Kokanee beer

Kokanee is a beer brewed at the Columbia Brewery in Creston, British Columbia. Columbia Brewery began brewing Kokanee lager in 1959 and was purchased by the Labatt Brewing Company in 1974.

Kokanee is a Pilsner Style Lager with 5.0% alcohol v/v and is British Columbia's best selling lager. Kokanee beer is aged naturally and has a relatively mild taste. A light beer, it is most-commonly found in the Western provinces of Canada and the Pacific Northwest states of the USA, with sparse distribution in Eastern provinces and states. It was made available in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador recently. The Columbia Brewery also brews Kokanee Gold, with a fuller body and 5.3% alcohol content, Kokanee Light, and Kootenay True Ale.

The company's "Glacier Fresh" marketing slogan for the beer originates from the usage of mountain stream water in its brewing. It uses three varieties of malt and a blend of western grown North American hops.

Kokanee started life as a niche brand by attempting to appeal with only radio ads to the residents of the interior of British Columbia with the slogan, "Brewed right in the Kootenays". After Labatt bought the Columbia Brewery in 1974, they hired the advertising agency WestCan later to be known as Scali McCabe Sloves whose Vancouver office produced a number of humorous radio and then international award winning TV campaigns introducing "The Sasquatch", including, for instance,(and still under the name WestCan at the time) 2 IBA's for TV. Two International Broadcast Awards and both introducing the legendary Sasquatch trademark and this success in TV to then take the brand to market domination and peak with a 30% plus brand share in 1986. These Sasquatch ads also were featured on the NBC "Tonight Show" as samples of the "World's Best". Other later efforts included a mock documentary showing Kokanee bottles migrating up a stream like salmon. These helped the brand become the market leader with a share of 17% in 1992. The Sasquatch 25 years later still a critical trademark for this effective branding.

In 1992 Labatt hired Beakbane Marketing, Toronto, to revitalize the packaging. Unusual for the time they changed the icon of the Kokanee Glacier to a photo montage that was shot from a helicopter by nature photographer Alec Pytlowany. The image of the glacier was used on all packaging materials including bottle labels, cans and cartons. At that time a small sasquatch icon was developed and hidden in each design.

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