CANADA’S FIRST FAMILY OF BEER
An Ex-pose of what happened when Molson diversified.
The Molson company has been operating in Canada since 1786. In her new book, Helen Antoniou chronicles the evolution of Eric Molson, 80, from the brewery to the boardroom, where he became chairman, and his fight to preserve the company’s legacy. Antoniou, Eric’s daughter-inlaw, offers an insider’s account of the family’s triumphs and failures. Eric loves beer. Most of us enjoy a cold one (or two or three) on a hot summer day or while watching our favourite sports team on TV, but Eric really loves beer. He loves the taste of it, the look of it, the smell of it, the making of it, the ingredients that go into it … he loves its every facet.
When he’s about to try a new discovery, for instance, he tastes it as one would a fine wine. First he makes sure the glass is clean. He recalls, “I once told Freddy Heineken when I was in his office having abeer, ‘Freddy, do you know your glasses are dirty? I can tell by the way the foam is collapsing.’ A dirty glass with oils or other residue can stop the creation of foam and ruin the beer’s flavour.”
He then tips the glass to a 45-degree angle (again, for the foam), pours, and holds it up to study the beer’s colour, head and consistency. The visual exam complete, he gently swirls the liquid to test how the head holds up, to stimulate carbonation and release aromas. He raises the drink to his nose and breathes in deeply. Only then does he taste the beer, one small mouthful at a time. It’s the best way to fully appreciate the fragrances, flavours, and feel of this beverage.
When it’s good, Eric’s smile says it all. Pure bliss.
Yet it’s not only the science and production of beer that enliven Eric. He cares just as much about the human bonds it helps create. I can hear it in his choice of words. For instance, he often refers to a beer as “a rivet” and explains the moniker through its joining quality: “I first heard the word ‘rivet’ used for beer from my friend’s father. He was a steel man and in his business rivets are used to hold together things like steel beams and columns. I liked the term, so I adopted it. And later my boys liked it too, so it stuck … I guess we felt that having another ‘rivet’ held us together.”
Beer brings Eric to life and that’s how I know he loves it. So it baffles me that back in the 1960s he went along with the plan to diversify Molson and turn it into a conglomerate. I ask him why he let it happen.
He takes a deep breath before answering. “It’s not much of an excuse, but I was a kid at the time. I didn’t know much about business. I didn’t know much about diversification. And there were all these experts and senior guys saying it made sense and it was the right thing to do.”
Eric was 29 when the decision was taken to venture outside of beer. Besides his youth and limited business experience, it may have been his unwillingness to confront authority figures like his father and uncle that kept him from speaking up. They were the ones calling the shots, and as a “good” member of the younger generation, he followed suit …
He had all the “shoulds” of his father, his uncle, his forefathers, the Molson name, the long family history in business. So maybe it’s not surprising that when they said Molson should diversify to survive for the next hundred years, he “went along with the gag” (his words) and muffled his own misgivings.
On the porch in Maine, Eric shakes his head as he recalls, “One of the lines we heard back then was, ‘Why don’t you get into the snowmobile business? That way you can have a big business in the winter, and when summer comes along, you’d have another big business because they would all be drinking beer!’ It’s called seasonally adjusting your business. It didn’t seem to matter that we didn’t have the first idea on how to make snowmobiles or how to run that kind of enterprise.
“We shouldn’t have diversified. We didn’t run any business well that was not beer. It took us a while to figure that one out.”
Molson’s 1966 annual shareholders’ meeting was held on June 28, at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in downtown Montreal. It was a well attended, elaborate affair, complete with a formal luncheon served by white-gloved waiters.
Sen. Hartland Molson, then president and CEO of the brewery, stood at the podium and summarized the company’s journey through its phases of expansion. It had gone from a private family business to a public company in 1945, and then expanded from a local brewery to a pan-Canadian one in 1955, with the opening of the Toronto brewery and the purchase of Sick’s out west.
“We have reached the point where we have firmly consolidated our position in the brewing industry in Canada from coast to coast,” Hartland said. “We are thus now able to turn our attention first to the determination and then to the execution of the next stage of our development.” Molson, he declared, was now to get into new forms of industry and business enterprises.
A number of organizational changes were announced at the meeting. Tom Molson, then 65 years old, was retiring as chairman of Molson’s board and being replaced by Hartland. In turn, Hartland, who had been president of the company for13 years, was to be succeeded by Percival Talbot (“P.T.” or “Pete”) Molson.
