The Birth of the Scientific Brewer: International Networks and Knowledge Transfer in Central European Beer Brewing, 1794–1895

Abstract

Decades before beer brewing transformed into a truly global industry toward the end of the nineteenth century, Central Europe – primarily the Habsburg monarchy and the German states – emerged as a sort of laboratory in which networks were forged, new inventions tested, new beer sorts copied, and in which people, knowledge, and materials traveled back and forth, resulting in an increasing convergence of the trade and a standardization of the product. Since the end of the eighteenth century, Central European beer brewing increasingly relied on technological innovation and scientific knowledge; brewers became an internationally mobile, educated class which formed a loose community with contacts to one another. Following the careers of four Central European brewers, František Ondřej Poupě, Gabriel Sedlmayr senior and his son, Gabriel Sedlmayr junior, and Anton Schwarz, this article demonstrates how the dense network of contacts, the advent of scientific brewing, and the knowledge transfer within the region helped set the stage for the boom of the industry from the 1870s on.