A family brewing line that runs from the 1830s to a revival in the 1980s.

Sleeman Breweries is a brewery based in Guelph, Ontario, and English Wikipedia describes it as the third-largest brewing company in Canada. The modern company dates from the 1980s, but the name is much older. According to a family timeline published by the University of Guelph’s McLaughlin Library, which holds a Sleeman collection, John H. Sleeman, a maltster and brewer from Cornwall in England, arrived in Upper Canada in 1834 and founded the Stamford Spring Brewery at St. David’s, near Niagara, in 1836.

The family moved to Guelph in 1847. There John H. Sleeman leased Hodgert’s Brewery and in 1851 opened the Silver Creek Brewery, English Wikipedia says. His son George Sleeman became general manager in 1859 and a partner in 1865, and by 1867 he was sole owner, according to the library timeline. George Sleeman built the Silver Creek business into a brewer with sales in Ontario and Quebec, and the family incorporated it as the Sleeman Brewing and Malting Company around the turn of the century; English Wikipedia and the library timeline give different years for the incorporation. In 1903 a second Guelph company, Spring Bank Beverages, followed.

Prohibition changed the business. Ontario’s Temperance Act of 1916 shut the home market but still allowed brewing for export, so the family shipped beer to the United States. When American Prohibition began in 1920, English Wikipedia says, the family worked with bootleggers to move beer to Michigan. In 1933 members of the family were charged with smuggling and with not paying taxes; on conviction the brewing licence was revoked and the brewery was sold to the Jockey Club Brewery, English Wikipedia says, citing the Guelph Public Library. The Sleeman Brewing and Malting name became inactive in 1955, according to the library timeline.

A recipe book, a clear bottle and a past the brand chose to advertise.

The revival began with a book. English Wikipedia says that in 1984 John W. Sleeman of Oakville, Ontario, a great-great-grandson of John H. Sleeman, obtained the family’s book of beer recipes from his aunt, incorporated a new Sleeman Brewing and Malting Co. in Guelph, and began producing beer in 1988, with backing from the American brewer Stroh.

The most visible decision was the glass. The library timeline notes that the revived company marketed its beer in clear bottles instead of the typical brown. English Wikipedia says many Sleeman beers are still sold in clear glass, which leaves beer more open to light damage, and that the company compensates in most of its brews by using hops processed to be less sensitive to light.

The family’s history became the advertising. English Wikipedia says the company began a campaign in 2010 that drew attention to its bootlegging past; John W. Sleeman has hinted at a connection with Al Capone, while the Guelph historian Micheal Matchett has suggested that the family’s American contact was more likely Rocco Perri, the bootlegger often called “the Al Capone of Canada.” In July 2016 a Sleeman advertisement built on the line “Every bottle of Sleeman has a past – a shady past” was named Best Alcohol Ad of the Month by AdForum, the online showcase for advertising agencies.

The beer itself has also been judged. Sleeman Cream Ale won gold in the cream ale category at the Canadian Brewing Awards in 2015, the competition’s winner list shows, in a year when most winners were craft brewers. Other beers under the Sleeman name include Original Lager, Honey Brown Lager and Silver Creek Lager.

Design and documentation.

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.

From a revived family name to a national brewer with a Japanese parent.

Sleeman grew by buying other breweries. English Wikipedia lists Okanagan Spring of British Columbia in 1996, Upper Canada Brewing and Quebec’s Brasserie Seigneuriale in 1998, and Shaftebury Brewing of Delta, British Columbia, in 1999. In 1999 Sleeman also bought the Canadian rights to brew and sell the Stroh family of brands, which include Pabst Blue Ribbon and Old Milwaukee. In 2002 it took the Canadian distribution rights for the Dutch brewer Grolsch, and in 2004 it bought Unibroue, the Chambly, Quebec, maker of Belgian-style beers.

In 2006 the Japanese brewer Sapporo Breweries bought Sleeman. English Wikipedia says John W. Sleeman stayed on as president and chief executive until 2010 and then became chairman. As of 2020 the company was brewing in three cities, Guelph, Chambly and Vernon, British Columbia, making Sleeman, Okanagan Spring and Unibroue beers as well as Sapporo Premium for the Canadian market; a plant in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, closed in 2013. In 2019 the company bought Wild Rose Brewery of Calgary, English Wikipedia says. In Guelph the name is also on the city’s arena, the Sleeman Centre, under a naming agreement the company signed with the city in 2007.

For a design guide, Sleeman shows how a revived family name, a clear bottle and a bootlegging story told by the brand itself can carry a beer from one Ontario city to a national shelf. Compare Pabst, the Milwaukee lager Sleeman brews for Canada, and Moosehead, the family-owned brewer of Saint John. For this guide we use cream-ale gold, amber and label navy with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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