CanadaCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
has a rich tradition of
beerBeer is the world's oldest and most widely consumed alcoholic beverage and the third most popular drink overall after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches, mainly derived from cereal grains—most commonly malted barley, although wheat, maize , and rice are widely...
brewing. While the Canadian beer industry is massive and plays an important role in
Canadian identityCanadian identity refers to the set of characteristics and symbols that many Canadians regard as expressing their unique place and role in the world....
, globalization of the brewing industry has seen the major players in Canada acquired by or merged with foreign companies, notably its three largest beer producers, Labatt,
MolsonMolson is the Canadian division of the world's fifth-largest brewing company, the Molson Coors Brewing Company. It is the second oldest company in Canada after the Hudson's Bay Company. Molson's first brewery was located on the St...
and Sleeman. The result is that
MooseheadMoosehead Breweries Limited, located in Saint John, New Brunswick, is Canada's oldest independent brewery. The brewery was founded in 1867 by Susannah Oland and is still operated by the Oland family, now in the sixth generation of ownership, under Derek Oland...
has become the largest fully-Canadian-owned brewer.
History
Beer was first introduced to Canada by European settlers in the seventeenth century, as Canada had an ideal climate for making beer before
refrigerationRefrigeration is the process of removing heat from an enclosed space, or from a substance, and moving it to a place where it is unobjectionable. The primary purpose of refrigeration is lowering the temperature of the enclosed space or substance and then maintaining that lower temperature.The term...
was introduced. The first commercial brewery was built by
Jean TalonJean Talon, Comte d'Orsainville was a French colonial administrator who was the first and most highly regarded Intendant of New France under King Louis XIV.- Life :...
in
Quebec CityQuébec , is the capital of the Canadian province of Quebec and is located within the Capitale-Nationale region. It is the second most populous city in the province – after Montreal, about to the southwest...
, in the year 1668. Over a century later a number of commercial brewers thrived, including some that became the staple of the Canadian industry:
John MolsonJohn Molson was an Anglo-Quebecer who was a major brewer and entrepreneur in Canada, starting the Molson Brewing Company.-Birth and early Life:...
founded a brewery in
MontrealMontreal is the second-largest city in Canada and the largest city in the province of Quebec. Originally called Ville-Marie , the city takes its present name from Mont-Royal, the triple-peaked hill located in the heart of the city, whose name was also initially given to the island on which the...
in 1786,
Alexander KeithAlexander Keith was a Canadian politician and brewmaster. He was mayor of the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, a Conservative member of the provincial legislature, and the founder of the Alexander Keith's brewing company.Keith was born in Halkirk, Caithness, Highland, Scotland, where he became a...
in
HalifaxThe City of Halifax was the capital of the province of Nova Scotia and shire town of Halifax County, and was the largest city in Atlantic Canada until it was amalgamated into Halifax Regional Municipality in 1996...
in 1820, Thomas
CarlingCarling Black Label is the name of a brand of English lager in Australia, Canada, Ireland, Great Britain and South Africa. In Sweden it is known as Carling Premier.Carling brands are currently owned by the Molson Coors Brewing Company...
in
LondonLondon is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada along the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor with a metropolitan area population of 457,720; the city proper had a population of 352,395 in the 2006 Canadian census....
in 1840,
John Kinder LabattJohn Kinder Labatt was an Irish-Canadian brewer, and the founder of the Labatt Brewing Company.Born in County Laoighis, Ireland, Labatt immigrated to Canada in the 1830s and initially established himself as a farmer near London, Upper Canada. In 1847 he invested in a brewery with a partner, Samuel...
in 1847, also in London,
Susannah OlandMoosehead Breweries Limited, located in Saint John, New Brunswick, is Canada's oldest independent brewery. The brewery was founded in 1867 by Susannah Oland and is still operated by the Oland family, now in the sixth generation of ownership, under Derek Oland...
in
HalifaxThe City of Halifax was the capital of the province of Nova Scotia and shire town of Halifax County, and was the largest city in Atlantic Canada until it was amalgamated into Halifax Regional Municipality in 1996...
in 1867, and
Eugene O'KeefeEugene O'Keefe , baptized Owen Keeffe, was a Canadian businessman and philanthropist. He founded the O'Keefe Brewery Company of Toronto Limited in 1891....
in Toronto in 1891. The very first patent to be issued by the Canadian government on July 6, 1842, was to one G. Riley for "an improved method of brewing ale, beer, porter, and other maltliquors."
