Sleeman Beer history

According to a history of Guelph, by 1843 the community had a population of 700 and nine breweries.

By 1851, he started the first Sleeman brewery to be located in Guelph, Ontario, brewing small 100-barrel batches.

His son, George, became his partner in 1862 and the sole owner five years later when the elder Sleeman retired.

Geroge Sleeman is elected mayor of Guelph, and again in 1881.

By 1890, George Sleeman had achieved great success with Silver Creek Brewery which had sales in Ontario and Quebec.

George's son, George A. Sleeman, became involved in the business in 1886. It was in 1898 that George Sleeman created the recipe for Sleeman Cream Ale, which he wrote down in the personal notebook Aunt Florian gave John W. Sleeman nearly 90 years later.

Due to excessive investments in his Guelph Street Railway Company, he lost the businesses to the banks in 1905; he then opened the Springbank Brewery.

But the enterprise fell on hard times in 1916 when the Canada Temperance Act went into effect and the company was limited to selling malt and ginger ale.

George Sleeman died in 1926, leaving the brewery business in the hands of his sons, George A. and Henry O. Sleeman.

The Ontario police grew wise to the trick, however, and caught the brothers red-handed in 1933, just a few months before Prohibition was repealed.

Sleeman Breweries founder, chief executive officer, and chairman, John W. Sleeman, was born in Toronto in 1953, the son of a Bell Canada executive who did not drink.

When he was 19 Sleeman moved to England and fell in love with the pub culture, so much so that when he returned to Canada a few years later, in 1977, he started his own pub called Monahan's in the Toronto suburb of Oakville.

Public Company Incorporated: 1984 as Antebi Enterprises Inc.

In 1985 John W. officially incorporated Sleeman Brewing and Malting Co.

Ltd. in Guelph and began producing beer in 1988 with backing from Stroh Brewery Company for much of the $3-million he needed, a loan from a Detroit bank, and about $500,000 of his own money.

A few months later, in February 1989, Silver Creek Lager, another family recipe, was reintroduced to the Ontario market, followed in May by the introduction of Toronto Light Lager.

In 1992 the company introduced Sleeman Premium Light, a low-calorie lager.

Also in 1993 Sleeman began selling Sleeman Cream Ale and Sleeman Silver Creek Lager in British Columbia.

Sleeman bought back Stroh's interest in the company in 1994, and the production of Stroh brands returned to the United States.

In 1996, Sleeman Breweries changed banks after several fruitful years with National Bank of Detroit, which realized the company had outgrown it and actually advised Sleeman on how to approach national banks.

In 2002 it also signed an agreement with Japan's Sapporo Breweries Ltd. to provide contract production for Sapporo products in the United States.

In 2005 the company introduced Sleeman Original Draught, an unpasteurized lager.

John W. Sleeman remained as CEO until 2010 when he relinquished that role and was made Chairman of the company. (en)

These facilities were manufacturing Sleeman, Okanagan Spring and Unibroue Canadian beers as well as the Sapporo, Old Milwaukee and Pabst Blue Ribbon brands. (The plant in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia was closed in 2013.)