Just as we hit the first hot weekend in summer, the Vancouver Sun reports that the provincial government has hiked the prices on a number of craft beers. Craft beer, of course, has a religious-like following in B.C., so this is bad news for taxpayers.

In B.C., government sets the price and taxes on beer through their monopoly, the Liquor Distribution Board. From the Sun:

Although prices have been increased on 87 per cent of the beer products being sold in B.C. Liquor Stories, most of them could be described as nominal - 54 per cent of the increases are less than five per cent.

You'll pay a few more pennies for a 24-pack of Budweiser, $31.79 instead of $31.73, while Molson Canadian, Labatt Blue and Kokanee are mostly unchanged.

The price hikes on B.C. craft beer, however, can indeed be labelled "significant."

B.C. craft brewers Parallel 49, Bomber Brewing, RB, Four Winds and Dead Frog all sell products that were hit with seven-or eight-per-cent price increases on June 1. Gary Lindsay, director of marketing and sales for Driftwood Brewery, saw his entire line of beer get hit with a price hike of at least seven per cent without ever being consulted.

This monopoly may have made sense after Prohibition, but it's crazy now. Government should get out of the booze slinging business (tax it, yes, but not be responsible for distributing or selling it) and save us all some money.