Mar 22

Carling the Official Beer of the Peerless Society

Peerless sales collapsed during the Great Depression. President James A. Bohannon recognized luxury cars were unsellable. In 1931 he proposed converting the plant to a brewery, anticipating Prohibition’s end. Car production halted.

Peerless idled after 1932 while waiting for repeal of the 18th Amendment. On December 5, 1933, the 21st Amendment ended national Prohibition . Bohannon had already secured a deal with the Brewing Corporation of Canada (led by E.P. Taylor) for exclusive U.S. rights to brew Carling brands beer.

The company was reorganized as the Brewing Corporation of America in 1933. Brewing equipment was installed in the plant and it reopened in 1934 as a brewery. Initial product was Carling Red Cap Ale (a modest seller at first), followed quickly by Carling Black Label Beer, which became a massive hit and is still produced today.

Mar 22, 2026

Reply to alsancle…

Replies (8)

· Mar 22

I like it! Tell all other beers vying to be the official beer of Peerless (and other cool Independents) to get in line behind Carling.

· Mar 23

@JohnBloom Yeah man, Chevy and Edsel haven't come up with any good beers yet. But Carling Black Label is #1 in the U.K. and South Africa.

1 / 2

· Mar 23

From the AACA Peerless Forum 10 years ago -

Peerless Research Findings No. 403
"For those going to the Peerless Meet in Odessa, Florida April 1-3 and wanting to make a really good impression......stop off somewhere and pick up a case of Carling Black Label beer. It's still brewed in Trenton, OH and in Eden, NC by SABMiller Breweries under contract to Pabst. Though a complex "provenance", Black Label goes back to 1934 and The Peerless Factory in Cleveland[& 1840 in Ontario]."

· Mar 27

I wrote an email to the brewery in Trenton, Ohio inquiring if they still made Carling Black Label, but haven't heard back yet. Now under the Molson Coors flag, they brew 63 brands at their various locations.

· Mar 29

After switching from cars to Carling, the brewery in Cleveland made $2,000,000 in profit in 1946.

· Mar 30

@Peerless28 Sadly for us, they did the right thing.

· Mar 30

@alsancle You know -- it's easy to say I wish Peerless or Duesenberg or Marmon or Pierce-Arrow continued to build cars another 20 or 30 years, but I'm not sure I would want to see them making the blobmobiles that were on the road post-war. Could they have made something better than what turned up?

· Mar 30

@Peerless28 Jeff, I'm thinking just a few more years and a few more cars. I would have liked to have seen some different bodies on the Custom line, maybe in to 1934. Then beer!