Alexander Keith's is a

brewery A brewery or brewing company is a business that makes and sells beer. The place at which beer is commercially made is either called a brewery or a beerhouse, where distinct sets of brewing equipment are called plant. The commercial brewing of be ...

Halifax, Nova Scotia Halifax is the capital and largest municipality of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, and the largest municipality in Atlantic Canada. As of the 2021 Census, the municipal population was 439,819, with 348,634 people in its urban area. The ...

, Canada. It is part of

Anheuser-Busch InBev Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV, commonly known as AB InBev, is an American-Belgian multinational drink and brewing company based in Leuven, Belgium. AB InBev has a global functional management office in New York City, and regional headquarters ...

, a holdings company based in

Leuven Leuven (, ) or Louvain (, , ; german: link=no, Löwen ) is the capital and largest city of the province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located about east of Brussels. The municipality itself comprises the historic ...

, Belgium, which owns over 400 beer brands globally. The brewery was founded in 1820 by Alexander Keith who had immigrated from

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

three years previously. In 1928, the business was sold to

Oland Brewery Oland Brewery, formerly S. Oland & Sons, is a brewing company in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada (established 1907), which also acquired Alexander Keith's Brewery (1928), and is now owned by Labatt Brewing Company (1971), itself a unit of InBev. Sidn ...

, which was in turn sold to the

Labatt Brewing Company Labatt Brewing Company Limited (french: La Brasserie Labatt Limitée) is a Belgian-owned brewery headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1847, Labatt is the largest brewer in Canada. In 1995, it was purchased by Belgian brewer Int ...

. Following a number of mergers and acquisitions, Labatt's is now part of Anheuser-Busch InBev. Since 1928, parent companies kept the brand alive, and by the 1990s Alexander Keith's India Pale Ale (IPA) was the most popular beer in Nova Scotia. A number of other styles is also marketed. Although Alexander Keith products were originally produced in the Halifax brewery only for sale in the

Maritimes The Maritimes, also called the Maritime provinces, is a region of Eastern Canada consisting of three provinces: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. The Maritimes had a population of 1,899,324 in 2021, which makes up 5.1% of Ca ...

, they are now produced at Anheuser-Busch InBev plants across Canada and America. Archived recipes for beer made by the Alexander Keith's Brewery in the early 1900s show high levels of hopping, with large all-

malt Malt is germinated cereal grain that has been dried in a process known as " malting". The grain is made to germinate by soaking in water and is then halted from germinating further by drying with hot air. Malted grain is used to make beer, wh ...

mash ingredients Mash ingredients, mash bill, mashbill, or grain bill are the materials that brewers use to produce the wort that they then ferment into alcohol. Mashing is the act of creating and extracting fermentable and non-fermentable sugars and flavor co ...

and no use of corn, typical for beers of that time. In contrast, the modern beer marketed as Alexander Keith's IPA is only 5%

alcohol by volume Alcohol by volume (abbreviated as ABV, abv, or alc/vol) is a standard measure of how much alcohol (ethanol) is contained in a given volume of an alcoholic beverage (expressed as a volume percent). It is defined as the number of millilitres (mL) o ...

and lightly hopped, which does not meet the accepted criteria for an India pale ale. At the 2016 Canadian Brewing Awards, Alexander Keith's IPA won third place, not in the IPA category, but in the "North American Style Blonde or Golden Ale" category.

Gallery

Image:Keithsindiapaleale.JPG, Alexander Keith's India Pale Ale File:Alexander Keith Brewery, Halifax, Nova Scotia.jpg, Alexander Keith Brewery, Halifax, Nova Scotia, c. 1865–1870.

References

{{Portal bar, Beer, Canada, Companies Beer brewing companies based in Nova Scotia Labatt Brewing Company Companies based in Halifax, Nova Scotia Companies based in Nova Scotia Food and drink companies established in 1820 Canadian subsidiaries of foreign companies Canadian beer brands 1820 establishments in Nova Scotia

Gallery

See also

References