For decades, the cases of beer contained respect for past service and tools to build community. 
 
 “It was good for the retirees and their neighbours and their families. It was good for everyone I think,” said Labatt retiree Kevin Lomack. “It was something to give back to the communities.” 
 
 In war time, Labatt employees and retirees turned their vouchers in and had the company send beer to soldiers, said retiree Guy Harrington. 
 
 If an employer can afford to do that kind of goodwill, it generally pays off for them in spades 
 
 “I don’t even drink beer. I give it to my kids and my friends.” 
 
 But the free beer for Labatt retirees will stop flowing in a couple of years, the company confirmed Monday. 
 
 “With the escalating costs associated with maintaining a full benefits package, Labatt made the reluctant decision to discontinue our free beer allotment to all retirees in Canada,” Charlie Angelakos, spokesperson for Labatt Breweries Canada, said in an emailed statement. 
 
 “We only came to this decision after benchmarking a range of Canadian beer and consumer packaged goods companies. It showed that our overall package of pension and retirement benefits are competitive and none of the companies we surveyed offered free product to retirees.” 
 
 The change will take place over two years, taking full effect in 2019, he said. 
 
 “The current allocation varies by province, and was provided to employees on an optional basis,” Angelakos said. 
 
 Labatt would not say how much money it will save with the move. 
 
 Related 
 
 In London, employees get 26 cases of beer a year that were free until 2006 when they became a taxable benefit, said Jeff Robinson, president Branch Local 1 of the Service Employees International Union that represents local Labatt workers. 
 
 Retirees get eight cases of beer a year, which they’ve used for decades for neighbours and friends and family, street parties and community celebrations, Robinson said. “They’ve felt like ambassadors and the company has always treated them like ambassadors,” he said. “I’m really really disappointed they would to save money on the backs of retirees.” 
 
 The union has filed a grievance over the benefit withdrawal on behalf of about 300 London-area retirees, he said. 
 
 About 230 full-time and 70 part-time members of SEIU work at the London plant. They’re not affected by the change, Robinson said. 
 
 The decision will likely help keep Labatt retirees healthier, said a Western University law professor specializing in drug and alcohol policy. 
 
 “It’s clear that availability is a key determinant of use. It’s also clear that the lower the cost of the alcohol the more people consume,” said Robert Solomon, also the national director of legal policy for Mothers Against Drunk Driving Canada. 
 
 “Alcohol, freely available to individuals, would likely increase consumption and increase all alcohol-related problems; health, trauma, falls and driving related. Labatt’s policy of not making the alcohol available is likely going to reduce risk of all kinds among their former employees, which is a positive.” 
 
 But retirees don’t see it that way. The loss of the free beer is a sign of how Labatt has lost a connection with the community, Lomack said. 
 
 “If an employer can afford to do that kind of goodwill, it generally pays off for them in spades,” said Lomack, who retired Sept. 1 after 27 years. 
 
 “If you were the beneficiary of a case of beer, or a few bottles went your way, from a corporation that was doing the right thing for your community, you felt pretty good. And it felt pretty good to give it, too. As a retiree, I was looking forward to having my beer benefit extended.” 
 
 Founded by John Labatt in 1847 in London, the company was bought by Belgian’s Interbrew in 1995 and after mergers is now part of Anheuser-Busch InBev. 
 
 The London Free Press 
 
 rrichmond@postmedia.com 
 
 Twitter.com/RandyRatLFPress ||||| As with all of its holdings, 3G began extensive cost cutting at Labatt, which it acquired in 1995, including lower wages and reduced benefits. The end of beer for life, announced in late October, appears to be its most recent measure. 
 
 Charlie Angelakos, a spokesman for Labatt, said in an email that the company made the “reluctant decision” to cut off its retirees after looking at the retirement benefits offered by other Canadian breweries and consumer packaged goods companies. “None of the companies we surveyed offered free product to retirees,” he said. 
 
 Routine free beer for retirees was ended at Molson Coors, Canada’s other large brewery, several years ago. But Gavin Thompson, a spokesman for the company, said it still provided beer to pensioners “who are hosting a special event, like a family reunion.” 
 
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 How much free beer Labatt retirees can lug home each year depends on where they live, although it easily exceeds the 99 bottles of musical fame. At the plant in London, which slakes all of Ontario’s thirst for Labatt’s Blue and Budweiser, Mr. Bridger said retirees were getting about eight 24-bottle cases — what Canadians sometimes call a “two-four” — a year. Current employees, by contrast, get a free case every other week and bonus cases at Christmas, apparently in lieu of a turkey, and for Canada Day. Their free beer will continue as long as they are employees. 
 
 Retirees in Edmonton, Alberta, get a free case every week. In most of the country, Mr. Bridger said, the retirees are given gift cards which allow them to pick up their free beer at retail stores. 
 
 Why free beer became an entrenched perk of brewery work is unclear. Labatt said its labor agreements did not require it to keep retirees’ refrigerators filled. Mr. Bridger said the Labatt brewery in London once included an in-house pub where employees drank for free — after their shifts ended. 
 
 Tamar Nersesian, a Labatt spokeswoman, said the program for retirees now being wound down was introduced during the 1970s. 
 
 In its letter announcing the cutoff, Labatt cited the “rising overall cost” of retiree benefits, including health care. 
 
 “That’s a bit rich,” said Larry Innanen, a retiree from Oakville, Ontario, who was involved in a class-action lawsuit after Labatt cut health benefits. Mr. Innanen, who was an executive vice president and general counsel at Labatt, said the settlement of that lawsuit reduced the company’s costs while lowering health benefits to former employees. 
 
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 Mr. Innanen said the end of free beer for life was not a surprise. But he is still disappointed. 
 
 “It’s a loss to a class of former employees,” said Mr. Innanen. “It means something, it’s material to them.”
– The death knell has sounded once more in 2016, this time to mark the passing of a beloved decades-old practice: Labatt brewery retirees' days of getting free beer for life, a perk the New York Times reports started in the 1970s, are winding to their end. The Canadian company, now owned by beer goliath Anheuser-Busch InBev, confirmed Monday that to cut costs, the retiree beer perk will be halved in 2018, with the freebie ceasing altogether by Jan. 1, 2019. In corporate-speak, per an Oct. 28 memo to employees: "A recent comprehensive review of all the cost management options has led us to conclude that discontinuing free beer is the best course." That review showed "our overall package of pension and retirement benefits are competitive and none of the companies we surveyed offered free product to retirees," per an emailed statement to Postmedia News from a rep for Labatt Breweries Canada. The company, which employs 3,000, didn't say how much the move will save. While the rep says the specifics of the allocation aren't consistent across all provinces, the CBC explains how the practice has worked up until now at the Edmonton facility: Active employees receive a gift card whose value is equal to 52 cases of 12 beers; nothing changes upon retirement, and upon the worker's death, the card transferred to the spouse. It's not the first time Labatt workers have been walloped: The starting wage of $34 an hour was dropped to $24 for new hires in 2010. "It’s certainly not the way it was in the past, when there was fanatical devotion to the brand and the company," the president of the local union chapter tells the Times. "Today it’s just a job."