Prohibition in CanadaProhibition in Canada refers to a movement and a succession of actions at the local, county and provincial levels for the prohibition of alcohol, beginning in the late nineteenth century and continuing well into the twentieth century. The temperance movement reached its height in Canada in the...
did not last as long as in the
U.S.The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and was largely over by the mid 1920s (apart from
Prince Edward IslandPrince Edward Island is a Canadian province consisting of an island of the same name, as well as other islands. The maritime province is the smallest in the nation in both land area and population...
, where it ran from 1901 to 1948). Nevertheless, it had a similar effect of leaving very few brewers, and it was only in the late twentieth century that there has been a revival and
microbreweriesA microbrewery, or craft brewery, is a brewery which produces a limited amount of beer. The maximum amount of beer a brewery can produce and still be classed as a microbrewery varies by region and by authority, though is usually around 15,000 barrels a year.A brewpub is a microbrewery which serves...
have started. Brewpubs are still illegal in some provinces, however.
Economy
With the purchase of
Sleeman BreweriesSleeman Breweries Ltd. operates in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. The company has been brewing beer since August 17, 1988, but the history of Sleeman beer goes back to 1834 when John H. Sleeman established himself as a brewer and malter. The company ceased operations by 1933 after having their liquor...
in 2006 by the Japanese owned Sapporo Brewery, Canada’s beer production has been mainly under the control of foreign multinationals. By the end of 2006, nearly 90% of beer sales was of product brewed domestically under licence from non-domestic corporations.
Regulations
Government regulations require that all beer sold in Canada show the
alcohol by volumeAlcohol by volume is a standard measure of how much alcohol is contained in an alcoholic beverage...
on the label. A standard bottle of beer (12
imperial fl ozCanadian units are the traditional weights and measures used in Canada. The country has officially adopted the metric system, but still maintains legal definitions of the imperial units under Schedule II, Section 4 of the Weights and Measures Act...
/341 mL and five percent alcohol by volume) contains 17.05 millilitres of alcohol. In most nations, the labelled alcohol percentage is either the average or maximum percentage allowed. However, as of 1927, most Canadian provinces require the minimum alcohol percentage to be labelled rather than the average. This move was meant to eliminate inaccurate nonalcoholic labelling as well as fraudulent advertisement.
The rationale for standardizing alcohol content (since loosened and disproved) is that consumers would tend to select only high alcohol beers and the breweries would have a war with ever escalating alcohol content.
Industrial Megabreweries
The market in Canada for domestic beer is dominated by Labatt, Molson and Sleeman, all foreign-owned companies. Labatt and Molson aggressively market their flagship brands (Labatt Blue and
Molson CanadianMolson Canadian is a brand of 5% abv pale lager brewed by Molson, the Canadian division of Molson Coors Brewing Company. The beer was introduced in 1959.-Awards:Molson Canadian has won several beer industry awards, including:...
, respectively) as well as produce niche brands and market American and other imports, and accordingly these are popular in many American markets. The largest Canadian-owned brewer,
MooseheadMoosehead Breweries Limited, located in Saint John, New Brunswick, is Canada's oldest independent brewery. The brewery was founded in 1867 by Susannah Oland and is still operated by the Oland family, now in the sixth generation of ownership, under Derek Oland...
breweries, controls about 5.5% of the Canadian market.
Types
In English Canada the most popular types are lager like Molson Canadian and pilsners like Labatt Blue, although ales are also consumed. In Quebec
aleAle is a type of beer brewed from malted barley using a top-fermenting brewers' yeast. This yeast ferments the beer quickly, giving it a sweet, full bodied and fruity taste. Most ales contain hops, which impart a bitter herbal flavour that helps to balance the sweetness of the malt and preserve the...
s such as La Fin Du Monde, Molson Export and Labatt 50 are also popular. Foreign and more exotic types of beers are becoming increasingly popular.
Ice beer
Ice beer (in name) originated in Canada, though it is essentially based on the
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
Eisbock style of beer. The first ice beer marketed in North America was Molson Ice which was introduced in April 1993, although the process was patented earlier by Labatt, instigating the so-called "Ice Beer Wars" of the 1990s.
The process of icing beer is done by bringing the temperature of a batch of beer down to or just below the freezing point of water (32°F or 0°C), the greatest constituent of beer. Because water freezes at a higher temperature than does alcohol, the water becomes frozen and the alcohol stays a liquid. Because of this, a layer of ice can be skimmed from the surface of beer (hence the name "ice" beer). This creates a concoction with a higher volume ratio of alcohol to water and therefore creating a beer with a higher alcohol content by volume.
