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Andrew and Patrick Oland of Moosehead Breweries navigate the U.S. tariff threat just as previous generations have battled fires, the Halifax Explosion and prohibition to remain the largest and oldest Canadian-owned brewery.
More than 20 years ago, Moosehead Breweries donated a life-size bronze sculpture of a moose, by celebrated wildlife sculptor Forest Hart, for a waterfront public area close to Market Square in Saint John, N.B. Standing near the back of the crowd assembled for the dedication, I thought the gift was a marketing ploy and wrote a column for my weekly newspaper called “The Trojan Moose.”
While I thought my turn of phrase clever, there was nothing stealthy about the placement of the sculpture. Nor were there Greeks hiding inside waiting to attack, just two cans of Moosehead Lager and a Moosehead baseball cap placed inside for posterity. In a recent interview, company president and CEO Andrew Oland said he remembered that piece from long ago, though he didn’t note my characterization of the moose sculpture as a marketing gimmick. “At the end you wrote, which was very nice, around here [Moosehead] is the King of Beers, or something like that,” said Andrew, sales director for New Brunswick at the time.
Two decades later, Moosehead is still the King of Beers in this town (yes, the play on the American Budweiser slogan was intentional), and arguably for the rest of Canada, particularly in the midst of a tariff war with the United States.
The Oland family’s roots in the beer industry date back to 1867 when Susannah Oland brewed her first batch in their Dartmouth backyard, starting a company the same year as Confederation. Andrew and his brother Patrick gained ownership control from their father Derek last year, making them the sixth generation of the family in the brewery business. Moosehead has grown into the largest Canadian-owned brewery and the only one with sales offices in all 10 provinces, so calling it the king of Canadian beers isn’t a stretch.
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