Fernie-Fort Steele Brewing Company — Fernie plant

Major Fernie industrial brewery; cooling system, bottling plant and regional distribution documented. Not merged with modern Fernie Brewing Company. Legal entity: Fernie-Fort Steele Brewing Company. Production evidence: Historical production — new Fernie plant built 1900; operating in 1929; purchased by Interior Breweries in 1950; Fernie Beer produced until 1959. ACQUIRED BY Interior breweries 1950; Site closed 1959. Owner as recorded: Albert Mutz; George Scott historically; acquired by Interior Breweries 1950. Status as recorded: Closed / acquired. THE CHAIN, 2026-09-24: this record carries the whole Fernie operation, 1900 to 1956/59. PROBABLE DUPLICATES to decide with all five open: fernie-brewery (TB-R829QZQA, 1903-) and fernie-brewery-1903-historical (TB-2ZY4W1BF, 1903-1905) — no source shows a second Fernie brewery in 1903; fort-steele-brewing-historical (TB-K5K1R56J, 1898-1924) — no source shows brewing at Fort Steele after the 1900 move, and an archival title cited by Wikipedia gives 1898-1920; the 1924 is unsupported. Not merged here.

A summary written during research. The sourced facts are in the sections below.

1. 1898
   Begins at Fort Steele

   "The Fort Steele Brewing Company was first established at Fort Steele in 1898" — proprietors George Scott and Albert Mutz, a German brewmaster (Fernie Museum, quoting the Free Press Souvenir Edition of 1902). Fritz Sick's presence at Fort Steele, claimed in summaries, is not in the Galt Museum's own account of him and is unconfirmed. The original Fort Steele plant is the archive's fort-steele-brewing-company-original-fort-steele-site (TB-6T093219).

2. 1900
   The move to Fernie

   "the enterprising owners, Messrs. Geo. Scott & A. Mutz in 1900 erected their large plant in Fernie just across Coal Creek" — "70×60 and three stories in height" — "near the point where Cokato Road crosses Coal Creek" in Old Town. One company moving, not a new one.

3. 1908
   First to burn, first rebuilt

   On 1 August 1908 "a message came down the wire from Fernie saying that the Fernie-Ft. Steele Brewery was on fire" — "the first to fall in the Great Fire" — and it was "quickly rebuilt even bigger and better, with an additional storey added" (1909). The 1917-1921 prohibition years: UNKNOWN in detail.

4. 1934
   Fernie Brewing Company

   Trading as the Fernie Brewing Company, Ltd. — a label in the Greg Evans fonds at SFU "dates between 1934-1956"; Cranbrook Brewing Company, Ltd. was its subsidiary by 1950.

5. 1950
   Interior Breweries buys it — separately from Kootenay Breweries

   The Exchequer Court's recital: Interior Breweries Limited, incorporated 10 February 1950, on 8 June 1950 bought control of Kootenay Breweries Limited (Nelson and Trail) and, as a separate purchase, "97.2 per cent of the outstanding shares" of Fernie Brewing Company, Ltd. — the rest in August 1950. Fernie was never inside Kootenay Breweries.

6. 1956
   Brewing leaves Fernie — 1956 or 1959

   "Interior Breweries acquired the company and relocated operations to Creston in 1956" (Elk Valley Culture); the Nelson Museum has the move of the group's operations to the new Creston plant in 1959; a museum bottle is titled 'Fernie Beer; Interior Breweries Limited; 1959-1972', so the name outlived the plant. Both years kept. What stands on the Coal Creek site: UNKNOWN (a 'Brewery Flats' development in Old Town is suggestive, not confirmed).