Labatt Brewing Company

Labatt Brewing Company Ltd. (French: Brasseries Labatt du Canada Ltée) is a Belgian-owned Canadian beer company founded by John Kinder Labatt in 1847 in London, Ontario. In 1995, it was purchased by Belgian brewer Interbrew; it is now part of Anheuser-Busch InBev. Labatt is the largest brewer in Canada.

In the United States, Labatt brand beers are sold under license by Labatt USA, which since 2009 has been fully independent of the Canadian firm and a subsidiary of the privately held North American Breweries of Rochester, New York.

History

In 1901, Prohibition began in Canada through a provincial legislation in Prince Edward Island. In 1916, prohibition was instituted in Ontario as well, affecting all 64 breweries in the province. Although some provinces totally banned alcohol manufacture, some permitted production for export to the United States. Labatt survived by producing full strength beer for export south of the border and by introducing two "temperance ales" with less than two per cent alcohol for sale in Ontario. However, the Canadian beer industry suffered a second blow when Prohibition began in the U.S. in 1919. When Prohibition was repealed in Ontario in 1926, just 15 breweries remained and only Labatt retained its original management. This resulted in a strengthened industry position. In 1945 Labatt became a publicly traded company with the issuance of 900,000 shares.

Blue Light

Blue Light was a subunit of the 5th Special Forces Group that existed into the early 1980s.

According to Col. Charles Beckwith's memoirs, this counter-terrorist group was formed by U.S. Army Special Forces leadership who disagreed with or felt politically threatened by Beckwith's Delta Force, which existed outside the Special Forces hierarchy. He stated that the unit was disbanded when Delta Force went operational.

Beckwith's memoir, Delta Force, reports that commanders of the 5th Special Forces Group were asked by top brass of the Pentagon to quickly organize a Green Beret counter-terrorist unit to fill in until Delta Force was fully operational; Beckwith estimated it would take two years. Blue Light and Delta had a somewhat adversarial relationship for those two years. The traditional Special Forces leadership felt that they could handle counter-terrorist duties within the Special Forces community (with Blue Light). Delta existed outside of that bureaucracy, with a direct line to top US Department of Defense (DOD) brass and the President. Delta therefore represented a political threat in the minds of some Special Forces commanders. Nevertheless, Delta went on to complete its initial certification exercise in July 1978, and Blue Light was deactivated shortly thereafter. Allegedly, no Blue Light member applied to Delta nor was asked by Delta to do so. Blue Light S-2, Capt. Tim Casey, was later one of the intelligence officers assigned to JTF 1–79 which commanded the ill-fated Eagle Claw.