Ayinger Serves Its First Beer

On February 2, 1878, Johann Liebhard served the first beer from his newly built brewery in Aying, Bavaria. Liebhard recorded the occasion in his diary, noting that the beer was very good and that the tavern was crowded. He had begun constructing the brewery in 1877 behind the family manor, working with his father, Peter Liebhard, to add a brewhouse, maltings, and fermentation and storage cellars. The brewery developed from the family’s agricultural estate and tavern into Privatbrauerei Ayinger. It remained under family ownership and became known for traditional Bavarian beer styles produced with increasingly modern brewing equipment. Ayinger’s beginnings illustrate the close relationship between village agriculture, hospitality, and brewery development in nineteenth-century Bavaria.