'■7 Bayerische Staatsbrauerei
Weihenstephan
Alte Akademie 2
Freising, D-85354
Germany
Telephone: (+49 8161) 536-199
Fax: (+49 8161) 536-200
Web site: http://www.weihenstephaner.de
State-Owned Company
Incorporated: 1923
Employees: 85
Sales: EUR 25 million ($32 million) (2013)
NAICS: 312120 Breweries
Located on rhe grounds of a historical monastery in
Freising, Bavaria, Bayerische Staatsbrauerei Weihen-
stephan brews a full line of beers lor the retail market
and the restaurant and tavern trade. Weihenstephan
produces 14 kinds of beer, the most popular being
Weihenstephan Hefeweissbier (yeast white beer) made
from wheat. 1 he firm brews a variety of other wheat-
based beers too, including crystal wheat beer, as well as
light, dark, and alcohol-free versions. In all, wheat beers
constitute approximately 75 percent of Weihenstephan’s
total sales. In addition, the brewery produces a pilsner,
light and dark lager beers, an extra-strong bock beer, an
annual beer brewed for Freising’s yearly beer festival,
and a Radler, a 50-50 mixture of pilsner and soda pop
similar to Sprite. In addition to its beer brewing,
Weihenstephan provides university-level education in
brewing science through the Weihenstephan Science
INTERNATIONAL DIRECTORY OF COMPANY HISTORIES. VOLUME 164
Center for Nutrition, Agriculture and the Environment
ar Munich’s Technical University. The Weihenstephan
Research Center for Brewing and Food Quality is the
science center’s commercial arm. it conducts research in
brewing technology and provides information to brew-
ers. especially in Bavaria, on all technical aspects of the
beer-making industry. Weihenstephan exports ap-
proximately half of its yearly output to about 50 differ-
ent countries on every continent but Africa.
ORIGINALLY ESTABLISHED BY A
SAINT
Weihenstephan Brewery traces its founding to the eighth
century when the later-canonized St. Corbinian, on
orders of Pope Gregory II, established the church ol St.
Stephen in Freising with the intention of converting the
peoples of Bavaria to Christianity. About 100 years later,
a monastery was also founded on the site. Its location
atop a hill made it an ideal site for brewing, as cellars
could be dug lor the storage ol beer while it aged.
Documentary evidence shows that hops were being
grown at the monastery in 768, and historians speculate
that beer was probably already being brewed there then.
In 1040, however, the city ol Freising granted the
monastery’s monks a license to brew and to sell beer to
the public, so the present-day brewery cites this year as
its founding date.
Ehe brewery took as its emblem a bear carrying two
kegs of beer on its back. Legend has it that the
monastery s founder, Corbinian, was making his wav
I tom Bavaria to Rome to see the pope when he was set
upon by a bear. When Corbinian s horse was killed in
31
Bayerische Staatsbrauerei Weihenstephan
C O M PAN Y P E RS P ECT IVES
Klasse statt Masse—Quality instead of quantity. This
slogan sums up one of the most important principles
of our corporate philosophy. As a medium-sized
company, we are focused on a quality product and we
are delighted that our beer has found a place not only
in beverage stores but primarily as a specialty in
restaurants. Among brewers we are considered an
“insider brand.'' This is not surprising when one
considers that Weihenstephan is the global center of
brewing science and that beer brewers rhe world over
learned beer brewing at Weihenstephan.
the struggle, he subdued the bear and forced it to carry
his belongings—including beer he had made for the
pope—to Rome. Weihenstephan would continue to
feature this image on the grounds of its brewery into the
21st century.
CO M PET IIIVE A D VANTAG E
The Benedictine brewers of Weihenstephaner beer in rhe
Middle Ages enjoyed certain advantages over their
secular competition. They had access to cheap or, if they
raised it on their own grounds, free raw materials. Their
monks provided free labor. The monastery paid no
raxes. In addition, monasteries were not subject to the
brewing bans regularly handed down by Bavarian rulers,
such as when crop failures meant that grain had to be
reserved for the making of bread.
