“No story about the Canadian beer business would be complete without Ben Ginter. Although he was only a player for fifteen years, his unorthodox approach to the business reserves him a permanent place in Canada’s brewing history…

“Ben Ginter’s entry into the brewing business came more by chance than by design. In 1962, he was in the market for a storage yard and repair shed for his heavy construction equipment. The location he found was the defunct Caribou Brewing Co. plant on the banks of Prince George’s Nechako River…

“At this time, the city of Prince George enjoyed the status of the highest per-capita beer consumption in British Columbia… When word got out that their former brewery was to become a construction yard, the mayor and various businessmen approached Ginter with the idea of re-establishing the brewery to meet this giant thirst…

“Ben Ginter’s maverick approach to selling his beer was a source of constant trouble for him… In an attempt to give his products a competitive edge over the competition, he shamelessly borrowed brand names from the big American breweries, deliberately misspelling them…

“Ginter’s next manoeuvre to improve sales was his introduction of the beer can in 1966. Emblazoned with his tartans, he named his new product the “PIL’CAN”, Pil being the accepted deriviative of the word pilsner. Beer drinkers liked it, and the Big Three hated it. By the time they got around to marketing their beer in cans two years later, Tartan beer had captured nearly seven per cent of the market…

“Ginter then came up with another innovation, pull-tabs for cans and a ring-pull for bottles, which made the use of bottle or can openers obsolete.

from “Chapter 16 - The Audacious “Uncle” Ben Ginter” from Brewed in Canada: the untold story of Canada’s 350-year-old brewing industry