What made Sleeman's Beer Successful?

Описание: What do pirates, Al Capone, and getting your name and trademark have to do with Sleeman’s beer?

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Episode: #068: Sleemans – John Sleeman – My Aunt had the original beer recipe book
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Timestamps:
Intro: (0:00)
Sponsored Segment: (0:21)
Podcast: (1:28)
Sponsored Segment: (15:03)
Podcast: (16:47)
Outro: (22:49)

Transcript:

Dave Young:
Welcome back to the Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here with you alongside Stephen Semple. Today, Stephen, as we head into year two of the podcast, you told me the topic, and I have never heard… I’m assuming we’re back to Canada products.

Stephen Semple:
We’re back to Canada, yes.

Dave Young:
This is Sleeman’s Beer. I don’t know anything about it. I don’t love the name. I hope I love the story because the beer sounds like a product that maybe Bart Simpson would order it at the bar when he goes in: “Give me a bottle of Sleeman’s.”

Stephen Semple:
After you hear this story, you’re going to be begging me to bring a case of this beer down for you.

Dave Young:
Well, I expect you to.

Stephen Semple:
Maybe we’re talking about beer today because living in Canada in the summertime, and I’m here on the lake, the other night, I was sitting out and just enjoying one of those beautiful evenings in Canada. You know what I was drinking? I was drinking a bottle of Sleeman’s Cream Ale, which is actually one of my favorite beers, and I’ve loved it for a long time. I said, “You know what? I need to tell the story of this beer because it’s an awesome, awesome story.” That’s kind of where it all started was that inspiration. It was originally started in 1834 by John Sleeman.

Dave Young:
Holy cow, that’s a while back.

Stephen Semple:
99 years later, in 1933, it was shut down, and then opened again by the great-great-grandson, the fifth-generation brewer, John Sleeman, in 1988, 55 years after being shut down.

Dave Young:
Wow.

Stephen Semple:
In 2006, 18 years after reopening, it was sold to Sapporo for $400 million, and today is the third-largest brewery in Canada. So it’s really quite a journey.

Dave Young:
That’s amazing.

Stephen Semple:
The Sleeman family name was originally Slyman.

Dave Young:
Slyman?

Stephen Semple:
In the 1600s-

Dave Young:
Yeah, that’s better

Stephen Semple:
You’re going to love this. In the 1600s, the Slyman family were pirates running illegal ventures out of England.

Dave Young:
Of course they were.

Stephen Semple:
Of course they were.

Dave Young:
Why wouldn’t they be?

Stephen Semple:
This is documented. They were privateers. They were pirates. By the middle of the 1800s, they decide to go legit and invest in something they really liked, beer!

Dave Young:
Why not?

Stephen Semple:
Because what pirate doesn’t like beer? So they started a brewery and a string of pubs in England. At that time they changed the name from Slyman to Sleeman because they wanted to get away from their pirate past.

Dave Young:
That whole pirate background thing.

Stephen Semple:
That whole pirate background.

Dave Young:
You wouldn’t want people to think that you were the same family.

Stephen Semple:
Exactly, as who pillaged them the year before.

Dave Young:
Just change the vowel.

Stephen Semple:
In 1834, John Sleeman moves to Canada. He arrives in St. Catharine’s from Cornwall, England, and he starts a brewery called Stamford Springs. He operated this brewery for 20 years quite successfully. But this was the time of the Industrial Revolution, and due to industrialization, the water in the St. Catherine’s area became heavily contaminated, and they couldn’t make beer with it any longer. So they moved to Guelph, and that was a good move. As I mentioned earlier, they’re very successful for 99 years in the Guelph market.

Stephen Semple:
They were also a big deal. In 1880, one of the family members, George Sleeman, became mayor of the area. In 1889, his son, George Junior, became an apprentice. He writes down all the beer recipes in a little recipe book, and this becomes really important later. So fast forward to 1921 and along comes Prohibition and a dude by the name of Al Capone. It’s rumored that Capone does business with the Sleemans. In 1933, the Canadian government shuts down the brewery for not paying taxes on the beer they bootlegged to the United States.

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