A signal event in German brewing history took
place a short distance from Weihenstephan in fngol
stadt, Germany, in 1516, when the first Reinheitsgebot
(Beer Purity Law) was declared. Until then there was no
restriction on the ingredients that could be used when
making beer lor retail sale, and these typically included
herbs, fruit, and even the bark of trees. Under the new
law, however, brewers were allowed to use only barley,
hops, and water. The official reason for the act was to
conserve wheat and rye crops exclusively for the baking
of bread. Yeast was added to this list later, and to this
day in Germany only those lour ingredients (barley,
hops, yeast, and water) can be used in the brewing and
selling of anything called beer.
ROYAL WHEAT BEER IS LICENSED
While the lion s share of Weihenstephan’s beers would
one day be Weissbier, brewed with wheat rather than
32 INTERNATIONA! DIRECTORY OE COMPANY HISTORIES, VOLUME 164
barley, production of wheat beer at the time was
licensed to one man only, the baron of Dennenberg,
who was granted permission by the German duke who
had enacted the purity law. I he royal monopoly on
wheat beer was jealously guarded. Wheat beers were of
higher quality than the so-called brown beers brewed ar
Weihenstephan and other breweries. They were
extremely popular, so much so that they became the
main source of income of their licensees.
As the Middle Ages drew to a close German brew-
ing was undergoing massive changes. By the 1600s
improved equipment and innovations in brewing
techniques had transformed brewing from primarily a
small local activity to a large preindustrial export
business. Beer tasted better and beer consumption grew
continually, in part because beer was safer to drink than
water, which was often polluted and a carrier of diseases.
The making of brown beer had developed to such an
extent, in fact, that its popularity began to overtake that
of the wheat beers. That trend continued for rhe next
three centuries. By 1812 demand for wheat beers had
declined to such an extent that nearly all rhe royal
breweries that had been making it were sold or closed
down. The right to brew Weizenbier was extended to all
brewers. The right was an empty one for many years,
though, because wheat beers had passed completely out
of style.
Ihe Revolutionary and Napoleonic Eras also
contributed significantly to the trend democratizing the
industry. The French Revolution, however, also brought
an end to most brewing by German monasteries, includ-
ing Weihenstephan in Freising. When the armies of
antireligious, revolutionary France overran German
lands, they seized monasteries and their lands, and
dispossessed the clergy as had already been done in
France. In 1803 they forced the closing of rhe Benedic-
tine monastery in Freising. Its buildings and grounds
passed into the secular ownership of rhe kingdom of
Bavaria. Brewing operations there continued, however,
under the administration of the Royal Holdings at
Schliessheim.
EDUCATIONAL AND RESEARCH
FACILITIES
In 1852 the Weihenstephan brewery established its first
ties with an educational institution when the Central
College of Agriculture moved to Freising. The school
included a brewing program and Weihenstephan’s brew-
ing facilities began to be used to train apprentice
brewers. I he school was reorganized into an academy in
1895 and in 1919 became the University of Agriculture
and Brewing. In 1930 it was merged into the Technical
College of Munich.

KEY DATES
768: First beer is brewed at Weihenstephan
Monastery.
1040:
Weihenstephan Monastery is granted license
to brew beer and sell it to the public.
1516: Declaration of the German Beer Purity Law.
1803: Weihenstephan Monastery is closed and
properties pass into the ownership of the
Bavarian king.
1852: Jprst brewing educational activities in partner-
ship widi Central College of Agriculture
begin.
1855: Experimental Station for Brewing Technology
is established.
1923: Company is incorporated.
1928: First wheat beer is brewed.
2009: Company works with Boston Brewing
Company to create Infinium beer.
2010: Contract is signed to brew Kirin beer in
Bavaria.
