It’s probably appropriate on St. Patrick’s Day that our weekly Cochrane history feature is about beer.
The front page of the Northland Post on March 20th, 1985 has a story of a bottled beer shortage caused by a lockout of brewery and warehouse workers.
Local hotel owners were frustrated that the law prevented them from bringing in beer from other provinces, while they could import it from the U.S.
Fred Burns of the Albert Hotel said it would make more sense to bring it in from Québec. American beer crossing the border was subject to a quota, and wouldn’t make it past Toronto.
So Cochrane hotel beer fridges were bare. London Tavern co-owner Jean Chamandy said draft beer was a lifesaver for her business.
Our local history source every week is the archive department at the Cochrane Public Library.
