If you follow me on Twitter, this might not be a new story for you, but the response to that version of this story was so positive I thought I should share it here. Stick with me, though, next week I’ll send you a story you haven’t read before.
I’m not sure when I first heard it, a little piece of bar room trivia.
“Carling Black Label is Canadian.”
At first I didn’t quite believe it. In South Africa, Black Label, the country’s best-selling beer, is ubiquitous, in Canada, it’s obscure.
In Winnipeg, where I grew up, I don’t think Black Label was available. In Quebec, where I spent most of my adult life, it shared space with a handful of other discount beers produced by the major brewers. Next to the relatively low priced beers produced by local breweries, beers like Belle Gueule, Boreale and Vieux Montréal, Black Label didn’t really stand out.
Nowadays, Black Labels is still available in Ontario and Quebec, while a version of Black Label – Black Label Ice, "a strong, low-priced ice beer" – is available in many parts of Canada.
But at one point, the Carling Brewery was a major player.
In 1927, the brewery offered a $25,000 prize to the first person to fly from London, Ontario (where the brewery was based) to London, England. The first attempt, in a plane named for brewery founder Sir John Carling, ended when the plane disappeared somewhere over the North Atlantic. It’s not clear whether there was another attempt to win the prize.
In the 1950s, after several mergers (as happens so often with brewers) the makers of Carling Black Label, then known as Canadian Breweries, began an international expansion, first to the United Kingdom. There, where it’s now known simply as Carling, it remains the best-selling beer, ahead of Foster’s – an Australian beer that, like Carling Black Label, has become much more popular outside of its country of origin.
In 1966, Black Label arrived in South Africa, with early ads featuring cowboys (something it would share with the British version).
The tagline “The Great American Beer” was also be used in marketing, a nod, perhaps, to the beer’s Canadian origins, though certainly one that will infuriate Canadians.
While the beer became somewhat successful initially, sales soon slumped and as the 80s became the 90s, a new marketing campaign aimed Black Label at working men, selling as a “masculine” beer.
A big part of that was it strength: 5.5% ABV, stronger than most other beers on the South African market (something that remains true, even South Africa’s nascent craft beer industry tends to make beers that are around 4.5% or 5%, a striking difference from North America).
That “masculine” branding has largely remained, though there have been ads targeting gender based violence in recent years.
There's also an association with soccer both through sponsorships and Black Label's nickname in South Africa: Zamalek. The nickname comes from the Egyptian soccer team of the same name and its colours, red, white and black, the same as Black Label's.
It's claimed that the nickname came after Zamalek beat the Kaiser Chiefs, one of South Africa's two most storied soccer teams (the other being my favourite, the Orlando Pirates), and people started saying that the beer was "as strong as Zamalek."
It’s a nickname that’s stuck, you can walk into any bar or bottle shop in S.A. and ask for Zamalek and they'll know what you want.
For a stronger beer, Zamalek is relatively light, quite drinkable and the price is right, just over CAD$5 for a six pack with the current exchange rate. That’s compared to $6.99 (plus sales tax and deposit) in Quebec and over $12 in Ontario.
But while Carling Black Label may have started in Canada and the Canadian and South African versions continue to share some branding elements, it’s hard to say they’re the same beer. I’m told the taste is different and the beers are different strengths: 5.5% in South Africa, compared to 4.7% in Canada (there is also a Black Label Dry at 6.1%, which I think is only available in Quebec). In the U.K., it’s 4%.
There's also no longer any connection between the makers of Black Label in Canada and South Africa
Carling Brewery, later Canadian Breweries, later Carling O'Keefe, is now part of Molson Coors. The brewer of Black Label in South Africa, South African Breweries (aka SAB), is now part of AB InBev.
And that’s the story of how what’s now a relatively obscure beer in Canada became a South African favourite.