The problem with a simple average
If we ranked breweries purely by their star rating, a brand-new brewpub with one 5-star review from its owner's cousin would beat a beloved 20-year-old taproom with 800 reviews averaging 4.7. That's obviously wrong.
So we use a Bayesian weighted average — the same statistical approach IMDb uses to rank films and Amazon uses to rank products. It rewards breweries that have earned many high ratings, not just a handful.
The formula
R— the brewery's own average ratingv— the brewery's number of reviewsm— a minimum-vote threshold, currently 25C— the mean rating across all qualifying breweries in that scope (Canada / province / city)
When a brewery has far fewer than m reviews, its score is pulled toward the scope's mean — no cheap way to jump the leaderboard with a couple of glowing entries. When a brewery has hundreds or thousands of reviews, its score converges on its true average.
Where the ratings come from
Two sources, combined:
- Google Reviews — pulled via the Google Places API (New) once a month per brewery. We cache each brewery's current star rating, total review count, and the five most recent reviews. Cached data is refreshed every 30 days to stay inside Google's terms for reuse of Places content.
- BreweryFinder community reviews — reviews written directly on breweryfinder.ca by our signed-in users. These grow over time as the community grows.
The combined rating for each brewery is a weighted average of both sources:
A brewery with only Google reviews ranks on Google's data alone; a brewery with only BF reviews ranks on ours. Most established breweries have both.
What we exclude
- Breweries with fewer than 20 combined reviews. Not enough signal to rank fairly.
- Breweries marked as permanently closed on Google.
- Breweries outside Canada. Travel Brews (member-submitted international breweries) have their own separate section.
How often lists update
Every 30 days. Rankings shift when review counts and averages shift — which they always do, especially for breweries with an active taproom. If a brewery's rating drops on Google, it drops in our rankings within the month.
Featured listings
A small number of breweries pay BreweryFinder for premium listing placement. On these ranked lists, premium status is used only as a tie-breaker when two breweries score identically — never to override the ranking. A featured brewery cannot pay to jump ahead of one with a higher Bayesian score. Featured listings are marked with a badge so you can see them.
Disclaimer
Rankings are opinions derived from public review data and are provided for informational purposes only. Star ratings, review counts, and review text sourced from Google Reviews remain the property of Google and their respective authors, and are displayed with attribution as required by Google's Places API terms. BreweryFinder.ca is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Google. If you're a brewery owner and believe your listing is inaccurate, let us know.