I’m up for more of that.’”

Heise said more small brewers — often friends in the tight-knit industry — are choosing to collaborate, consolidate, and find ways to adapt.

“You can close your doors, you can sell to a larger business, or you can work with like-minded people that happen to be great friends,” Moen said, noting his long-standing friendship with the Stensons.

Black Bridge Brewery opened in Swift Current in 2014.