differently by each Canadian province, not on a nation-wide basis.) The brand later disappeared from the market and was unsuccessfully revived in 1994. Carling brands entered the UK market in a joint venture between CBL and British brewers in 1952. The joint venture eventually became Bass Charington, the largest brewer in the UK. After CBL was sold to Rothmans in 1969, it was renamed Carling O'Keefe in 1973. In 1989, Carling O'Keefe merged with Molson, which merged in 2005 with Coors to form the Molson Coors Brewing Company. Molson Coors has continued to brew and sell Carling Black Label across Canada. Carling became the UK's most popular beer brand (by volume sold) in the early 1980s. UK sales in 1999 were one billion pints, in 2007, 2.3 billion pints (over six billion worldwide), in 2009, 4.1 billion pints (11.6 billion pints worldwide), in 2010, 17.6 billion pints worldwide, in 2011 24.9 billion pints worldwide. In 2016 they broke new records, selling 7.9 billion pints in the UK alone, with 83.6 billion pints worldwide. The largest pub chain in the UK, J D Wetherspoon, stopped selling Carling in September 2009, entering into a seven-year exclusive deal with the Danish brewery Carlsberg. From Q1 2011 Amstel, Carling, Heineken and Staropramen were again sold by Wetherspoons, at higher prices than Carlsberg. In 2017, UK HMRC took Carling to the tax tribunal because it claimed the firm underpaid tax by more than £50 million between 1 September 2012 and 31 January 2015. But the firm won the case after it successfully argued the actual strength of the lager meant it should not be subject to the four per cent level of taxation. The lager is advertised as having an alcohol by volume (ABV) of four per cent but is actually brewed between 3.7 per cent and 4.3 per cent, owners Molson Coors said. In the tribunal hearing brought by HMRC, the firm said the ABV was reduced in order to cut tax on Carling products as stronger beers are subject to higher taxes than lower-strength ones under UK excise duties. EU law permits beer to have a natural variation of 0.5 per cent and the owner insists it does not believe customers are being misled. According to papers from the tribunal, Philip Rutherford, vice president of Molson Coors Europe, told the tribunal the "key driver" behind the decision not to change the labelling on