Carling Brewery owned by Molson Coors Brewing Company
The Carling Brewery was founded in 1840 by Thomas Carling at London in Upper Canada (now Ontario, Canada). In 1952, Carling lager was first sold in the United Kingdom, and in the early 1980s, it became the UK's most popular beer brand (by volume sold). The company changed hands numerous times – it was acquired by Canadian Breweries, which was eventually renamed Carling O'Keefe, which merged with the Molson Brewery, which then merged with Coors to form Molson Coors.History
The origin of Carling dates back to 1818, when Thomas Carling, a farmer from the English county of Yorkshire, and his family settled in Upper Canada, at what is now the city of London, Ontario. He brewed an ale which became popular, and eventually took up brewing full-time. The first Carling brewery had two kettles, a horse to turn the grinding mill and six men to work on the mash tubs, and Carling sold his beer from a wheelbarrow on the streets of London, Ontario.In 1840, Carling began a small brewing operation in London, selling beer to soldiers at the local camp. In 1878, his sons, John and William, built a five-storey brewery in London, which was destroyed by fire within four years of opening, on 13 February 1879. William Carling, the firm's senior partner and technical leader, died of pneumonia contracted after helping to fight the fire. The remaining partners carried on without him. John Carling died in 1911, and the company changed hands numerous times thereafter.
In 1927, Carling offered a $25,000 prize for the first flight from London, Ontario, to London, England. The challenge was taken up by Capt. Terry Tully and Lt. James Medcalf in a Stinson Detroiter monoplane named Sir John Carling. They took off on 1 September 1927, from London, Ontario, and reached Newfoundland, but disappeared over the North Atlantic.Carling merged with the Brewing Corporation of Ontario (BCO) in 1930. BCO launched Carling in the US in 1932 through a joint venture and acquired Toronto's O'Keefe Brewery in 1934. BCO became Canadian Breweries (CBL) in 1937. Under the leadership of president E. P. Taylor, CBL grew Carling into a Canadian national brand through the purchase of numerous other breweries across Canada, several of which were converted to brew Carling and O'Keefe brands and Carling Red Cap became the most popular brand of beer in Ontario in the 1960s. (Alcohol sale is regulated differently by each Canadian province, not on a nation-wide basis.) The brand later disappeared from the market and was unsuccessfully revived in 1994.Carling brands entered the UK market in a joint venture between CBL and British brewers in 1952. The joint venture eventually became Bass Charington, the largest brewer in the UK. After CBL was sold to Rothmans in 1969, it was renamed Carling O'Keefe in 1973. In 1989, Carling O'Keefe merged with Molson, which merged in 2005 with Coors to form the Molson Coors Brewing Company. Molson Coors has continued to brew and sell Carling Black Label across Canada.
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