To commemorate its 175th anniversary, Labatt has partnered with Toronto Harbourfront Centre to deliver an art exhibition called “A Brewing Affair.” The initiative showcases an outdoor installation of a collage of art representing different milestones in the beer company’s history.

Those include the various beer logos and ad campaigns it has run over the years, instances when the company made national news, or community outreach efforts like contributing to emergency responses to the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire or forming a national consortium to encourage vaccine confidence across Canada.

The event will run from Oct. 7-23.

“As we celebrate our 175th anniversary and look to the future, we’ve set our sights on redefining what it means to be a total beverage company,” says Mika Michaelis, president of Labatt Breweries of Canada.

Throughout Canada’s history, Labatt has been there to support its communities, from a donation of 1,000 pounds of flour to a local soup kitchen in London, Ontario, during an economic depression in 1859 to an investment of $461.5 million between 2019 and 2022, aiding Canada’s economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Today, Labatt is focused on becoming a tech-forward, total beverage company that puts digital and customer-centricity at the heart of its growth strategy.

“I just don’t think that anybody could survive in the Canadian brewing industry without being innovative,” says Matthew Bellamy, professor of history at Carleton University and author of Brewed in the North: A History of Labatt’s.

“John Kinder Labatt was influenced and motivated by the technological innovations of the industrial revolution, and that impulse to innovate and disrupt is part of Labatt’s DNA, now and forever.”