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Moosehead Breweries Ltd.

Location	Saint John, New Brunswick Canada
Year opened	1867
Active beers
Alpine Lager	Macro lager
Alpine Summit	Macro lager
Alpine Light	Light lager
Alpine Max	Strong Beer
Clancy's Amber Ale	Amber Ale
Moosehead Dry Ice	Macro lager
Moosehead Lager	All-malt lager
Moosehead Light	Light lager
Moosehead Pale Ale	Pale ale
Moosehead Premium Dry	Macro lager
Cold Filtered Light	Light Lager

This article is about the brewery. For the lake, see Moosehead Lake.

Statue given by Moosehead Breweries to the people of Saint John, New Brunswick

Moosehead Breweries Limited, located in Saint John, New Brunswick, is Canada's oldest independent brewery.

The brewery was founded in 1867 by Susannah Oland and is still operated by the Oland family, now in the sixth generation of ownership, under Derek Oland.

The Moosehead roster of beer consists of Moosehead Lager, Moosehead Light, Alpine Lager, Alpine Light, Alpine Summit, Alpine Max, Moosehead Pale Ale, Clancy's Amber Ale, Moosehead Premium Dry and Moosehead Dry Ice, and Cold Filtered Light by Moosehead. Moosehead also produces under contract a number of international brands on behalf of four of the world's largest brewers. All brands of Moosehead have "Union Made" proudly displayed on their labels, and in some cases, directly on the bottle.

Moosehead sells its beer throughout Canada, the United States, and in 15 countries around the world. Once a popular premium import beer in the United States, Moosehead lost vast market share in the 1980s when it lowered its price in an attempt to compete with larger US brewers on price instead of quality & prestige.

Moosehead USA has recently become its own importer, replacing its importing partner Gambrinus.

Moosehead has purchased other manufacturing facilities including a 50% stake in the McAuslan brewery in Quebec and wholly owns the Niagara Falls Brewing Company in Ontario.

As Canada's three largest brewers (Labatt, Molson, and Sleeman) are now foreign-owned, Moosehead is now Canada's largest 100% Canadian brewery.

On April 30, 2008, Moosehead announced a redesigned look with updated logos for their flagship Moosehead Lager beer. A light green glow was added to "make the Moosehead logo more prominent and give the label a refreshing look." In addition, the "Lager" ribbon lettering was updated to give the brand a "premium look and feel."

1 History
2 The Stolen Batch
3 The Second Stolen Batch
4 See also
5 External links
6 References

History

In 1865, Susannah Oland moved from England to Nova Scotia, Canada. With her husband John and 9 other employees, Susannah opened The Army and Navy Brewery in 1867, a name that came after their most appreciative customers. After John Oland's untimely death in 1870, the Brewery changed its name to S. Oland, Sons and Co. Over the next 8 years, the brewery faced two fires, but recovered successfully after each. In 1886, Susannah Oland passed away, and the company went to her two sons, Conrad and George. As the company moves into the 20th century, the company changed its name to the Maritime Brewing & Malting Co. The brewery faced hard times once again when the Halifax Harbour Explosion of 1917 destroyed the Brewery, and killed Conrad Oland. A year later, George Oland and his sons moved to Halifax and bought another brewery. In 1928, George bought a second, larger brewery in the capital of St. John that is the site of the present day facility. In 1931, the symbol of the Moose came into existence as George launched Moosehead Pale Ale. After the success of Moosehead Pale Ale, the Oland owned brewery changed its name to Moosehead Breweries Ltd. in 1947. Thirty-one years later, in 1978, Brewery President Philip Oland expanded the brand and launched Moosehead Lager in the United States. Four years later, Derek Oland, the current president of the company, expanded the company worldwide. In 2003, Moosehead Lager won a Gold award at the World Beer Cup, and earned another at the prestigious Monde Selection. Today, Derek Oland's sons Andrew and Patrick are the sixth generation of Olands to own and work for the family brewery.

The Stolen Batch

In August 2004 a truck driver transporting 60,000 cans of Moosehead beer to Mexico for a Mexican supermarket chain disappeared with the beer, leaving the nearly empty transport truck abandoned in a parking lot located in Grand Falls, New Brunswick. Easily identified by the Spanish writing on the labels (which is not common in the English/French speaking country of Canada) the beer was slowly tracked.

The first signs of the missing beer showed up in Fredericton, New Brunswick, with two empty cans; another report of two cans were reported later in northern New Brunswick. Police working on a tip eventually found the truck driver, Wade Haines, in Ontario; earlier in the same week, police discovered nearly 8,000 cans of the stolen suds in a trailer that went off the road near Woodstock, New Brunswick.

With most of the beer recovered and the driver in custody, the police in the New Brunswick area began to look in wooded areas for the remaining beer. Knowing the area in which the police were looking, many civilians took up the search as well. Because of the media attention on the story almost all of the beer was quickly found by civilians and police, and most of it was returned to Moosehead Breweries.

The final piece of the story occurred in October 2004 when 200 cans of the stolen beer were found at a marijuana growing operation in the forest near Doaktown, New Brunswick about 100 kilometres northwest of Fredericton. "Six of the cans were discovered with bite marks in them indicating a bear had, at one point, been into the beer," the RCMP said in a news release. The release said there was no sign of either the animal or the people who had stashed the beer.

The unique and quirky nature of this crime story made international headlines and resulted in publicity for Moosehead; it has also been the basis of a book.

The Second Stolen Batch

In September 2007, two tractor trailers carrying 77,000 cans and 44,000 bottles with a reported retail value of $200,000 were stolen from a transport company in Mississauga, Ontario. Peel Region police arrested Pullara Calogero, of Vaughan, Ontario during the first week of October 2007 and charged him with possession of stolen property. Police believe he is responsible for the theft and of selling the beer to bars and after-hours clubs and that he may not have worked alone.

External links

References

Rocky Mountain News

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moosehead"

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