It’s a warm summer evening somewhere in the Nickel City, 1989. The family gathering has been going on for hours. Not much is different compared to gatherings today (beyond clothing and hairstyles) but one thing stands out. In a row along the shed at the head of the driveway are four large boxes containing a beer-dispensing curiosity that could only be enjoyed in Sudbury and across the North: the Northern Breweries beer ball (“19 litres of brewery fresh draft”).
Some readers today are too young to remember Sudbury’s contribution to the sudsy sciences.
So, where did it all begin? How did Northern Breweries become the go-to beer for Sudburians? And, in the end, what brought everything crashing down just shy of its 100th year?
The Sudbury Brewing and Malting Company Limited was incorporated on February 25, 1907, with five original shareholders, all Torontonians. And, although John Joseph (J.J.) Doran, originally of North Bay, was not a principal shareholder, he was, in fact, the driving force behind the formation of this company that would eventually take his name.
The Sudbury Journal reported on April 11, 1907, that John J. McKay (or MacKey) also of North Bay, and John Clemens of Detroit were in town searching for a new brewery site. They had plans already drawn up by a Detroit architectural firm for a three-storey, brick building that would measure 50 feet in width by 100 in length.
Estimated cost to construct was around $70,000 (or $2 million dollars in 2024) and when completed, it would have a daily capacity of 85 barrels of lager beer.
Within weeks, they had chosen a site on the west side of Lorne Street, south of Victoria. Construction began immediately in an effort to have it completed by the summer with brewing to commence that fall. John Clemens, himself a master brewer, supervised the installation of the brewing equipment, and following their first production in late 1907, continued to work as brewmaster and plant supervisor for more than 30 years.
Much of the success of the company was due to his production of quality beers and his keen study of the needs of the district and the brewery.
Lager beer was brewed by the Sudbury Brewing and Malting Company up until the introduction of prohibition in 1916, though, according to one source, it continued to be produced for the Quebec and American markets until 1919. The building was then converted for soft drink production, a situation that remained until brewing was resumed in 1927.
In 1937, the original brewery machinery was found to be inadequate, so new replacement equipment was designed and installed by John Clemens. He chose to take full advantage of the thing that Sudbury was most known for.
Clemens dreamt of an ultra-modern brewing plant that would be equipped throughout with vats and machinery constructed entirely of nickel, Monel metal, other nickel alloys and stainless steel. In the end, these were utilized extensively in the brewery’s retrofitting, making it the first of its kind and a model plant when completed and production recommenced.
At this time, ale was introduced as a second line.
The exterior of the Sudbury Brewing and Malting Company's plant was striking. The main entrance and the tower above it were constructed almost entirely of glass bricks; large windows gave a fine view of the gleaming nickel equipment inside. At night, this picture would be accentuated by the coloured lighting showing through the glass bricks and the neon-outlined "Silver Foam Beer" sign towering above the building.
For the next 20 years, the company structure remained virtually unchanged until it was acquired by Doran's Northern Ontario Breweries Limited in 1960. Doran’s was in turn merged with Carling O'Keefe, a division of Canadian Breweries Limited, a decade later, in 1971. By 1977, due to a downturn in the marketplace, Carling O'Keefe moved to liquidate their northern breweries and concentrate on its own brands.
This subsequently created an opening wherein the brewery was bought out by its employees, who were unwilling to stand by while their livelihoods were being terminated. The purchasing group represented roughly two thirds of Doran's 175 permanent employees.
The response to the proposal of employee ownership was unanimously positive and a full 100 per cent of the eligible employees put their money forward. The idea of an employee-owned company first originated with J. M. Coulter and Ross Eakett who were president and secretary-treasurer under Carling O'Keefe’s management.
The two knew that Carling O'Keefe was interested in selling Doran's and organized a series of meetings at which all company employees were asked to decide whether or not they were interested in making a bid.
“It was felt there would be a greater opportunity for the success of the enterprise, if the employees were active shareholders rather than just employees," said Richard Wass, a representative of the new management.
"The important thing to stress is that Doran's is returning to northerners,” Wass continued. "With the support of the people in Northern Ontario, we can return to the pride of the northern tradition…" Through $1.5 million in savings and loans, the employees group outbid another corporation interested in acquiring the Doran's establishment, paying a total of $3.8 million. They officially took over from Carling O’Keefe on July 1, 1977, creating the first ever employee-owned brewery. These pioneering brewers then had the company chartered under a new name, Northern Breweries Limited in 1979.
By the dawn of the 1980s, Northern Breweries, our little, employee-owned beer company that could, looked south to take on the big beer barons.
Since the Second World War, it had limited its sales to the area of the province north of the French River. It still enjoyed the exclusive right to supply draft beer to hotels in the North. (The company's monopoly on draft sales north of the French River was imposed to keep jobs in Northern Ontario).
The firm's bottled beer always had to compete with Canada's beer giants though. With an industry-wide trend away from draft towards bottled beer, Northern decided it was time to take on its southern competitors on their own turf.
Southerners would have a choice of four bottled brands. A major newspaper and radio advertising campaign would be launched and Brewer's Retail outlets throughout the province would add the four beers to their wall advertising.
In an industry first, Northern would combine the four beers into a sample carton, said manager Morley Ostertag. “It will be a first in marketing," he claimed. "People will be able to sample all four brands. We hope they'll like at least one of them."
At the time, Ostertag said there were a couple of reasons for the Southern Ontario offensive. "Our support in the North has been slower developing than we thought it would be,” he said. “We only account for about five per cent of total bottled gallonage in Northern Ontario. We have increased our bottled sales recently, but so far, they haven't made up for the drop in draft sales. Another reason is that the economy in general in the North hasn't been as great as it was, say 10 years ago."
