9 Things You Should Know About Labatt, Canada’s Largest Brewery
Most historic macro brewery stories have followed a similar template: a German brewer moves to North America, establishes a brewery with the skills they learned back home, and then hits the big time. The Labatt story is a bit different. In the 1830s, John Kinder Labatt emigrated from Ireland to Ontario, Canada, and got into the farming business. A few years later, he sent a letter to his wife that read, “I have been considering this brewing affair for some time and think it would suit me better than anything else.”
That consideration became a reality in 1847 when — with no prior brewing experience — he purchased the nearby Simcoe Street Brewery with a partner, Samuel Eccles, and renamed the business the Labatt Brewing Company. Eccles retired in 1854, the company became a family affair, and by 1915 it was the largest brewery in the country.
As one would expect from any brewery that’s been around for 170-plus years, Labatt’s been through a lot since its inception. A company president was kidnapped and held for ransom. The brewery shipped beer to the U.S. to survive Canadian Prohibition. It launched its now-world-famous pilsner, Labatt Blue. And — oddly — a Labatt advertising deal jumpstarted Pamela Anderson’s career.
Of course, these few events represent just a snippet of Labatt’s storied past. To learn more about Canada’s largest brewery, read on and discover nine facts you should know about Labatt.
Labatt survived Prohibition by… making beer?
In the U.S., the handful of breweries that survived Prohibition did so by making near-beer, soft drinks, baby formula, and dairy products. In Canada, however, Prohibition went into effect a number of years earlier, and a few breweries limped along via a unique law that allowed them to keep doing what they did best: make beer.
Prohibition began in Canada in 1901 on a province-by-province basis, and by 1916, it was instituted in Ontario. Although this prevented all 64 Ontario-based breweries from selling beer in Canada, the legal parameters allowed them to export full-strength beer to the United States. There was a seven-year period between 1920 and 1927 when America’s and Ontario’s Prohibitions overlapped, but John and Hugh Labatt, the then-managers of the brewery, hired Irish salesman Edmund Burke to help keep the brewery afloat. Burke turned to bootlegging and Labatt continued to produce beer for the U.S. and Ontario markets, generating massive profits for the company. By the time Prohibition was repealed in Ontario, only 15 breweries remained, one of which was Labatt.
Labatt’s president was kidnapped and held for ransom in 1934.
Wherever there’s money, there are criminals looking to get a piece of it. In 1933, the president of Hamm’s brewery was kidnapped and held for ransom, and the same thing happened a year later to Labatt president John Sackville Labatt. On Aug. 14, 1934, Labatt left the family cottage on Lake Rosseau to go to his office when he noticed a car speeding straight toward him. He slammed on the brakes. The other car stopped, and three men jumped out and kidnapped Labatt at gunpoint. They forced John to write a letter to his brother Hugh demanding $150,000 (roughly $3.5 million today) and took him to a cottage on Lake Muskoka.
Although Hugh didn’t contact the police — as instructed by the kidnappers — his uncle Sydney Mewburn did. A media frenzy immediately ensued, and out of fear that the publicity would lead to their arrests, the kidnappers released John on Aug. 17. They never collected the ransom, and three of the four perpetrators were ultimately apprehended and charged for the crime over the following few years.
Labatt gave Pamela Anderson her big break.
Canadian actress and model Pamela Anderson may have become a cultural icon thanks to her role in the TV series “Baywatch,” but a few years prior, she got her first big break through a Labatt advertising deal. In 1989, a 22-year-old Anderson attended a BC Lions football game wearing a Labatt T-shirt. She was randomly selected to appear on the stadium’s jumbotron while standing in the crowd and, allegedly, the stadium erupted with cheers and whistles. Labatt, a then-sponsor of the BC Lions, took notice of the response and approached Anderson after the game to offer her a job as a spokesmodel.
Anderson took the offer, and was soon featured on billboards and commercials across the country. Later that year, she modeled for Playboy, and eventually moved to Los Angeles and secured the role as C.J. Parker on “Baywatch.”
