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LCBO Finished-Beer Certificates: A Regulator's Numbers

When beer enters Ontario, the Liquor Control Board's quality-assurance laboratory tests it — independently, at the border of the world's larger single-buyer markets. Two certificates on finished Bard's Gold, two years apart: alcohol on target, and every heavy metal and pesticide screened below the limit of quantification.

This is the least glamorous and most independent data the archive holds on the finished beer: a provincial regulator's own laboratory, testing product it was about to sell, with no relationship to the producer beyond commerce. It is exactly the kind of third-party verification the trust chain is built from — nobody sends their beer to the LCBO hoping.

The dataset​

ParameterCOA 400875 (2019, 473 mL)COA 351749 (2017, 2130 mL pack)
Alcohol, % vol4.94.8
Ethyl carbamate, µg/L<5<5
Arsenic, µg/L<10<10
Cadmium, µg/L<2<2
Cobalt, µg/L<2<2
Lead, µg/L<20<20
Pesticide screen (GC, ~18 compounds), µg/Lall <30all <30

Reading notes​

  • The alcohol rows bracket the spec. 4.8 and 4.9% against the flagship's 4.7% target — a regulator's NIR measurement landing within a tenth or two of the production specification, two years apart.
  • "Below LOQ" is the story. Every safety parameter on both certificates sits under the limit of quantification. For a gluten-free beer whose whole identity is what it does not contain, a clean regulator panel is the right kind of boring.
  • What these do not test: gluten. The LCBO panel is a general beverage-safety screen — the gluten-free claim rides on the upstream chain, not on this certificate.

Download the dataset​

→ Download as CSV — both certificates, all parameters.

Record​

First published 2026-08-09 as v1.0. Corrections to date: none. This dataset is a frozen record — it changes only for corrections, and every correction is logged in this section with its date and what changed.

Where else this data lives: LCBO certificates are issued to the vendor and are not published by the regulator; this page is the public copy.

How to cite this dataset​

Certificates of Analysis 400875 (2019) and 351749 (2017): Bard's Gold. LCBO Quality Assurance Laboratory, Toronto. Republished by Gluten Free Brewer, 2026. https://glutenfreebrewer.com/research/production-data/lcbo-finished-beer-certificates

Source and Validation Notes​

Transcribed from the two LCBO Quality Assurance Laboratory certificates as received by Bard's Tale Beer Company. Values are the laboratory's as reported; results reflect the tested samples only. The LCBO is named as the issuing public authority; no endorsement is implied — these are routine import-quality documents, published here because routine independent verification is precisely what deserves publishing.