This Canadian drinks firm is launching a beer brewed with cannabis in 2019

Canadian drinks company Province Brands has struck a deal with craft brewery Yukon to allow it to sell a pilsner brewed with cannabis as the company continues to develop its original, THC-laced beer.

Province Brands of Canada’s Cambridge Bay Imperial Pilsner (7% ABV) will be first distributed by Yukon Brewing (CNW Group/Province Brands of Canada)

Province Brands filed the provisional patent for the “world’s first beers brewed from the cannabis plant” in July 2017, further stoking interest from the drinks industry in the burgeoning cannabis industry since Constellation bought a 10% stake in Canadian marijuana company Canopy Growth Corp for £141 million with plans to make cannabis-infused drinks.

Although Canada’s lawmakers legalised recreational use of cannabis earlier this year, the country’s edibles industry has yet to become legal, causing a number of false-starts for small businesses and leading many manufacturers to sell their products illegally online.

Unlike Province Brands of Canada’s flagship developing product — non-alcoholic beers that intoxicate using THC and other phytocannabinoids — Cambridge Bay Imperial Pilsner is a hemp-based beer and will contain alcohol.

“We got tired of waiting for Canada to legalise marijuana beverages,” Dooma Wendschuh, Co-Founder and CEO of Province Brands, said. “Honestly, developing our patent-pending process to brew a beer from cannabis has been so challenging that I never would have imagined we could possibly be ready to launch a commercial product before Canada allowed the sale of marijuana beverages.”

While other companies have produced cannabis-laced beers and wines, Province Brands is the first “global company” to produce beers brewed entirely from the cannabis plant, describing its products as “alcohol-free, yet highly intoxicating, and with a dose-response curve similar to that of alcohol”, as well as being low calorie, low sugar, and mostly gluten free.

The company is currently building a 123,000 sq ft cannabis brewery in Grimsby, Ontario, which will enable it to “meet initial forecasted product demand in each province and territory.”

In the US, edibles sales, which includes drinks styled on wine and beer which contain THC, are on track to reach more than $4.1 billion by 2022, according to a report published by Arcview and BDS Analytics earlier this year.