Kuntz Brewery

Waterloo's brewery for 149 years and the second party to E. P. Taylor's founding merger of March 1930 — absent from the archive until today, which left the Brading record naming a partner that had no page. Spring Brewery 1844, L. Kuntz Park Brewery 1870, Kuntz Brewery Limited (incorporation year UNKNOWN), Carling-Kuntz (1930 or 1936), Carling's Waterloo plant, Labatt's from 1977, closed by 1993. Brands: Culmbacher, Bohemian, Olde German Lager; 'Kuntz Bock' looked for and not found. EVIDENCE: a regional heritage blog, two beer-blog compilations of published histories, one register entry (the family house) and the Canadian Breweries article; the Waterloo Public Library's digital collections refused the fetch and are the next avenue. Confidence C. Created INTERNAL 2026-09-24; not promoted.

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

1. 1844
   David Kuntz opens the Spring Brewery

   "David Kuntz opened the Spring Brewery in 1844" at the corner of King and William Streets, Waterloo.

2. 1870
   L. Kuntz Park Brewery

   David "turned the business over to son Louis who renamed it L. Kuntz Park Brewery". Louis Kuntz's death date: UNKNOWN. The family's house of the mid-1880s stands at 167 King Street South (Canadian Register of Historic Places).

3. 1910
   Second-largest brewery in Ontario

   By 1910 "the brewery was the second largest in Ontario, selling over 90,000 barrels a year"; David Kuntz Jr. took over that year, "died young, 38, in 1915", and "his two brothers, Herbert and William stepped in". A malting building stood at Erb and Regina.

4. 1930
   The other half of the Brading merger

   In March 1930 E. P. Taylor and Jennison "incorporated the Brewing Corporation of Ontario (BCO)... by merging Brading Breweries Limited with Kuntz Brewery of Waterloo" — the founding transaction of what became Canadian Breweries Limited. When the plant took the Carling-Kuntz name is disputed: at the 1930 sale in one account, in 1936 when Carling's London company joined in another. Both kept.

5. 1935
   Carling's production moves here

   The London, Ontario Carling brewery was shut down in 1935 or 1936 and its production moved to the Kuntz plant; Waterloo became Carling's brewery. Whether Red Cap Ale and Black Label specifically were brewed here is not confirmed by a source read, though a 1995 account says Red Cap was brewed at Waterloo "for years". The Kuntz name was dropped during the Second World War for sounding too German — exact year UNKNOWN — and the brands Culmbacher, Bohemian and Olde German Lager were discontinued in the war.

6. 1977
   Labatt

   "in 1977 it became Labatt's" — the only account found of who owned the plant at the end; no source read ties Molson or Carling O'Keefe to its closure.

7. 1993
   Closed and demolished

   The Waterloo brewery "was closed by 1993" and "was quickly demolished... eventually becoming a retirement residence and two higher density housing projects"; the brewery fountain was recovered and restored as Brewmeister's Green at King and William. Brick Brewing, Ontario's first craft brewery of 1984, stood 200 metres south in an old furniture factory — a separate site, not this one.