Gabriel Sedlmayr Acquires Spaten Brewery

In September 1807, Gabriel Sedlmayr the Elder acquired the Spaten Brewery in Munich. Sedlmayr had been appointed brewmaster at Munich’s Royal Brown Brewhouse the previous year. At the time of his purchase, Spaten was the smallest of Munich’s 52 privately owned breweries. The acquisition began the Sedlmayr family’s long association with Spaten. Gabriel Sedlmayr introduced technical improvements and expanded the business, which had become Munich’s third-largest brewery by 1820–1821. After his death in 1839, his sons Gabriel and Joseph continued the brewery and helped make Spaten an important center of nineteenth-century lager brewing and brewing technology.