McDonagh & Shea Winnipeg Brewery

Patrick Shea and John McDonagh bought The Winnipeg Brewery in 1887 and ran it under their own names for thirty-nine years — by a distance the steadiest stretch the business had had after five ownerships in its first fourteen years. It ends in 1926, and not with a closure: the company was reincorporated as Shea's Winnipeg Brewery Limited under Manitoba's new liquor-production regime. The archive bounds the McDonagh & Shea identity there and carries the same business forward under the new name.

1. 1887
   Shea and McDonagh purchase

   Acquire The Winnipeg Brewery, founded 1873.

2. 1926
   Reincorporated as Shea's

   Becomes Shea's Winnipeg Brewery Limited under Manitoba's new liquor-production regime.

Sources

1. recordProbable

   Brewery record taken from Tally's Manitoba master, Pass 26, which cited https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/featured/2021/01/31/barley-bootleggers-and-... for this entry. The cited page has not been opened by the archive.

   Tally's Manitoba master, Pass 26 (research workbook) · Tally's Beer Universe research workbook · 2026

   CommercialMedium reliabilityAccessed 2026-08-19Reviewed 2026-08-19
2. historyProbable

   Lineage dates as recorded in Manitoba Pass 26: 1887, 1926.

   Tally's Manitoba master, Pass 26 (research workbook) · Tally's Beer Universe research workbook · 2026

   CommercialMedium reliabilityAccessed 2026-08-19Reviewed 2026-08-19

Only the claims above are sourced. Everything else on this page is the archive's own research and has not yet been tied to a document — which is worth knowing rather than hiding.