Nicola Valley Brewery

Local museum history documents ownership changes, 1922 government-liquor-store sales, 1928 trust acquisition/closure and destruction of abandoned brewery by fire April 1, 1942. Legal entity: Nicola Valley Brewery. Production evidence: Historical production — SFU through Prohibition era; museum history documents post-Prohibition reopening/ownership through 1928. Pacific brewers amalgamated acquired 1928 AND Closed operation. Owner as recorded: Louis Forschner; later Noah Boyden family; Ernest Richter; W. H. Biner; Pacific Brewers Amalgamated. Status as recorded: Closed / acquired / demolished BY FIRE.

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

1. 1908
   Louis Forschner on Brewery Creek

   "Louis Forschner, a German brew master who came to what would become Merritt around 1908 to establish a brewery"; "He set up his brewery near what is now Spring Street at the end of Granite Street", drawing on a spring whose creek ran to the Nicola River (Nicola Valley Museum & Archives, in the Merritt Herald).

2. 1920
   The Boydens, through prohibition

   "Louis Forschner sold the brewery around 1920, to Noah Boyden and his family"; Boyden died in March 1925.

3. 1925
   Richter, then Biner, then the trust

   "Ernest Richter. Richter ran the brewery from 1925 until 1928 when he sold it to W. H. Biner, a brewer from the Kootenays"; Biner sold it the same year "to Pacific Brewers Amalgamated, a Vancouver based organization, for $12,500", bought to hold the franchise and shut out competition.

4. 1928
   Closed; burned 1 April 1942

   Pacific Brewers Amalgamated closed it; the building stood vacant, briefly used for cheese-making, "until April 1st, 1942 when the building burnt to the ground".