Hamilton has lost its chance to get back into the beer business.

After completing a feasibility study that included at pitch for investors, 28-year-old western beer baron Ravinder Minhas issued a statement this week that flattened the city’s hopes.

He said starting a brewery from scratch in Hamilton doesn’t make financial sense, largely because of the barriers to new entrants he said the Ontario beer establishment has placed in his way.

Minhas commissioned the study after the company he owns with his 29-year-old sister tried unsuccessfully to buy the brewing equipment and assume the lease of the Lakeport Hamilton Brewery. The move came after new owner Labatt Brewing Company closed the facility last March and shifted production to London, Ontario.

“There has been a disturbing trend of breweries buying up small operators and then shutting them down,” Minhas said.

In fact, several offers for the facilities had surfaced following the closure notice, including one from Calgary-based Minhas Creek Brewing Company, which markets several brands of discount beer, including Boxer Lager and Boxer Ice in Ontario.

But Labatt indicated it did not want any new lease owner for the site to produce beer there, a stance that led Teamsters Union Local 938 to call for a boycott of Labatt’s products after 143 Lakeport employees were let go. A Minhas brewery in Hamilton would have employed about 200 full-time workers.

But the company said even beyond start-up costs, a new operation faced difficult hurdles.

Ravinder Minhas said the near monopoly on beer sales exerted by The Beer Store retail chain, which is 95 per cent owned by a two foreign-owned beer conglomerates, allows for excessive listing and other fees and subjects new players to arbitrary measures on such key issues as the availability and marketing of their products.

He called the “uneven marketplace” in the province the main reason the company decided not to proceed with a new brewery.

“We’re not looking for a handout,” Ravinder’s sister Manjit Minhas said in an interview Thursday. “We’re just looking for a level playing field.”

A spokesman for The Beer Store could not be reached for comment.