Brauerei Ottakringer
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Ottakringer () is the last large
brewery A brewery or brewing company is a business that makes and sells beer. The place at which beer is commercially made is either called a brewery or a beerhouse, where distinct sets of brewing equipment are called plant. The commercial brewing of bee ...
remaining in
Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...
,
Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
, and is located in
Ottakring Ottakring () is the 16th District in the city of Vienna, Austria (german: 16. Bezirk, Ottakring). It is located west of the central districts, north of Penzing and south of Hernals. Ottakring has some heavily populated urban areas with many resid ...
, the 16th district of Vienna.


History

The Ottakringer brewery was opened in 1837 by the master miller Heinrich Plank under the name of ''Planksche Brauerei'', after the ruling diocese of
Klosterneuburg Klosterneuburg (; frequently abbreviated as Kloburg by locals) is a town in Tulln District in the Austrian state of Lower Austria. It has a population of about 27,500. The Klosterneuburg Monastery, which was established in 1114 and soon after gi ...
had granted approval for brewing. In 1850, it was taken over and expanded into a large brewery by the cousins, Ignaz and Jakob Kuffner from Lundenburg. Within ten years, the production increased from 18,318 hl to 64,183 hl. When Kaiser
Franz Joseph Franz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I (german: Franz Joseph Karl, hu, Ferenc József Károly, 18 August 1830 – 21 November 1916) was Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, and the other states of the Habsburg monarchy from 2 December 1848 until his ...
ordered that the city walls be pulled down and a large number of residential buildings began to be built, Ottakringer grew as well. A new fermentation cellar and a larger warehouse went into operation. Around 1890, the production was already at about 170,000 hl.
Moriz von Kuffner Moriz von Kuffner (30 January 1854 – 5 March 1939) was a Jewish-Austrian industrialist, art collector, mountaineer and philanthropist. From the 1880s to the early 1910s he made a fortune in the brewery business, and became a significant sponsor ...
, the son of Ignaz von Kuffner, took over the brewery in 1882 and increased the production to over 350,000 hl in the last year before the
war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...
, a quantity which was not again reached between the World Wars. In 1905, Kuffner converted the brewery into a joint-stock company. Even before the
annexation of Austria The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germany ...
by
Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
Germany, Moriz von Kuffner was forced to sell his business because of his
Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
background. It was sold for a rather low price of 14 million
Austrian schilling The schilling (German: ''Schilling'') was the currency of Austria from 1925 to 1938 and from 1945 to 1999, and the circulating currency until 2002. The euro was introduced at a fixed parity of €1 = 13.7603 schilling to replace it. The schil ...
s (about 36 million euros at today's values) to Gustav Harmer, who was also forced out of the business for two years after the war. After the liberation by the Allies, the brewery was temporarily managed by the Russians, before the Harmer family managed to legally prove their purchase and again manufactured 150,000 hl as of 1955. The heirs of Moriz von Kuffner, who had died in
Zürich , neighboring_municipalities = Adliswil, Dübendorf, Fällanden, Kilchberg, Maur, Oberengstringen, Opfikon, Regensdorf, Rümlang, Schlieren, Stallikon, Uitikon, Urdorf, Wallisellen, Zollikon , twintowns = Kunming, San Francisco Z ...
in the meantime, were compensated because of their expulsion and the threats of the Nazi regime, which had led to the sale of the business to the Harmer family. In 1977, the brewery considerably contributed to the breaking up of the beer
cartel A cartel is a group of independent market participants who collude with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the market. Cartels are usually associations in the same sphere of business, and thus an alliance of rivals. Mos ...
by withdrawing from it. From that time on, any restaurant could choose whichever
beer Beer is one of the oldest and the most widely consumed type of alcoholic drink in the world, and the third most popular drink overall after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches, mainly derived from ce ...
brewery it wanted as a supplier, independently of its location. In 1986, Ottakringer was listed on the stock exchange. In 1989, bottling in the brown bottles usually used in Austria was stopped and Ottakringer was the first brewery in Austria to introduce the well-known green "shoulder bottles". In 2007, the company initiated a joint partnership with an
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
ian company to build a factory in
Tehran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...
for producing non-alcoholic beer.BBCPersian.com
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Structure of the company

