A brewery in London, Canada West.

Labatt began in 1847 in London, in what was then Canada West and is now Ontario, when John Kinder Labatt went into partnership with Samuel Eccles as “Labatt and Eccles,” English Wikipedia says. In 1854 Labatt bought out his partner and renamed the business the London Brewery. In 1866 his son, also John, took control and built it into Canada’s largest brewery, Wikipedia says.

Prohibition arrived in Canada province by province — on Prince Edward Island from 1901, in Ontario from 1916 — and lasted in Ontario until 1926. Labatt survived, Wikipedia says, by exporting full-strength beer to the United States and selling “temperance ales” at home. In August 1934 John S. Labatt, of the brewing family, was kidnapped at gunpoint while driving to London; he was released about three days later in Toronto, and three of the kidnappers were later jailed, according to English Wikipedia. Labatt USA’s own history timeline also recounts the episode.

The company became publicly traded in 1945. In 1950 it launched Labatt 50, an ale marking fifty years of partnership, which Wikipedia says was Canada’s best-selling beer until 1979. In the 1960s the American brewer Schlitz moved to take majority control; it later sold its interest to a group led by John Moore, returning the company to Canadian ownership, English Wikipedia says. Labatt was also the majority owner of the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team from 1976 to 1995.

Named by Manitoba drinkers.

The beer now called Labatt Blue was launched in 1951 as Labatt Pilsener Lager. Drinkers in Manitoba nicknamed it “Blue,” after the colour of its label and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers football team, which the company supported, and the nickname stuck, according to both English Wikipedia and Labatt USA’s history timeline.

By 1979 Blue had taken the top spot in the Canadian beer market, Wikipedia says. It held that position until 2004, when Budweiser pushed it down for the first time in twenty-five years. Labatt USA says Blue placed first at a world beer competition in 1958 and won awards again in 1998 and 2003; Wikipedia records a Monde Selection gold quality award in 2003.

The beer’s look has regional variations. In Quebec it is sold as Labatt Bleue, and English Wikipedia says the red maple leaf on the logo there is replaced by a stylised red sheaf of wheat. The range has grown to include Blue Light, sold in the United States, and Labatt Bleue Dry in Quebec. English Wikipedia also credits Labatt with introducing, in 1984, the first twist-off cap on a refillable bottle.

In 2013 the Smithsonian Channel documentary Under the Influence looked at Labatt’s place in Canadian beer culture, according to English Wikipedia.

Brewing in Canada.

The seven brands in this group are all Canadian beer and whisky names: Molson Canadian, Labatt Blue, Sleeman, Moosehead, Kokanee, Alexander Keith’s and J.P. Wiser’s. Beer and whisky brands in general sit at many different points in the trade, from family companies that still carry a founder’s name to labels that now belong to much larger drinks groups, and a single brand can be sold everywhere from a corner store to a bar rail.

A beer or whisky brand’s identity is usually carried less by a single bottle than by a label, a name and the place it promises, because the company behind the name may have changed hands, moved its production or grown far beyond the place where it started. That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who started it, who owns it now, and where its beer or whisky is actually made.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its beer or whisky is made and how its labels have changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

AB InBev in Canada, FIFCO USA south of the border.

Labatt is no longer Canadian-owned. In 1995 it was bought by the Belgian brewer Interbrew; Interbrew merged with Brazil’s AmBev to form InBev in 2004, and InBev merged with Anheuser-Busch in 2008 to form Anheuser-Busch InBev, which owns Labatt today, English Wikipedia says. Under the group Labatt bought Lakeport Brewing in 2007 and the drinks maker Goodridge & Williams in 2020.

In the United States the picture is different. As a condition of the InBev and Anheuser-Busch merger, the US Department of Justice required the sale of Labatt USA, which held the American rights to Labatt Blue, Blue Light and Labatt 50. In 2009 it was bought by North American Breweries, a company set up that year by the investment firm KPS Capital Partners; Labatt agreed to brew the beers on Labatt USA’s behalf until 2012, and the trademarks stayed with the Canadian company, English Wikipedia says. Other Labatt-owned brands such as Kokanee and Alexander Keith’s were not included. In December 2012 the Costa Rican group Florida Ice & Farm Co. (FIFCO) took over North American Breweries, which was renamed FIFCO USA in 2018.

Labatt USA is based in Buffalo, New York. Its head office moved from Buffalo to Norwalk, Connecticut, and returned to Buffalo in 2007, English Wikipedia says; since 2018 its offices have been in a building on Perry Street developed with Pegula Sports and Entertainment, which includes a small test brewery called the Labatt House, Wikipedia says. Its website states that Labatt is a registered US trademark of Labatt Brewing Company Ltd. and that Labatt USA is owned by FIFCO USA. It also says that in 2024 it added a US brewing location in Rochester, New York, for Labatt Blue and Blue Light, at a brewery it says has produced Labatt products since 2010.

For a design guide, Labatt Blue shows how a nickname given by drinkers can become the brand itself, with one colour carrying the whole identity across two owners and a border. Compare Molson Canadian, its long-standing Canadian rival, and Leffe, another AB InBev beer. For this guide we use label blue, deep navy and a maple red with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Labatt Blue’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.