Beer Flight Pricing for a Canadian Taproom, Pour by Pour

What to take away

Flight margin model for a 4-glass sample

Beer sample size cost sets the floor for any Canadian craft beer pricing decision. Beer flight pricing in a Canadian taproom starts from the 5 oz pour cost, not a discount off the pint price. A 4-glass flight is a deliberate pricing unit, not four discounted pints.

A typical Canadian taproom pours 16 oz pints and 5 oz samples, and one keg fills many more sample glasses than pint glasses. The per-ounce cost rises for samples because the same labour, glass, and spillage are spread across a smaller volume.

Use these illustrative inputs for a 20 L local IPA keg at $240 delivered. Adjust to your actual invoice.

Reconcile that keg row to your own invoice and your own pour count: divide the landed keg cost by the pours you actually get. A keg that yields fewer pours than the model assumes carries a higher beer cost per 5 oz pour, and the flight menu price has to move with it.

A 5 oz pour typically lands between $1.45 and $1.95 CAD when the keg price ranges from $220 to $280 and wages run $17 to $20 per hour. That spread sets the floor for a taproom flight price strategy.

Worked example of the 3.2 to 4.5 times rule. A 16 oz pint carries $3.04 of beer at $0.19 per ounce, plus about $0.65 for the other four cost rows.

That is roughly $3.70 to pour, or $0.23 per ounce. At 3.2 times that rate a 4-glass flight of 5 oz pours prices near $14.80. At 4.5 times it prices near $20.80.

Buying 50 L kegs instead of 20 L lowers per-ounce beer cost by 8% to 12%. That adds $0.10 to $0.18 of margin per flight at the same menu price, which matters when a taproom sells 100 flights a week.

Before you raise flight prices, check how Overpouring Losses show up in taproom pour cost.

Line loss and overpouring are not just pour cost issues. A flight with four different styles can hide an overpour because each sample is small, but a 5 oz pour that becomes 5.5 oz adds $0.10 to the flight cost.

What scale changes at 50 flights a week

At 10 flights a week, a flight tray is a menu extra. At 50 flights a week, flight labour becomes a real payroll line. The arithmetic changes because the same 1 minute of service per flight becomes 50 minutes of direct labour, plus tray return and wash time.

Batching pours in groups of four or eight cuts per-flight labour from $0.30 to $0.22, but only if the bar has enough clear counter space. A 50-flight week adds roughly 4 to 6 hours of taster pouring and cleanup, which at $18 per hour is $72 to $108 in wages.

On top of gross wages, CRA payroll guidance sets employer CPP and EI contributions. Those add about 7% to 10% to total labour cost on the 2024 rates. The rates are set annually, so check the current CRA payroll deduction tables, the T4001 Employers' Guide, and the PD7A statement of account. See Tip Withholding and Source Deductions for the full remittance picture.

GST/HST and provincial markup treatment

A beer flight is a taxable supply of beer in every province, and a taproom reports the GST/HST it collects on its GST/HST return (form GST34). The CRA GST/HST business page confirms that food and beverages sold in a restaurant or taproom are generally taxable, including sample flights.

Federal excise duty is the other beer-specific tax, and it sits under the keg cost rather than on the menu. Beer produced or imported in Canada carries excise duty under the Excise Act, 2001, which the Canada Revenue Agency administers, and the duty is paid before the keg reaches the taproom. Treat it as part of the landed cost you divide by pours, not as a line added at the till.

The CRA's excise duty rates for beer apply per hectolitre of beer and are adjusted annually on April 1 based on changes to the Consumer Price Index. Small domestic brewers pay reduced rates, and the rates on the first 15,000 hectolitres of beer brewed in Canada remain cut by half for two years under the 2026 amendment, so a local brewery's keg can carry less duty than an imported one. Ask your supplier which rate band its beer falls in when you compare landed keg costs.

Provincial liquor boards collect markups before the taproom receives the keg, so the flight price must cover those levies. The markup is charged upstream of the taproom, which is why it belongs in landed keg cost and in the cost per 5 oz pour rather than in a separate menu line. Each jurisdiction runs its own board and its own licensing authority, and each applies its own sales tax to the menu price:

Markups differ by province, package size, and beer style, and each board publishes its own schedule, so the current schedule belongs in every keg costing.

A $14 flight with 5% GST in Alberta costs the guest $14.70; in an HST province the same flight costs more, at whatever HST rate is in effect there. The flight price must be set with the tax-inclusive shelf price in mind for menu readability.

Easy to forget costs in Canadian taprooms

Licensing fees in Ontario and British Columbia also affect the per-flight overhead, especially for small taprooms. The AGCO licenses taprooms under Ontario's Liquor Licence and Control Act, 2019, and the LCRB licenses them under British Columbia's Liquor Control and Licensing Act. Read Ontario vs British Columbia Taproom Licensing for fee ranges and timelines.

These forgotten items add $0.40 to $0.70 per flight when they are left out of the model.

Example pricing at 50 flights a week

Assume a 4-glass flight carries a pre-tax menu price of $13.50 in Manitoba, where PST is 7% and GST is 5%. The guest pays $15.12: $13.50 plus $0.94 PST plus $0.68 GST.

Tax is a flow-through: the guest pays $15.12, but the taproom's revenue is the $13.50 menu price, and the PST and GST are remitted. COGS and direct labour per flight is about $4.80 to $6.10, so gross margin sits near $7.40 to $8.70 per flight before rent, utilities, and indirect labour.

Private events can push flight volume higher, which changes the price floor. See Taproom Event Pricing for buyout minimums that work with a flight menu.

Common questions