cjones

According to this article from the BBC, Carling, "the UK's biggest-selling beer, with more than 1bn pints brewed in the UK last year, hails from Ontario, Canada, where it was brewed for more than 100 years before a drop was sold on British soil".... I was quite surprised by that.

So with that in mind and unashamedly ripping off the BBC quiz of the same name, let's have a thread for all those odd bits of trivia that come up from time to time that serve no real purpose other than being quite interesting.

No real rules, other than the stuff should have some (however tenuous) link to Canada and if you can be arsed, add a link to the source of the information.

MillieF

How odd CJ, I'd never identified Carling an being Canadian either.

Can I give you my bit of odd trivia? Dr. Cluny McPhearson, born and died in NS, but being of the right age got to serve in both the first and second world wars. He invented the Gas Mask, and thus saved countless lives.....yes a school project for sprog...nominate a worthy Canadian, born and died in Canada, it wasn't that easy, so I was delighted to find this chap, who I'd never heard of.

Dorothy

The paint roller was invented by Canadian Norman Beakey in 1940.

Carlingview Drive in Toronto is named for the brewery. I vaguely remember being able to see the big copper kettles from the street, although that may have been the Amstel brewery in Hamilton.

Jingsamichty

In Scotland, beers are popularly classified by "shillings".

60/- (also called "light") is broadly equivalent to English mild.

70/- (also called "special") is broadly equivalent to English bitter.

80/- (also called "heavy") is broadly equivalent to English best bitter.

The shillings signify the amount of duty that was charged on a barrel.

Novocastrian

And the tenuous connection to Canada?

Jingsamichty

Oh, I didn't read that, I thought it was just off-the-top-of-your-head stuff that might be interesting, and I thought of a beer link.

QI facts about Canada... hmmm, this just got harder...

Auld Yin

Frederick Banting, Charles Best and others were much responsible for the discovery of Insulin. Banting and another man J.J.R. Macleod were awarded a Nobel Prize in 1923.

http://www.jbc.org/content/277/26/e15.full

A considerably more important discovery than Carling beer.

caretaker

Speak for yourself. In the tiny Saskatchewan town I grew up in, the first whole bottle of beer I ever drank in my life was a Carling Black Label, and I would have been 5 or 6. I can remember making sure to act sober when I got home.

Greenhill

Diabetes was invented in 1964 in Hamilton, Ontario by Miles Gilbert Horton.

Quite an interesting coincidence, as insulin was also invented in Ontario.

caretaker

That was Sugar Diabetes, far more insidious than the lesser known, benign, Vegetable Diabetes.

Greenhill

Is it true that you invented the Robertson Screwdriver when you demanded that Robertson serve your vodka and orange in a square glass?

Jingsamichty

Right...

Canada ranks 23rd on the world list of beer consumption, with an average of consumption of 68 litres per person per year. (That's 120 pints per year)

For comparison, the UK is 18th on the list, at 74 litres (130 pints), and the USA is 12th, at 78 litres (137.5 pints).

Novocastrian

That's incredibly hard to believe. I alone consume 1266 litres a year and the wife is the tippler in our house.

Greenhill

Just another case of the UK holding Scotland back, eh?

CanadaJimmy

Speaking on drinks, Canada does rank #1 in the world for the consumption of fruit juice. Here's that and a bunch of other interesting stats: http://www.nationmaster.com/country/ca/Top-Rankings