The parent company, Ottakringer Holding AG, which is owned by families Wenckheim, Menz, Trauttenberg and Pfusterschmid, hold 88% shares of Ottakringer Getränke AG, the Ottakringer Getränke AG owns 6% of the shares, the rest of the shares are held in free float. The parent company also owns the mineral water manufacturer, Vöslauer, which is located in
Bad Vöslau Bad Vöslau (; Central Bavarian: ''Bod Vöslau'') is a spa town in the Lower Austria federal state of Austria. It is also known as the cradle of the Austrian red wine cultivation. Population (2008): 11,190. Geography Bad Vöslau is located 35&nb ...
.


Products

The most popular brand is ''Ottakringer Helles'', a beer with an alcohol content of 5.2% and a
wort Wort () is the liquid extracted from the mashing process during the brewing of beer or whisky. Wort contains the sugars, the most important being maltose and maltotriose, that will be fermented by the brewing yeast to produce alcohol. Wort als ...
of 11.8° Plato. Other brands are the ''Goldfassl'' special beer or ''Goldfassl Pils'', a light,
pilsner Pilsner (also pilsener or simply pils) is a type of pale lager. It takes its name from the Bohemian city of Plzeň (german: Pilsen), where the world's first pale lager (now known as Pilsner Urquell) was produced in 1842 by Pilsner Urquell Bre ...
-style beer, as well as the ''Ottakringer
Radler Shandy is beer or cider mixed with a lemon or a lemon-lime flavored beverage. The citrus beverage, often called lemonade, may or may not be carbonated. The proportions of the two ingredients are adjusted to taste but are usually half lemonade ...
'', which is a mixture of 50% Helles and 50% lemonade. Also in the range of products is the nearly alcohol-free beer, ''Null Komma Josef'', whose brandname is an allusion to its alcohol content of under 0.5%. In contrast, the brewery's strongest beer (7.6% alcohol) is the ''Ottakringer
Bock Bock is a strong beer in Germany, usually a dark lager. Several substyles exist, including: *Doppelbock (''Double Bock''), a stronger and maltier version *Eisbock (''Ice Bock''), a much stronger version made by partially freezing the beer and ...
'', which is only produced for special occasions (Christmas and Easter). The company also produces ''Ottakringer Dunkles'', a dark beer, ''Ottakringer G'mischtes'', a mixture of light and dark beer, ''Ottakringer Zwickl'', an unfiltered light beer, and ''Ottakringer Zwickl Rot'', a darker unfiltered beer brewed with melanoidin malt.


Trivia

The Viennese have a special expression for the canned beer, ''16er-Blech'' (16-plate), mainly for the ''Ottakringer Helles''. The expression, ''16er-Hüs'n'', is also used for both the bottled and the canned beer. These are references to the origin of the beer in the 16th district of Vienna and the can that contains it. At the beginning of 2007, the brewery took advantage of this and marketed a new kind of canned beer under the name of ''16er Blech''. Various rooms of the brewery can also be used as an event location. The brewery has sponsored the Austrian football champions
SK Rapid Wien Sportklub Rapid Wien (), commonly known as Rapid Vienna, is an Austrian football club playing in the country's capital city of Vienna. Rapid has won the most Austrian championship titles (32), including the first title in the season 1911–12, ...
for many years.


References


External links

* {{Authority control Manufacturing companies based in Vienna Food and drink companies based in Vienna Beer in Austria 1837 establishments in the Austrian Empire Buildings and structures in Ottakring Companies acquired from Jews under Nazi rule