In addition, in 1855 a Bavarian privy councilor
established the Experimental Station for Brewing
Technology, a private-sector attempt to promote innova-
tion in brewing and to develop practical knowledge that
could be used by small and middle-sized breweries in
Bavaria. The facility, renamed the Testing and
Experimental Station for Brewing Technology, was
relocated to Weihenstephan in 1892. 1 he Bavarian
government took over control of rhe station in 1922
and placed it under the administration of Munich’s
Technical College as part of its Department of Brewing
Technology. The starion continues operations in the
21st century as the Weihenstephan Research Center for
Brewing and Food Quality. As a result of its close as-
social ion with these educational institutions, the
Weihenstephan brewery has become one of the world’s
leading centers for research into rhe science of making
beer.
WEISS BEER BREWED IN 1928
In 1923 the brewery and its training and research facili-
ties were renamed Bayerische Staatsbrauerei Weihen-
stephan, or Bavarian Stare Brewery Weihenstephan. The
company first began brewing its popular line of wheat
beers in the same decade. Wheat beers had eventually
returned to popular favor again in the late 19th century
after the family of Georg Schneider purchased the old
INTERNATIONAL DIRECTORY OF COMPANY HISTORIES, VOLUME 164
Bayerische Staatsbrauerei Weihenstephan
Bavarian royal brewery and put it back into operation.
Weihenstephan took note of weiss beer’s new popularity
after the end of World War I, but it was not until 1928
(hat it brought its first wheat beer onto the market, a
Kristallweizen it called Champagnerweizen, or
champagne wheat beer. Weihenstephan Weizen was slow
to rake off, sales grew but slowly. By the 1960s,
however, the company had firmly established its reputa-
tion as the maker of Germany’s finest weiss beers. By
1972 most of the beer Weihenstephan was brewing was
wheat beer and it was being distributed to stores and
taverns throughout Germany. The company’s produc-
tion was severely curtailed by the outbreak of World
War II. German beer production as a whole fell from
31.3 million barrels in 1939, rhe first year of rhe war, to
8.6 million barrels in 1949, four years after rhe war s
end. Production picked up again rapidly in the 1950s,
so much so that demand overwhelmed Weihenstephan s
facilities. As a consequence, a wide-ranging renovation
program was launched. The brew house was modern-
ized; new fermentation tanks were installed, and larger
lagering cellars were built. The new facilities were state
of the art and expected to carry Weihenstephan through
the rest of the century.
In the late 1990s the Bavarian government an-
nounced the privatization of Weihenstephan Dairy,
another state-owned company located near, but
independent of, the brewery. That decision set off
rumors that the brewery was to be sold as well.
Although the rumors were quashed, in 1999 officials in
the Bavarian department of finance made clear that
Bavaria planned to encourage much closer cooperation
between Weihenstephan and another stare-owned
brewery, Staatliches Hofbräuhaus München, the Munich
Hofbräuhaus.
The synergies thus created, it was hoped, would en-
able both companies to better compete in Germany’s
tightening beer market, where the dominant trends for
the previous two decades had been steadily lower beer
consumption and constant downward pressure on beer
prices. Nonetheless, Weihenstephan was able to turn a
small profit on revenues of DEM 29 million, ap-
proximately $15.7 million in 1999. The Hofbräuhaus
boosted its sales slightly that year as well, which seemed
to bode well for the planned cooperation. Under the
cooperation agreement, the two breweries would
maintain the independence of their production and
planning but share back office operations such as
personnel and accounting.
FLOUTING THE TREND
By rhe early years of rhe first decade of the 21st century
the dismal trend that had taken hold of the German
3.3
Bayerische Staatsbrauerei Weihenstephan
beer market was impossible to ignore. In 2002 bottled
water had passed beer as Germans’ most popular cold
drink. Per capita consumption was in decline, with
younger Germans buying more nonalcoholic fruit bever-
ages; when they did purchase alcohol, they were opting
more for spirits than beer. At the same time, the cost of
brewing, including energy, glass, and beer ingredients,
was climbing steadily.
