Historic Beer Birthday: David C. Kuntz

February 9, 2025 By Jay Brooks

Today is the birthday of David C. Kuntz (February 9, 1877-October 22, 1915). He was born in Waterloo, Ontario, in Canada, and was the grandson of David Kuntz, who established the first brewery in Ontario. He was also the son of Louis Kuntz, David’s son. After the first David Kuntz died, his son Louis Kuntz took over, renaming the the business Louis Kuntz’s Park Brewery, and David C. succeeded his father. Shortly after his passing, in 1930, Canadian Breweries Limited, which had originally been “named Brewing Corporation of Ontario,” was created “by merging The Brading Breweries Limited, an Ottawa company Taylor had inherited from his grandfather, Capital Brewing of Ottawa, and Kuntz Brewery of Waterloo, Ontario.” In 1977 Carling Brewery was purchased by Labatt Breweries of London, but the Waterloo plant was closed by 1993 and all the buildings on the site had been demolished.

This is his obituary, from the Brewers Journal in 1915:

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Kuntz brewery works around 1910.

Here’s a brief mention of David C. Kuntz from Flash from the Past: What remains of the Kuntz Brewery legacy?

Louis Kuntz died, aged 39, following an appendectomy in 1891. His children were still young so brother-in-law Frank Bauer, also a brewer, took over. Then David Kuntz died in 1892. Bauer’s own 1895 passing began an almost unbelievable sequence of deaths in the brewery’s management. However, business success continued and in 1910 David Kuntz Jr., Louis’ son, took over. He also died young, 38, in 1915 so his two brothers, Herbert and William stepped in.

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Historic Beer Birthday: Susannah Oland

February 7, 2025 By Jay Brooks

Today is the birthday of Susannah Oland (February 7, 1818-March 24, 1885). “She was the creator of a beer recipe which became the basis for founding Canada’s oldest independent brewery, Moosehead Brewery. Though she was credited with running the operation as well as acting as chief brewer, the business was incorporated in the name of her husband and sons. When her husband died, the partners sold their interests to a manager, whom Oland was able to buy out eight years later. She continued running the business until her death” in 1885. The business remains in the Oland family to this day.

According to her Wikipedia page:

John supposedly studied as an Anglican minister at Cambridge, but worked as a tobacconist and a dealer in tea and beer in Bristol after he and Susannah married. He filed bankruptcy in 1844, and then studied accounting, going to work at the London and South Western Railway. By 1851, the family had reestablished themselves sufficiently to hire a servant girl and a nurse, and were living in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, England. A decade later, the family of nine was farming near Hawley, by Farnborough, Surrey (now in Hampshire), England. In 1862, John immigrated to Nova Scotia, Canada, leaving Susannah to tend the farm and family. He was employed with the Nova Scotia Railway, a part of the intercontinental railway project and she brewed beer. Within three years, the family was reunited and rented a house in Dartmouth, where Susannah set up her brewing operation in the garden shed behind their home.
Captain Francis de Winton, a friend of the family, suggested that they market Susannah’s “Brown October Ale” and John, whose time with the railroad had ended, agreed. On 14 August 1867 the business was incorporated with John designated as manager, places set aside for three of his sons, with funds provided by de Winton, George Harvey and Thomas Mowbray. Though Susannah was the chief brewer and had been the inspiration for the business, her name was not on the agreement. Because they started the business in the Turtle Grove District of Dartmouth, it was called the Turtle Grove Brewery. Within a short time, there were nine employees and the business was the third largest operating in Dartmouth. John’s name may have been on the paperwork, but Susannah ran the business.
When John died in a riding accident on 20 October 1870 Oland was left with no control over the brewery. Compounding matters, de Winton had been transferred to Gibraltar and the other two partners sold their interests to a manager, George Fraser, who had formerly been employed with a competing firm. Undaunted, Oland continued working at the brewery, which had been renamed the “Army and Navy Brewery”, in honor of her biggest patrons. For eight years, the business operated under that name, though it was destroyed and rebuilt twice because of fire. In 1877, after receiving an inheritance from a relative in England, Oland bought out Fraser and published a notice of the partnership’s dissolution in a Halifax newspaper. She began operating the brewery under the gender neutral name, “S. Oland, Sons and Company,” training her sons to be brewmasters. For the remainder of her life, she worked at the brewery; as of 2011 she is the only woman to have run the business.
Oland died while spending the winter in Richmond, Virginia, on 24 March 1885. After her death, as her will had stipulated, control did not pass to her eldest sons, but rather to her youngest son, George, with provisions made for her daughter Hulda. The business she drove to be incorporated just 90 days after Canada’s Confederation spawned two brewing dynasties in Canada, as after the 1917 Halifax explosion one branch of the family moved to Saint John, New Brunswick, later selling the Oland Brewery to Labatt Brewing Company, while the original company relocated to Halifax and later to Saint John. After several name changes, it became the Moosehead Brewery in 1947. It is the oldest independently operating and the largest privately-owned brewery in Canada.

