J. C. Jacobsen Establishes the Carlsberg Laboratory

In 1875, brewer Jacob Christian Jacobsen established the Carlsberg Laboratory beside his Copenhagen brewery. He intended the laboratory to investigate the chemistry of beer and the physiology of the organisms involved so that brewing quality could rest on systematic research rather than experience alone. The institution gave brewing science a durable organizational base. Its chemical and physiological departments later supported Emil Christian Hansen’s work with pure yeast cultures, Johan Kjeldahl’s method for nitrogen analysis, and S. P. L. Sørensen’s pH scale. Jacobsen thus mattered not only as Carlsberg’s founder but as the patron who made scientific research part of the brewery’s permanent structure.