'I've never said 'no' to a good beer in my life,' says cabinet minister on visit to Sault (3 photos)

The Ontario government spent $70,814 on beer this morning.

To be precise, the money went to Sault microbrewery OutSpoken Brewing, located at 350 Queen Street East, to expand its operations and purchase new canning equipment.

“It’s great for us to be able, as a government, to invest in businesses like this,” said Glenn Thibeault, Minister of Energy, who made the funding announcement on behalf of Bill Mauro, Minister of Northern Development and Mines.

“I’ve never really said ‘no’ to a good beer in my life,” Thibeault said during a brief speech at the brewery.

“We’re seeing more and more of our microbreweries popping up in communities and creating jobs and creating wealth,” Thibeault told SooToday.

“Business is going well for them here, and now that they need to expand to start distributing more beer in the community they needed a canning facility…so we provided $70,000 for their expansion and canning.”

“This will help with our canning machine and new fermenters and other processing machinery,” said Vaughn Alexander, OutSpoken co-owner.

The funding was previously received, OutSpoken beer is already being canned, and Friday marked the official announcement.

Previously, OutSpoken beer was available in larger containers, known as growlers and howlers, at the brewery.

Now, canning provides a different option for OutSpoken customers.

OutSpoken beer is available at the brewery itself and 17 different outlets in the Sault, some of them on a seasonal basis, Alexander said.

The funding announced Friday comes from the province’s Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation (NOHFC).

OutSpoken Brewing previously received $48,000 from the NOHFC to help establish its microbrewery, which launched its full commercial operation in 2014.