The Brewing Reinhardts in Ontario and Quebec

After consulting many sources, I came to realize there were two, unrelated Reinhardt breweries in Montreal in the period leading up to the 1909 merger resulting in National Breweries Ltd.

I was continually put off-track to follow a skein or narrative for each “branch”, until I realized this.

Montreal’s population was almost completely of French or British stock then, but there were small numbers of other origin. The Germans had a tiny representation, some descended from Westphalians or Hessians who fought with the British in the late 1700s in North America.

It was understandable, due to this influx, that one might enter brewing, and one did: Gottlieb Reinhardt, in 1852, and his descendants continued the business until said merger. Gottlieb died in 1895, having come to Montreal in 1831, from Wurtemberg. See the birth details in the second listing, here.

He is buried in Mount Royal Cemetery in Montreal, a leafy resting place for its social and business elite.

The Salvador Brewery established in 1900 on St. Paul Street in Montreal, often called the Reinhardt Salvador brewery, was a venture of a son of Lothar Reinhardt, who came from Cologne and was not related to Gottlieb. Lothar, Sr. settled in Ontario and established a well-known brewery in Toronto.

The Toronto business and family history have been well-documented, but the Montreal Reinhardt story, much less so.

It’s long odds that two German-descended Reinhardts would brew lager beer in a mostly French and English city and not be related, but there we have it.

The Reinhardt Salvador brewery merged in 1907 with the newly-established Imperial Breweries Ltd. but it appears Lothar Reinhardt, Jr. continued involvement with the new business. There was a specific reason, which I’ll explore in a future post.

Finally, Imperial Breweries too was rolled into National Breweries in 1909, but its brief story is of absorbing interest, which I’ll return to as mentioned.

The ad below (freeview clipping from newspapers.com, sourced here) shows clearly there was no connection between the two Reinhardt families. German Street, or rue Allemande, was later renamed Hotel de Ville Street.

 

 

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