Weihenstephan managed consistently to buck this
trend. In 2005 it boosted the amount of beer it sold
from 216,000 hectoliters to 220,000 hectoliters, an
increase of about 1,000 gallons. At the same time, its
revenues climbed 3 percent to EUR 19 million (about
$22 million). A prime reason for the company’s success
was that it was one of rhe first German brewers ro make
a concerted effort to market its beers abroad and some
36 percent of the company’s total output was being sold
outside Germany. Frequently, in its foreign markets,
most significantly New York, Weihenstephan beer was
sold as a high-priced, premium beer, in contrast to the
German market trend to force the price of beer as low
as possible. New foreign markets were constantly being
opened in the first decade of the 21st century. In 2005
alone, it began selling its beers in Brazil, Kazakhstan,
Monaco, Poland, Romania, and Russia. Revenues
continued to climb, albeit slowly, and in 2007 they
reached $27.2 million, with profits of about $160,000.
The firm launched an innovative partnership in
2009 when it invited rhe Boston Beer Company, the
makers of Sam Adams beers, to collaborate in the
production of a new beer similar ro others that Sam Ad-
ams had pioneered. This new beer would be known as
an “extreme beer” and would respect the extreme limita-
tions imposed by the Reinheitsgebot. In order to achieve
this, new brewing techniques had to be developed. The
result was Infinium, a beer that Jim Koch, the founder
of the Boston Beer Company, described in a 2010
interview with Modern Brewing Age as “a beer that sirs in
between a champagne, a good dessert wine, and a Sam
Adams Noble Pils. Public reactions to the new brew
were mixed.
2010 DEAL WITH KIRIN
Another collaboration was begun in 2010. Weihen-
stephan signed a deal to brew Kirin Ichiban beer in
Bavaria. 1 he beer was Japanese, but since it was being
brewed in Germany, it too had to conform to the
strictures of the Reinheitsgebot. Corn starch and rice,
both essential ingredients of the Japanese recipe, could
not be used and new ways had to be found to brew
34 INTERNATIONAL DIRECTORY OH COMPANY HISTORIES, VOLUME 164
European Kirin that tasted like the Kirin in Japan. The
deal with Weihenstephan was intended to lower the
costs of transport for Kirin and to improve its quality by
getting the beer onto store shelves more quickly.
Weihenstephan continued to strengthen its export
sales in the following years. Between 2003 and 2013
export destinations exploded from 1 1 countries to 42.
The efforts were not always easy. Exporting a foodstuff,
and an alcoholic beverage at that, to nearly 50 countries
required adherence to many sets of laws concerning bot-
tling and labeling. Moreover, ensuring delivery in a
timely manner proved a challenge. In 2012 India was
added to the roster, with distribution in seven major cit-
ies, Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata, Goa, Bangalore, and
Chennai.
Weihenstephan’s most important export market
during this time was the United States, in particular in
New York City, where its beers were considered a
gourmet delicacy. Other strong foreign markets for the
company were Austria and Italy. With a shrinking and
unprofitable domestic market, export growth was likely
to remain an important priority at Weihenstephan in
the coming years. The brewery wotdd undoubtedly
continue to pursue joint projects with foreign breweries
as well, in the spirit of innovation that has been a signet
of Weihenstephan for more than 1,000 years.
Gerald E. Brennan
PRINCIPAL COMPETITORS
Augustiner-Bräu Wagner KG; Hacker-Pschorr Bräu
GmbH; Paulaner Brauerei GmbH & Co KG; Privat-
brauerei Erdinger Weissbräu; Spaten-Franziskaner-Bräu
GmbH; Weisses Brauhaus G. Schneider & Sohn
GmbH.
FURTHER READING
“Boston Beer to Roll Out Infinium.” Modern Brewery Age,
November 12, 2010.
"Glass Hall l ull for the German Beer Industry.” Irish Times,
April 19, 2014.
“1,000 Years Later. Germans Still Brewing.” April 18, 2014.
http://www.businessworld.com.
Risen, ( lay. 'When Bad Beers Haprpen to Good Breweries.”
Atlantic, January 19, 2011.
Wang Fangqing. “Kirin Holdings Signs Brewing Deal.” /ust-
Drinks, August 10, 1020.
Wchring, Oily. “Weihenstephan Enters India through Cerana
Tie-Up.” Just-Drinks, June 11, 2012.