The Moosehead Brewery in the 1930s or 40s.

And this account of both Susannah and her husband John is from the Canadian Encyclopedia:

John Oland was born on 14 July 1819 in Bristol, England. His family was of modest means and as a result he worked a variety of jobs before marrying Susannah Culverwell in 1842. Together the couple had nine children. John moved from job to job after he and Susannah married, working as a cigar dealer, draper, shopkeeper, commercial clerk, accountant and more. His restless spirit, however, made it difficult for him to hold a job for an extended period of time and ultimately undermined his financial security; he was forced to file for bankruptcy in 1844. He subsequently studied accounting and began to work for the London and Southwestern Railroad. The family soon thereafter began farming in nearby Surrey. Almost penniless, John decided in 1862 to emigrate to British North America, leaving Susannah to tend to family and farm. In 1865, Susannah and the children joined John in Truro, Nova Scotia, which was witnessing an upswing in economic activity due to the construction of the railroad.
By 1867, the Oland family had moved to Dartmouth. Struggling financially, Susannah supplemented what little money John earned by making beer in the shed at the back of their Dartmouth property, using an old family recipe. Her October brown ale proved to be so popular with the local inhabitants that a family friend, Captain Francis Walter DeWinton (1835–1901), suggested brewing on a larger scale. DeWinton, along with two other investors, provided the funds to start a commercial brewery. Because they began the business in the Turtle Grove area of Dartmouth — a Mi’kmaq community — the brewery was named Turtle Grove Brewery.The company was incorporated on 1 October 1867. On paper, John Oland was manager of the business, but in reality, Susannah oversaw virtually every aspect of its day-to-day operations. By many accounts, she supervised the brewing process, which was undertaken with the help of her three sons.
The new commercial brewery was situated on a 12.5-acre plot with 300 feet of frontage on Halifax Harbour. Halifax was ideal for a budding brewer because of the pronounced military and naval presence. Beer had long been part of the life in the armed forces. During the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), the Duke of Marlborough, commander of the British forces, proclaimed: “No soldier can fight unless he is properly fed on beef and beer.” British authorities accepted Marlborough’s statement as gospel, and in the years that followed, British soldiers were given enough “beer money” to purchase five pints of beer a day. This, along with the fact that the overwhelming majority of the civilian population in Dartmouth and Halifax could trace its ancestry to the beer-drinking cultures of England, Scotland, and Ireland, gave an immediate incentive to anyone like Susannah Oland looking to capitalize on their knowledge of the art of brewing.
Taking advantage of DeWinton’s connections (he was military secretary to the Marquess of Lorne, the governor general of Canada), the brewery quickly grew to be the third-largest business operating in Dartmouth. Tragedy struck in October 1870, however, when John died in a riding accident. To make matters worse, DeWinton was transferred to Gibraltar and the other two partners sold their interests to a manager, George Fraser, who had formerly been employed at a competing brewery. Undaunted, Susannah Oland and her sons continued working at the brewery, which had been renamed the Army and Navy Brewery in honor of its principal patrons.
In 1877, after receiving an inheritance from a relative in England, Susannah Oland bought out Fraser and dissolved the partnership. She began operating the brewery under the name S. Oland, Sons and Company and trained her sons to be brewmasters. She worked at the brewery for the remainder of her life.

Beer In Ads #3111: Black Horse Ale And Porter

September 9, 2019 By Jay Brooks

Monday’s ad is for Black Horse Ale And Porter, from maybe the 1940s. From the late 1800s until the 1970s, poster art really came into its own, and in Europe a lot of really cool posters, many of them for breweries, were produced. This poster is a little bit of a departure because I wanted to feature a Porter since my son Porter’s birthday is tomorrow. It was made for the Dawes Brewery located in Lachine, a borough within the city of Montreal on the Island of Montreal in southwestern Quebec, Canada. It was founded in 1811 by Thomas Dawes, and was continued by his family after his death until 1909, when it was one of sixteen breweries that merged to become National Breweries Ltd. In 1952, the group was sold to Canadian Breweries and renamed the Dow Brewery. This poster was created by English-Canadian painter and commercial illustrator Arthur Henry Hider. At first, I thought it was signed “Rookwood Granite,” but that’s actually a type of Percheron, which is a type of draft horse that originated in France, and also the type owned by the brewery.

