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“We don’t have enough bottles in our plants to run at normal levels,” he said. “But we’re still producing beer. We still have bottles, just not as many as we would like.”

George Croft, the veteran beer executive at the helm of major Ontario craft brewer Waterloo Brewing Ltd., said he isn’t having issues currently, since his company bought new bottles “very early on” in anticipation of disruptions due to COVID-19.

“As we recognized what was going on around the world,” he said, “we went out and bought new glass.”

Sleeman still has glass bottles in inventory, and has been working to procure new ones from manufacturers, but it’s been a challenge to source enough bottles to keep up with the volume of beer plants are producing, he said.

On top of that, Sleeman has had higher-than-expected demand for its beer, set off by either outbreak-related hoarding or because most are isolated up at home and “with all of the stress and everything else, perhaps sitting and having a beverage,” Sleeman said.

The process of making a beer bottle is relatively short and simple, but manufacturers already have production schedules and commitments to other clients in other industries.