Automatic Beer

For centuries brewers have made their beer by the same ancient process, boiling it in towering copper kettles and fermenting it in vats, batch by cumbersome batch. Now automation has finally caught up with beer. Last week technicians for Canadian Breweries Ltd. worked at taking the last kinks out of a new, fully automated $8,000,000 plant at Fort Worth, Texas, where beer will be made within two months by a radical technology. Brewers have considered the method for years and other firms are testing it, but Canadian Breweries will be the first to use it in beer production.

Called continuous-flow brewing and developed after six years of research, the new method does away with the old kettles and the old process. Instead, the ingredients of beer--grain, water, hops and yeast--run through a maze of stainless-steel pipes, coils and tanks in response to commands from a 30-ft. console of dials, buttons and lights. Though the brewing time remains the same--six weeks--the new plant costs less to build, requires less labor than traditional plants, can expand in small stages.

Chinese Deal. Canadians rank only ninth in per capita consumption among the world's beer drinkers, and the 311 million gallons they quaff each year account for only 3% of the $15 billion world beer industry. But Toronto-based Canadian Breweries (Carling, Red Cap Ale) is the world's largest maker of beer and ale. Cornerstone of the financial and industrial empire of Financier Edward Plunket Taylor, it has not only grabbed a commanding 47% of the Canadian market, but has also pushed its brew from 62nd to fourth place in the U.S. since 1949. It has moved into England, Scotland and Ireland by buying control of local companies, now stands among Britain's top three in lager beer. It is working out a deal to make beer in Hong Kong, is also shipping half-brewed concentrate to the Bahamas in rubber containers.

Despite its $366 million in 1963 sales, Canadian Breweries ranks only third among Taylor's properties, which include Canada's largest grocery chain, gold and iron mines, newsprint factories, a satellite city and a chemical complex that makes everything from detergent to roofing shingles. Taylor started his career in the brewing business by taking over a struggling brewery from his grandfather, gradually built it into his huge Argus Corp. holding company by shrewd mergers and acquisitions. Nowadays, while he concentrates on other investments, he leaves Canadian Breweries in the hands of Ian R. Dowie, 56, its president.

Scotch & Soda. Dowie's tastes run to Scotch and soda and Mozart, but his talent clearly is selling beer. "All beers taste pretty much alike in the U.S.," says Dowie, "so it boils down to who does the best promotion." He credits Carling's 15-year-old slogan, "Mabel! Black Label" for its surge in the U.S. market. Like many other brewers, he also bets heavily on sports sponsorships, last week laid out $450,000 for the Carling World Golf Championship tournament in Detroit.

Even bigger is the company's push toward what one alarmed Toronto temperance worker calls "world domination of the beer business." Dowie recently decided to boost investment outside North America from 15% to 20% of assets, is looking for more opportunities. The Fort Worth plant may be, as he predicts, "about as far as beer automation can go," but Carling's worldwide marketing seems to be just starting.

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