The brewery was in business for over 100 years before it launched Labatt Blue.
During its first 100 years in business, Labatt made its fortune producing ales and stouts. The 1950s, though, marked a major change in both the beer’s portfolio and its brewing legacy. A year after launching its popular blonde ale, Labatt 50, in 1950, the brewery started producing Labatt Pilsener. Early on, it was colloquially known as “Labatt Blue” due to its blue label and popularity at Winnipeg Blue Bombers football games. In 1968, the brewery officially changed the beer’s name to “Labatt Blue.” It surpassed Labatt 50 as the company’s top-selling brew in 1979.
Labatt Blue remains the best-selling Canadian beer in the world
The same year Labatt Blue became the best-selling beer in Canada, it also became the best-selling Canadian beer in the world. Since then, several other beers have stolen the top-selling spot in Canada, including Molson Canadian and Budweiser, but Labatt still holds the throne as the best-selling Canadian brew on a global scale. It’s also won some prestigious awards over the years, including medals in the “American-Style Lager” category at the World Beer Cup in 1996 and 1998.
Labatt Blue has a different name — and logo — in Quebec.
In Labatt’s home province of Ontario, the primary language is English, but in the neighboring province to the east, it’s French. Presumably, this is why Labatt Blue is labelled as Labatt Bleue (the French spelling of “blue”) in Quebec. Additionally, Labatt Bleue’s label features a fleur-de-lis on its packaging as a nod to Quebec’s flag, while Labatt Blue opts for a maple leaf to pay homage to the Canadian flag. It’s unclear as to whether or not the recipe is the same for both brews; some skeptics online insist that they taste different.
Do you watch the Discovery Channel in Canada? You can thank Labatt for that.
It may sound strange, but Labatt got involved in the Canadian broadcasting industry in the 1980s. At the time, the brewery was a majority owner of the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team, and in 1984, the company founded Labatt Communications, Inc. and established Canada’s 24-hour sports TV channel The Sports Network. Ten years later, Labatt Communications, Inc. partnered up with U.S.-based media company Discovery Communications (now Warner Bros. Discovery) and launched the Canadian version of the Discovery Channel.
Labatt played a major role in bringing ‘ice beer’ to the masses.
The concept of “ice beer” traces back to late 1800s Germany when brewers allegedly left a doppelbock out in freezing cold temperatures. Ice crystals formed, and after removing them from the liquid, the brewers were left with a stronger beer with a higher concentration of flavor that they dubbed “eisbock.” In North America, the first beer of this style was introduced to the Canadian market by Ontario’s Niagara Falls Brewing Company before the brewery was acquired by Moosehead in 2004.
Niagara Falls’ eisbock inspired other Canadian breweries to emulate the style. Molson claims to be the first brewery to bring “ice beer” to North America in 1993 when it launched Molson Ice. And while Molson released its ice beer several months before Labatt did, the latter patented a specific production method in 1994, and took Molson to court over patent infringement and the use of the term “ice beer.” The court eventually ruled in Molson’s favor, as the brewery was reportedly using a different process, and Labatt didn’t have trademarks over the terminology. Nonetheless, both breweries’ ice beers collectively secured a 10 percent share of the Canadian beer market by late 1993.
Labatt now brews many, many brands for the Canadian market, including Corona, Stella, Natty Light, Rolling Rock, and Budweiser.
After Interbrew acquired Labatt in 1995, the Belgian brewing company later merged with Brazil’s AmBev in 2004 to form InBev, which then merged with Anheuser-Busch in 2008, creating AB-InBev. Labatt was along for the ride, and because it’s Canada’s largest brewing company, it currently brews a number of AB-InBev-owned beverage brands for the Canadian market. In addition to its own line of Labatt beers, the company’s portfolio boasts a whopping 72 labels, including Stella, Natural Light, Rolling Rock, Budweiser, Corona, and Foster’s.
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