Tool Shed Brewing adopts AccountTouch, boosting sales data and distribution visibility

A brewery that started in a backyard tool shed and grew into a 22,000-square-foot operation in Calgary is now leaning on software to keep beer moving through more than 1,000 Canadian locations. Tool Shed Brewing has become the first Canadian partner in AccountTouch’s expansion north of the border, and the pitch is straightforward: better sales data, cleaner account management, and a clearer view of where beer is actually selling.

AccountTouch is a route-to-market CRM built for beverage alcohol, and that matters because distribution work is often where breweries gain or lose momentum. The platform is set up around real-time account management, sales tracking, route planning, reporting, placement tracking, AI Insights, and depletion data imports. AccountTouch also lists flexible logging and full account histories, tools that can help field sales teams see which accounts need attention before a product quietly falls off a shelf or out of a tap line. The company’s pricing, $50 per user per month with no onboarding fee and no long-term contract, also puts it in reach for breweries that want structure without a heavy software commitment.

For Tool Shed, the move fits a business that has long mixed growth with operational grit. The company says it began in 2012 in a backyard tool shed in Calgary before expanding into a much larger brewery footprint. Founder Graham Sherman has said the original plan ran into Alberta liquor laws that initially made the business illegal, and that he spent a year lobbying before the rules changed. That backstory still matters now, because Tool Shed’s latest step is not about chasing hype. It is about tightening the machine behind a brand that has to manage sales across a broad market.

Tool Shed says it now sells in more than 1,000 locations across Canada, and that kind of reach raises the stakes on execution. When a brewery is juggling retailers, distributors, and portfolio decisions across a country as large as Canada, the battleground is no longer just the taproom or the shelf edge. It is the data layer underneath those channels. A clearer route-to-market picture can show where reps should spend time, which accounts are worth more support, and which beers need a push before demand slips.

Tool Shed has also built a public profile beyond distribution. The brewery has pointed to winning a Calgary Stampede Cellar Uncorked competition, serving delegates and world leaders at the G7 Summit, and releasing a Royal Canadian Navy commemorative beer that donated $1 per can to the Legion Poppy Fund. That mix of visible brand moments and back-office discipline is what makes the AccountTouch rollout notable. In today’s craft beer market, growth increasingly depends on seeing the route to the shelf as clearly as the beer in the glass.