Under the direction of its top executive, E. P. Taylor, the company bought or merged many of the smaller competitors existing after the repeal of prohibition.

Canadian Breweries became part of a large conglomerate of manufacturing and consumer businesses controlled by the Argus Corporation in 1945.

The strategy changed in 1930, when Taylor met Clark Jennison, representing British interests, who was able to invest CA$500,000 in Canadian breweries.

Taylor and Jennison incorporated the Brewing Corporation of Ontario (BCO) in March 1930 by merging Brading Breweries Limited with Kuntz Brewery of Waterloo, Ontario, backed by CA$500,000 from the British interests of Industrial General Trust and Atlas Investment Trust.

Later that year, Taylor negotiated the purchase of Carling Brewing Co. (founded in 1840 in London, Ontario) from the Dominion Bank, which had gotten control when the company needed money to continue.

[6] Even when Canadian provinces prohibited alcohol consumption, federal law did not affect production for export.

[6] Continuing the acquisitions process, Taylor made an unsolicited takeover offer to the Cosgrave Brewery and threatened a potential price war.

[9] The offer was rebuffed, but Taylor persisted and the Brewing Corporation started purchasing Cosgrave stock on the open market.

It had to halt its drive in 1932 and return to its London investors to secure an operating loan when their bank refused a CA$800,00 line of credit and called in their debt.

The brewery was immediately wound up, its sales picked up by Brewing Corporation's British American Company, located in Windsor.

The Peerless Motor Company's James A. Bohannon approached Taylor to seek the rights to Carling beer in the United States.

[19] In 1944, the company opened Victory Mills to alleviate a wartime shortage of vegetable oil in Canada.

The company selected a location at the eastern end of Toronto Harbour and built a CA$25 million plant for the processing of soybeans.

Canadian Breweries would also purchase Dominion Malting of Manitoba in 1944 when its main supplier announced it would close down in 1945.

The case was heard in the Ontario Court of Queen's Bench in the fall of 1959 by Chief Justice McRuer as Regina v. Canadian Breweries Limited.

The company's successful defence argued the rules did not apply to liquor sales, a business sector where prices were already regulated through legislation.

[19] During this period, the breweries set the prices which the provinces routinely approved and used their warehousing operations to control independent competitors and keep out foreign competition, particularly that of the US.

[19] The products of the "Big Three" of Canadian, Labatt and Molson tasted more alike and, starting in 1961, came in standardized "brown stubby" bottles.

[29] The company would continue making new mergers in 1963 and 1964, including Woodhead's Brewery, Lyle and Kinahan Limited, and Old Bush Mills Distillery Co.[29] In 1965, Ian R. Dowie resigned as president of CBL.

It was the largest brewing concern in the United Kingdom, with 19 per cent of the market, plus overseas sales of Bass and Charrington beers.

[37] In 1968, the Argus-owned shares of Canadian Breweries Limited, amounting to 10% of CBL stock, were sold to Rothmans of Pall Mall Canada Ltd. for CA$28.8 million.

[40] Rothmans opposed the bid, and Philip Morris increased its bid to $15 per share, but Rothmans spent CA$116 million (CA$70 million in one week alone[41]) to purchase enough of the company's stock on the open stock market to increase its stake to 50% and kill the takeover attempt.