Beer Birthday: Gary Gillman

July 4, 2019 By Jay Brooks

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Today is the 69th birthday of Gary Gillman, an attorney in Toronto, who also writes online at Beer et seq. He describes himself as a beer and food writer with a historical focus in these areas. He’s also published full-length, referenced articles in beer historical and food journals and he’s done two brewing collaborations with Toronto’s Amsterdam Brewery, to recreate an 1870 English AK Bitter recipe. In addition, he’s been a beer enthusiast for over forty years, and started participating online as soon as that became viable. In his daily life, he represents several breweries, as well as other food and beverage businesses, so brings a unique perspective to his writing. He’s also contributed articles to several beer magazines. Join me in wishing Gary a very happy birthday.

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Beer In Ads #2659: Break For Canadian Wild Life

June 2, 2018 By Jay Brooks

Saturday’s ad is for Molson, from 1994. The ad shows a great cartoon of — what is that? — a Canadian Goose wearing shades and leaning up against a giant bottle of Molson on the beach. He also has a fairly large bottle on his hand. He actually looks more like a duck, but Canadian Goose makes more sense in context. Whatever bird, he certainly looks satisfied.

Molson-1994-duck

Beer In Ads #2323: Carling’s Nine Pints Of The Law

June 30, 2017 By Jay Brooks

Friday’s ad is for Carling, from sometime between the early 1900s and the 1950s, sources vary. The ad, or ads, use an illustration entitled “Nine Pints of the Law,” by English artist Lawson Wood. It’s an obvious play on the legal term “nine points of the law,” or more fully “possession is nine points in the Law,” which was apparently a common saying, forst appearing in 1616 by Thomas Draxe, in Adages 163.

One print from the 1940s has text on the back that claims it was “Based On An Original Photograph Taken At Carlings Brewery, London, Ontario – 1881,” although the artist would have been only three at the time. Of course, he could have painted this from the photograph when he was olders. Another sources claims it was created in the early 1900s, and Wood started working as a commercial illustrator at last by 1896, so the timeing works. Other sources give various decades, such as the 1930s, 1940s or 1950s, although it seems likely that Carling continued to use the painting in ads for many decades. Below are several different uses of the artwork in Carling advertising, though I’m uncertain of the exact date of any of them, apart from most likely the first half of the 20th century.

Here’s a simple poster framing the art, with just the brewery name, “Carling’s” below the picture.

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This green poster is for Carling’s Red Cap Ale.

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And so is this one, but with a white background.

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And this tray appears to be from a little later.

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Beer In Ads #2137: Brewed In The Canadian Tradition

December 26, 2016 By Jay Brooks

Monday’s ad is for Carling’s Red Cap Ale, from the 1960s or 70s. It was created by well-known cartoonist Jack Davis, who co-founded Mad Magazine. I’m not quite sure what “Canadian tradition” he’s talking about, but it may involve everyone, even inanimate objects and animals.

Red-Cap-Ale-Canadian-Tradition-Beer-Poster-By-JACK-DAVIS

Beer In Ads #2131: For A Tree-Trimming Treat

December 20, 2016 By Jay Brooks

Tuesday’s holiday ad is for Carling’s Red Cap Ale, from 1957. It’s a frenetic scene, as an unseen person’s hand opens — or snaps a cap open — of beer as he watches the army of cartoons he’s invited over to trim his cartoon Christmas tree. The dog’s loose and grandpa’s smoking his pipe by the tree. What could go wrong? Have a beer.

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That was version of the ad in French, below is the same ad, though not nearly as good a scan, in English.

Carling-red-cap-xmas-tree-english-1957

Beer In Ads #2117: Nature Unspoiled

December 6, 2016 By Jay Brooks

Tuesday’s ad is for Carling Breweries, from 1945. In this ad, featuring five birds, the “Spring Heralds,” the birds whose very presence means the end of winter. At least this ad talks about protecting nature and doesn’t try to make some weak analogy between their beer and the birds. Them and their “cheerful and lusty songs.”

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