page_title: Carling Brewery
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Carling Brewery / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Entrance to Coors Burton Brewery Coors, formerly Bass Brewery. Burton upon Trent became popular with brewers as water suitable the brewing process could be drawn from boreholes. Thirty different breweries operated in the mid 19th centuries and Bass &amp; Co Brewery, established by William Bass in 1777 was one of the first. The Bass Red Triangle is one of the world's oldest logos and was the first trademark to be registered in Britain, on 1 January 1876.
context_page_description: The Carling Brewery was founded in 1840 by Thomas Carling in London, 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. 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.
context_section_description: 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 February 13, 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 (United Kingdom). 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 September 1, 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. 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.
  Carling became the UK's most popular beer brand (by volume sold) in the early 1980s. UK sales in 1999 were one billion pints, in 2007, 2.3 billion pints (over six billion worldwide), in 2009, 4.1 billion pints (11.6 billion pints worldwide), in 2010, 17.6 billion pints worldwide, in 2011 24.9 billion pints worldwide. In 2016 they broke new records, selling 7.9 billion pints in the UK alone, with 83.6 billion pints worldwide.
  The largest pub chain in the UK, J D Wetherspoon, stopped selling Carling in September 2009, entering into a seven-year exclusive deal with the Danish brewery Carlsberg. From Q1 2011 Amstel, Carling, Heineken and Staropramen were again sold by Wetherspoons, at higher prices than Carlsberg.
  In 2017, UK HMRC took Carling to the tax tribunal because it claimed the firm underpaid tax by more than £50 million between 1 September 2012 and 31 January 2015. But the firm won the case after it successfully argued the actual strength of the lager meant it should not be subject to the four per cent level of taxation.  The lager is advertised as having an alcohol by volume (ABV) of four per cent but is actually brewed at 3.7 per cent, owners Molson Coors said. In the tribunal hearing brought by HMRC, the firm said the ABV was reduced in order to cut tax on Carling products as stronger beers are subject to higher taxes than lower-strength ones under UK excise duties. EU law permits beer to have a natural variation of 0.5 per cent and the owner insists it does not believe customers are being misled. According to papers from the tribunal, Philip Rutherford, vice president of Molson Coors Europe, told the tribunal the "key driver" behind the decision not to change the labelling on Carling's products was to prevent retailers, including pub chains and supermarkets, from demanding "a slice" 
caption: Molson Coors in Burton upon Trent, where Carling is brewed in the United Kingdom
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