Labatt patented a process where beer is pumped through a tank of ice crystals before filtration. The freezing of beer allowed the removal of protein-polyphenol compounds, creating a smoother, more colloidally stable beer, and avoiding long aging time.
Magazines
Canadian beer has become a growing part of the national culture with the addition of a number of microbreweries and craft brewers. Canadian beer is becoming more recognized as a standard of quality on a world wide level. As part of this recognition,
Taps Magazine was launched first as a beer and wine magazine, but in 2007 focused solely on beer.
Microbreweries
As with the
United StatesBeer is the most popular alcoholic beverage in the United States. Within the United States, beer is manufactured by over 1,400 breweries which range in size from beverage industry giants to small brew pubs that sell their beer only on premises. Many people in the United States also enjoy the hobby...
, a
microbreweryA microbrewery, or craft brewery, is a brewery which produces a limited amount of beer. The maximum amount of beer a brewery can produce and still be classed as a microbrewery varies by region and by authority, though is usually around 15,000 barrels a year.A brewpub is a microbrewery which serves...
industry has arisen in Canada, satisfying niche tastes and providing localized offerings. However, most microbreweries only supply local markets and nationally, generally only beer produced by large breweries is available. The microbrewery explosion that has occurred in the United States has not been duplicated in Canadian markets.
In British Columbia, craft brewers such as Spinnaker's Brew Pub, Swan's Brew Pub, Vancouver Island Brewery, Phillips, Lighthouse, Tree, Nelson, Raven, Storm, R+B and Howe Sound, amongst others, provide a wide variety of craft brews in various styles.
In Eastern Canada, brewers like MacAuslan, Unibroue, Cameron's Brewing Company, and Wellington do the same.
Garrison and Propeller are highly acclaimed microbreweries in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, just outside the City of St. John's lies their most popular micro brewery, Quidi Vidi, whose most poular ale is 1892. At the moment, Quidi Vidi is in the midst of producing an ale called IceBerg beer which will be formulated from IceBerg water.
The Canadian Prairies have a number of craft brewers such as Amber's Brewing and Alley Kat in Edmonton, Wild Rose Brewing and Big Rock Brewery in Calgary, and Half Pints Brewing in Winnipeg.
However, there are quality brew pubs and a few microbrewers to be found, like Saskatoon's Paddock Wood, who produce risky, high gravity IPAs and ales.
Many Canadian craft brews are high quality products, in terms of their ingredients and preparation. Of the Canadian craft brewers, Unibroue in the East (a Sleeman's owned brewery specializing in Belgian style ales) and Phillips in the West (a true micro whose beer most resembles that being produced by the innovative West Coast American craft brewers like Stone, Lagunitas, Sierra Nevada, Bear Republic and North Coast) are the most acclaimed.
The stubby bottle
Prior to 1961, Canadian beer was sold, and served, in two sizes, colloquially known as "quarts" and "pints," or, more accurately, "large" and "small." In fact, the larger bottle held less than twice the capacity of the "small" and was just 10% larger than an actual "pint." They were 22 and 12 Imperial fluid ounces (625 and 341 mL), respectively, whereas a true Imperial quart was 40 fluid ounces. Over the years, some provinces banned the sale of beer in the larger bottle. For example, in Ontario in the 1950s only the pint could be sold, but in Quebec both sizes were about equally common. In 1961, both sizes were replaced, nationwide, by the standardized bottle, equal in volume to the "small" and affectionately known as the "stubby."
Stubbies are a type of bottle which is shorter and with a slightly larger diameter than the now predominant longneck bottle. Starting in 1962 almost all beer in Canada was sold in stubbies until the beer companies chose to switch to the American-style longneck bottle, between 1982 and 1986. The last major label to be available in the stubby was Labatt's Crystal which switched to the longneck in the summer of 1986. The reason for the switch was because surveys showed that women did not like the stubby bottle, and to attract more female beer drinkers a bottle that appealed to them was developed. Proponents of "the stubby" note that its smaller shape (while retaining the same volume) means that it is easier to ship and store, and is less likely to break. Waterloo, Ontario's
Brick Brewing CompanyBrick Brewing Company Limited is located in Waterloo, Ontario. It is Ontario's first craft brewery. Brick's most successful brand is the Laker series...
and Phillips Brewing Company of Esquimalt,
BCBritish Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is famed for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . In 1871, it became the sixth province of Canada.The capital of British Columbia is Victoria, the 15th largest metropolitan region in Canada...
, have revived the use of the stubby as a marketing strategy, though they face higher production costs as a result. Brewers (manufacturing facilities) in general prefer the stubby bottle because the lower center of gravity makes the filling and handling of the bottle easier.
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