The last great Canadian brand?

Way back in my early days I was a Molson Ex drinker, the snappy red labels with the sailing ship pulled into my port more times than I care to count. It was my brand; Ex said it all, as they said in their advertising. For a brief period of time I even worked at a beer store, stacking the sharply designed cases of Ex beside their Labatt and at the time Carling-O’keefe brethren, I always made sure that the Ex cases looked just a little more enticing. But as time went by Molson breweries and I seemed to go our different ways, mostly me, with a move West I found that Ex was harder and harder to find. So I needed to find a new brand, one that I could belly up to a bar and proudly say give me one of….

Over the years I struggled to find a brand I could call my own, long before they were urging us to profess our status as Canadians, I tried Canadian, never really took a liking to the taste and like many others who likewise never became a dedicated Canadian drinker I kept on searching.

In fact my loyalties were available to the brewer that provided the best taste and the best option. Not to mention the snappiest marketing. Fosters launch in Canada found me saying G'day mate, A debut of Corona and it was Si Senorita. Guiness of course sends one into a rapturous lilt of the Irish.

Time spent on the East coast gave me the taste of Schooner, Keith’s, Moosehead and Alpine to name just a few. Black Horse and Old Stock were two most refreshing Newfoundland brands that at times gave you equal delights and fears for your liver. In the west I’ve tried Kokanee (the beer around here they say, but like Canadian it was never near here that much). The prairies were closer to my Ex roots and I could at least find a twelve pack in a beer store from time to time and thus returned to my first love, though I at times would enjoy a Club or an Old Vienna. As years went by I would try the likes of Labatt 50, Wildcat, John Labbat Classic, even the tempting high octane kick of the exotic Brador from Quebec, they've all been sampled at one time or another in my travels.

Once back on the coast though it’s been slim pickings as to a definitive favourite, I’ve waffled from Kokanee at times, through my fall back beer Labatt’s Blue, into (gasp) Budweiser and Miller Genuine Draft and onto Guinness and Harp for those special occasions (every day could be St. Patrick’s Day should I wish). A quick survey of my fridge will find a fair amount of Miller, one lonely old Bud, a bunch of Molson Old Style Pilsner left off from a party and a couple of Guinness waiting for an Irish celebration of some sort. There are even a couple of Nordic non alcoholic beers (what's the idea behind those anyways?) in there way in the back. Sadly for Molson’s nary a Canadian is in my fridge, I contribute to their bottom line with the Miller's but it's not a Canadian brand I regret to say.

And yet I feel a tad guilty about that, with the all but certain merger of Molson and Coors apparently just short of the dotted line stage we’ll lose another long standing Canadian tradition. And even though I know it’s not really my fault, I none the less feel as though I’ve let John Molson himself down. By far Canadian has the best advertising campaign on the air at the moment, the I AM Canadian spots are almost cultural icons, yet if the statistics are to be believed they’ve had negligible impact on turning us on to our own brew. It apparently all comes down to taste, and hard as it may be to swallow, Canadian just doesn’t wash over our palate as it should.

If Molson does tie the knot with Coors it will follow the path already charted by Labatt who are now just a cog in the vast Belgian brewer Interbrew. How many years ago did we lose all those Carling products, remember Red Cap ale or Dow, alas perhaps I’m starting to show my age. At any rate, a country that is known for its beer drinking ways, seems to have lost its way to homegrown brews.

There is of course a sliver of hope on the barroom tables; Molson shareholders are apparently readying a fight for a better deal, but one suspects that they just want some other multi national to plunk down a larger pile of coin.

For pure drinking pleasure we have one last Indie hope, Sleeman’s makes a very nice brew which I’ve sampled more and more frequently in the last little while. The little Ontario brewery that could, may just find that nationalistic Canadians will begin to discover those distinctive bottles and take the brew to heart. Micro breweries in the big cities have their legions of fans that can’t wait to sample the latest from Vancouver's Granville Island or the bistros of Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. Perhaps we're to become a nation of cottage brewing fanatics.

Like many others I've watched with interest, as this family feud has led our national brewer to the state of civil war. But if Molson goes continental and takes Canadian with them another piece of our beer heritage will be gone forever. I’m sure many Canadians will join me in raising a glass in tribute to the brewery that kept up the good fight, as long as they could.

Unfortunately many of us will be raising up our Buds, Coors, Millers, Heinekens, Harps and Guinness! Which probably tells us all we need to know about how Molson got into this situation in the first place. We may be Canadian, but unless we like the taste, we're parking our patriotism at the door!