Manitoulin Brewing to close after 12 years amid craft beer slowdown

Manitoulin Brewing Company is closing after about 12 years in business, ending a run that began as a garage brewing hobby and grew into one of Little Current’s best-known stops. The company announced the shutdown on April 9, citing “changing market conditions” and “evolving challenges” that made the operation hard to sustain.

The brewery was launched in 2015 by Nishin Meawasige and Blair Hagman, two friends and business partners who turned homebrewing into a commercial buildout at a time when Ontario craft beer was still surging. Its lineup leaned hard into Manitoulin Island identity, with beers such as Swingbridge Ale, Haw Eaters’ Brew, Cup and Saucer English Ale and Twin Bluffs Vienna Lager.

Over time, the brewery became more than a production site. Its Highway 6 headquarters included an attached outdoor eatery and live music, making it a destination for travelers crossing the island and for local residents alike. Manitoulin Brewing also reached well beyond its own taproom, with beer sold through The Beer Store and the LCBO.

The closure lands inside a wider Canadian craft beer slowdown that has been building through 2026. CBC reported in January that beer sales are down across the country and that the number of breweries in Canada has started to decline, a shift driven by cost pressures and changing consumer tastes and social habits. For small operators, that combination is brutal: higher input costs, tighter margins and fewer easy ways to stand out in a crowded market.

Little Current makes the hit feel even sharper. The town has a population of roughly 1,200 and sits beside the Highway 6 bridge onto Manitoulin Island, serving tourists, cottagers and local residents in a place where every retail loss matters. In August 2025, The Beer Store said its Little Current location would close on Oct. 19, removing one of only four places in town that sold alcohol and another bottle-return stop in the process.

Manitoulin Brewing’s shutdown is also the second Northern Ontario brewery closure in recent weeks, following Sleeping Giant Brewing Company in Thunder Bay, which said in March it would close by the end of that month after 14 years. For small regional breweries, the warning signs are getting easier to spot: tourism-dependent sales, thin local retail infrastructure, and a business model that gets squeezed fast when costs rise and customer habits shift.