Molson

John Molson left England in 1782, worked at a Montreal brewery, bought it at auction in 1785 and delivered his first ale in 1786; Molson is the oldest surviving brewing business in Canada. Molson Export followed in 1903 and Molson Canadian, a lager of 5%, in 1959. The company went national in 1958, merged with Carling O’Keefe in 1989 to become Canada’s largest brewer, and merged with Coors in 2005 to form Molson Coors. In April 1993 it launched Canadian Ice, which it called North America’s first ice beer, and Labatt’s answer that summer began the “ice beer wars”. The original brewery on the St Lawrence in Montreal closed in 2021, after more than 200 years, when a new brewery opened at Longueuil.