CINCINNATI — As tariff news continues to change each day, small businesses are bracing for the impact.
Including local breweries, as tariffs can affect prices of both canning and barley. One brewery owner shares how they’re preparing for big price hikes and how that could affect your next pint at your favorite watering hole.
It’s a well-oiled machine at Streetside Brewery to get their newest beers canned.
For owner Garrett Hickey, he knows impending tariffs will soon affect the cost of the cans and what goes inside of them.
“We aren’t quite sure what it’s going to end up being because they could pause these tariffs," Hickey said. "But eventually if they don’t get paused, this will get passed on to us.”
It’s something that Hickey knows is inevitable, as his aluminum cans come from Canada. With new tariffs on aluminum and steel from Canada, at 25% and threatening to go higher, it’s now another hit to small businesses.
“I mean, it’s just frustrating," he said. "It’s been so many years of just kind of getting pummeled basically, just getting hit with thing after thing.”
Streetside Brewery won’t be the only brewery impacted. The Ohio Craft Brewers Association sent a statement saying, in part:
“Small businesses rely on a stable, predictable market for input goods. Breweries are facing potential tariffs on malted barley, aluminum cans, stainless steel equipment and energy, all required in the manufacturing of beer. The increased prices that importers charge to their business customers to offset tariffs are likely to cause consumer price inflation in the best-case scenario and closure of small businesses in the worst.”
Hickey believes you’ll soon see breweries close due to the tariff impacts.
“Some people are hanging on by a thread," he said. "I think you’ve already started to see in the restaurant business and I think you’re going to start to see it in alcohol. I think it’s really going to affect some people.”
Hickey is planning for how to survive these price increases, which means increasing prices himself.
“At some point it gets passed on to consumers," he said. "You’re going to start to see more expensive pints, more expensive four packs, more expensive kegs.”
He said it’s a good reminder to support your favorite small business during these challenging times.
“If you love your local watering hole, your local restaurant, go and support them on a Wednesday night because I can tell you what, at least in Cincinnati this has been one of the hardest winters that we’ve had in forever," hickey said. "Our weekdays are brutal right now.”
