Dreher Takes Over Klein Schwechat Brewery

In 1836, Anton Dreher took over the Klein-Schwechat brewery near Vienna by leasing it from his mother. His father, Franz Anton Dreher, had acquired the Klein-Schwechat brewery decades earlier, and Anton Dreher’s takeover gave him the brewery in which he could put his recently gathered brewing knowledge into practice. The takeover became a key step in the continental lager revolution. After study travel that included Munich, London, Scotland, and Burton-on-Trent, Dreher applied modern malting and brewing methods at Klein-Schwechat and soon moved toward controlled bottom fermentation. The brewery later became closely associated with Vienna lager, the pale amber lager style that Dreher introduced in the early 1840s.