Kingsbeer

Born at Dawes Brewery, Montreal, in 1912 as Königsbier; renamed Kingsbeer by a Montreal Gazette advertisement of 28 September 1914, the war having made a German name unsellable. The Canadian trademark (UCA47317) gives first use in Canada as 12 November 1914 and Dow Brewery Limited, 990 Notre Dame Street West, as registered owner from its 1953 filing; title passed to Carling O'Keefe on 31 March 1976 and to Molson Breweries on 1 August 1989, and the mark was expunged for non-use on 2 August 1991. The recipe went from all-malt lager to a rice-based one by 1949 and back to all-malt in late 1963. The beer itself faded out in the 1980s; exact year UNKNOWN. No source ties its end to the 1965 Dow cobalt affair, which concerned Dow Ale, so this record does not. Filed here because Dow is the registered owner and the Montreal plant drinkers remember; the brand's Dawes and National Breweries years are in these notes, not on a second record.