Uncle Ben's Brewery (Tartan Brewing)

Ben Ginter's Prince George brewery, 1962-1978: the Caribou plant bought at auction, Tartan Brewing, then Uncle Ben's — the operator that put BC's first canned beer on the shelf in 1966 and offered the country's first refund on empties, expanded to Red Deer and Manitoba, and went into receivership in 1976. DISTINCT FROM the site-lineage record pacific-western-brewing-prince-george-brewery (TB-382YMM44, 'founded 1957') and from prince-george-breweries-ltd (TB-VSDPCYPS, the 1978 buyer): this is the Ginter operating company, not the site. NOT ASSERTED: a Richmond or Winnipeg plant (Richmond is where Ginter lived and died); "Uncle Ben's Industries" as a corporate name; a 1978-strike sales surge. EVIDENCE: the current owner's own site history, two reference works, a municipal page, three magazine or newspaper retrospectives — all secondary; the court file and the 1960s newspapers are unread. Confidence C. Opened from SUB-00171 (@tomm8650, Sept 2026). Created INTERNAL 2026-09-24; not promoted. MANITOBA, checked 2026-09-24: the Manitoba Historical Society's biography of Ginter mentions no Manitoba brewery; The Growler says one opened; the only pointer to a place is a 1970s Uncle Ben's Malt Liquor can whose listing says Winnipeg. City, year and fate: UNKNOWN. No source read supports a sales gain from the 1978 BC lockout; the Daily Colonist of that summer on archive.org is the next thing to read. DAILY COLONIST (Victoria) sampled 2026-09-24: eight issues of 3 June to 30 September 1978 searched in full text on archive.org for 'Uncle Ben', 'Ginter' and 'Prince George Brew' — no mention. A sample of eight, not the run; a negative about those issues only.

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

1. 1957
   The plant before Ginter: Caribou Brewing

   The Nechako River brewery opened in 1957 as the Caribou (Cariboo) Brewing Co. and failed; its plant and equipment went to public auction.

2. 1962
   Ben Ginter buys the brewery at auction

   "Ben Ginter purchased the plant and equipment at public auction in January 1962 for $150,000" and reopened it as Tartan Brewing, later Uncle Ben's Brewery. Ginter, born 1923, had come to Prince George in 1949 as a road and rail contractor (Pacific Great Eastern, the Alcan project at Kitimat).

3. 1966
   The first canned beer in British Columbia

   In 1966 Ginter's firm "marketed the first canned beer in British Columbia" (Encyclopedia of BC; Manitoba Historical Society). The Growler adds that he was "one of the first Canadian brewers to adopt the beer can... and the first in Canada to offer a refund on empties"; the Prince George Citizen, a 10 cent refund. A viewer's "first Canadian beer in a can" is broader than any source says: first in BC, one of the first in Canada, first in Canada with a refund.

4. 1969
   From knock-offs to Uncle Ben's

   Ginter's early labels were look-alikes — "Budd, Paap's, High Life, and Pil'Can" — followed by Uncle Ben's Malt Liquor in 1969 (The Growler). After legal trouble over the Pil-can name (an injunction is said to have been sought in 1968 — unconfirmed), "Ben decided to try and avoid another lawsuit for a while, so he changed the name to Uncle Ben's" (CKPG). On price, "the B.C. liquor board actually forced Ginter to increase its price to bring it in line with the likes of Molson" (The Growler).

5. 1971
   Expansion: Red Deer, and a Manitoba plant

   A second brewery was built at Red Deer, Alberta, from August 1971 (see uncle-bens-tartan-breweries-of-alberta-red-deer); The Growler names a Manitoba brewery as well, city not given, and says plans for Ontario and Newfoundland "proved to be costly failures".

6. 1976
   Receivership

   By 1976 the Prince George company was in receivership with "$8.4 million in debt against $2.7 million in assets". BCBusiness records that Uncle Ben's "would fall victim to one of the many labour disputes that marked the decade"; a viewer's memory that it thrived during the 1978 strike is UNCONFIRMED — no source read supports a sales surge.

7. 1978
   Sold by court order

   "A BC Supreme Court-approved sale transferred the brewery to Prince George Breweries Ltd. in February 1978." The site went on: Old Fort Brewing (Ron Hodgson) 1981, Ledcor and the Pacific Western Brewing name 1985, Kazuko Komatsu's Pacific Pinnacle Investments on 5 February 1991 — the lineage the archive holds under pacific-western-brewing-prince-george-brewery and prince-george-breweries-ltd.

8. 1982
   Ben Ginter dies

   17 July 1982, Richmond, BC (Encyclopedia of BC; Manitoba Historical Society; The Growler gives 1982). CKPG Today says 1981, of a heart attack. Both kept; the reference works agree on 1982.