He was the son of Walter Molson, the youngest brother of Herbert, Tom and Hartland’s father. Born in1921, he was 20 years younger than his cousin Tom and, like him, had gone to Bishop’s College School, where he was awarded the Governor General’s Medal and finished top of his class. He went on to McGill Uni- versity, graduated with first-class honours in economics and political science, and won the coveted Rhodes scholarship to Oxford.
Twenty-one-year-old P.T., however, declined the prestigious award and chose instead to serve his country. In1941, with war raging in Europe, he enlisted with the Royal Canadian Navy and spent four years on transatlantic freighters bringing ammunition and other supplies from Canada to England.
After the war, he could have reclaimed his scholarship to Oxford (he was offered an extension) but chose instead to join Canada’s foreign service, where his genial style and unfaltering diplomacy served him well. He got an overseas posting to the Canadian High Commission in London and then to Berlin. In 1950, he returned to Canada and eventually became executive assistant to Lester B. Pearson, then secretary of state for external affairs. Pearson commented on the high quality of P.T.’s work.
The Molson brothers then considered P.T. Why not? they thought. He’s smart, judicious, accomplished — just what Molson needs. Let’s bring him in. We have to keep our options open. However, the 32-year-old foreign service professional was not that interested in joining the brewery. He didn’t even want to be a businessman.
Despite his apprehensions, after 12 years of service, P.T. joined Molson Breweries Ltd. in 1953. The decision in the end was his, but he did it more out of a sense of duty and familial obligation than anything else. Hartland contacted Pearson to negotiate P.T.’s release from Canada’s Department of External Affairs.
P.T. performed well at Molson and rapidly progressed through its ranks. On 1 July 1966, 13 years after being hired, he was named president and CEO of the corporation. Moving from Toronto to Montreal, he took over Hartland’s responsibilities. It was a big move, made more difficult by the fact that his wife, Lucille, refused to go with him.
The headlines on Sept. 14,1966,11 weeks after P.T.’s promotion, shocked everyone connected to Molson. “Molson president dead from gunshot,” was the one in the Globe and Mail. The rumour mill whirled at full throttle: “What happened?” people wondered. “Did you hear? I think it was because …”
But as details leaked, it became clear: on the second weekend of September, as the leaves were just starting to change colour in the Laurentians, P.T. drove up north alone to his country house in Ivry and shot himself in the head.
He was 45 years old. Father of four children. President of the second-largest brewery in Canada. He was well liked and respected in his community. Yet unbeknownst to most, P.T. suffered from depression. It was serious enough for him to have sought treatment at the Allan Memorial Institute, a psychiatric hospital in Montreal. And although it looked like P.T. had found a way to live with his mental illness, he had a breakdown.
“It was awful when P.T. killed himself,” remembers Eric. “A real shock. It was all over the papers. He had only been president for a few months … We were all crying, it was just flooding us.” Tears well in his eyes as he thinks back. “P.T. was a great guy. He just wasn’t in the right place. He should have stayed a diplomat.”
It was a lesson for Eric about the importance of following one’s passion and true calling. P.T. had been pushed into Molson. He felt he couldn’t say no. Eric vowed to himself that he would never exert that kind of pressure. Not on his sons, not on anyone. People had to choose what was right for them, especially when it came to the direction of their lives.
Eric remained faithful to this ideal and respected others’ choices. Where he was tested, however, was standing up for his own vision, particularly if it involved a clash or confrontation.
It would take years and multiple trials before he finally found his own voice and was able to take a resolute stance against the bullies who confronted him. One of those bullies was a member of the Molson family.
With the tragic loss of P.T., Tom and Hartland looked for a new CEO. As their options of family members were limited (Eric, for example, was still too young and inexperienced), they decided to ask David Chenoweth.
It was the first time in the company’s 180-year history that a non-Molson would take the position of president and CEO. Chenoweth resisted, arguing that there must be someone in the family more qualified; it was more appropriate that a Molson be in charge. Tom and Hartland wouldn’t budge.
A month after P.T.’s death, on Oct. 14, 1966, Chenoweth was elected president of Molson Breweries Ltd. His first order of business as CEO was to execute the strategy announced by Hartland at the previous annual general meeting: diversify the company’s business.
Molson’s foray into diversification lasted almost 30 years. From its 1966 launch, it would take the incumbency of five different CEOs — David Chenoweth, Bud Willmot, Jim Black, John Rogers, and Mickey Cohen — for the strategy to be deemed a failure. Excerpted and adapted from Back to Beer … and Hockey: The Story of Eric Molson by Helen Antoniou (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018)