Not long after the move into the Southern Ontario market began, it was going so well the company planned to expand its production. President Ross Eakett announced that "sales have been exceptional. A fair number of stores have been running out of our stock. Our two beer bottling plants (in Sudbury and the Sault) are working overtime and on Saturdays now." Additional equipment would be brought in and the company was considering starting up double shifts.
"What's really caught on is our sample pack," Eakett said. "As fast as we ship them down they're being sold. The hot weather has helped and, of course, we've got the quality."
Total sales in Northern and Southern Ontario ended up being double what was expected.
In 1981, the company won two gold medals from the prestigious Monde Selection Institute of Brussels for two of its products: Northern Extra Light beer and a specially blended non-alcoholic beverage called Europa.
Continuing the success of the previous year, in 1982, Northern Breweries won another two golds, for Northern Extra Light and for Northern Ale, while Europa gained a silver medal.
By 1983, a fresh $2 million was pumped into expanding and modernizing the facilities through funds from a $1-million Northern Ontario Development Corporation loan, a $350,000 federal grant and company funding.
“Any company would love to be in the position we're in," said Bryan Charbonneau, the company’s director of marketing, at the time. "There's lots of room for expansion in Ontario and we're also close to completing negotiations for exports to the United States and Europe."
Ross Eakett added that their slow, step-by-step expansion plan is the key to success in the highly competitive brewing industry.
“A lot of companies have gone bankrupt by expecting to expand too rapidly," he said. "They've been too enthusiastic about the share of the market they are going to receive."
Probably the main reason the slow and steady approach to expansion was believed to work well is the fact that the company was totally employee-owned.
“We've got 131 shareholders and that's 82 per cent of those employees eligible to own shares,” Eaket said at the time. "They're proud of their company and they're proud of their community.
“Our workers own the company so they're more concerned about what they produce. They're not just working for some unknown shareholder. There's a lot more employee involvement both within the plant and in the community.”
Northern Breweries soldiered on as the 1980s ended and the world moved through the 1990s. Unfortunately, the brewery began to stumble as the 20th century drew to a close, limping precariously into the 21st century.
In 2004, the City of Greater Sudbury began to make plans to sell the local Northern Breweries plant if the company couldn’t come up with the $545,838.19 it owed in taxes dating back to 1999. By this time, the brewery had 11 unionized and three non-unionized employees remaining (down from the 125 full-time and 90 part-time summer employees in the 1980s).
Employees indicated that finances had become tight at the brewery. A decline in sales of draft and other beers were being blamed on the city's no-smoking bylaw during a rally of restaurant and bar owners and their employees at Tom Davies Square in late May 2004.
Tommyknockers owner Dave Horton told the crowd that statistics from across the region indicated that since the bylaw went into effect, beer case sales in Greater Sudbury had declined by 17 per cent. Northern Breweries specifically saw beer sales drop by double digits every month for the five months ending in March, 2004. Based on average sales figures from 75 area hotels, restaurants and bars, that translated to $3,055,798 in lost revenue.
By the fall of 2004 though, it appeared the future was looking bright again for Northern Breweries. William Sharpe announced that he was taking over as president and CEO. Sharpe announced plans to spend millions of dollars to modernize the Lorne Street plant in Sudbury and a second plant in Sault Ste. Marie.
Initially, Sharpe announced he would upgrade the Sudbury plant by the fall of 2005 at a cost of $10 million, creating 80 full-time jobs. Later in 2005, he upgraded those figures to $20 million to upgrade facilities, creating more than 200 full-time jobs. The city, in turn, agreed to waive $640,000 in back taxes owed by Northern as part of Sharpe's takeover bid.
Unfortunately, a short 18 months later, Sharpe announced that his efforts to try and find investors had not paid off and both plants would be forced to close. At this point, the company was nearly $7 million in debt.
Two veteran employees, Claude Blanchard and Mauro Sorcinelli, were surprisingly upbeat in the months after Northern Breweries closed its doors. Blanchard stated in an interview that he admired Sharpe, who he says worked extremely hard to try and salvage the historic Sudbury brewery.
“My hat is off to Mr. Sharpe because at least he tried his best … and I know how hard he worked to try and save this place."
“If he didn't come on board when he did to try and save this place, none of us employees would have had a paycheque for 21 months and for that I'm grateful,” Sorcinelli added. “I know he really tried to get the funding in place to make a go of this place, but unfortunately things didn't turn out the way he planned."
In 2006, Sharpe addressed Greater Sudbury city council on the issue of the brewery’s financial collapse. “The Lorne plant will likely never be used as a brewery again,” said Sharpe, “although it can be used as a warehouse and retail outlet.
“It would cost the same amount of money to build a new brewing facility as it would to renovate the 100-year-old building, which has a leaky roof and old equipment,” he continued.
Sharpe said that he had a vested interest in making the brewery work because he had put $700,000 of his own money in the business.
“It doesn't help that Northern beer hasn't been selling well,” he said. "There's not an awful lot of support for the brand in the North. I've got a fellow over in the Sault who is concerned about the workers, but he buys Coors Light (instead).”
Well dear readers, we’ve rolled out one last draft ball and now it’s time to get your “Superior” memories kicking into overdrive whether they are from back in “55” or more recent, it’s time for them to take an “Encore.” Did you (or someone in your family) work for Northern Breweries prior to, or during the employee ownership years? Was the “Northern” family of beers a favourite of yours? Share your memories and/or photos by emailing them to Jason Marcon at [email protected] or the editor at [email protected].
Jason Marcon is a writer and history enthusiast in Greater Sudbury. He runs the Coniston Historical Group and the Sudbury Then and Now Facebook page. Memory Lane is made possible by our Community Leaders Program.