Today is the birthday of Carl Dinkelacker (January 26, 1863-September 5, 1934). He was born in Böblingen, Landkreis Böblingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. In 1888, he founded the Dinkelacker Brewery in Stuttgart, Germany, and by the end of the 19th century, it was the largest brewery in town. In 1996, it merged with Schwaben Bräu, which is also located in Stuttgart to create Dinkelacker-Schwaben Bräu, but in 2004 was acquired by InBev. More recently, it again became an independent family-owned company in 2007, called Dinkelacker-Schwaben Bräu GmbH & Co. KG. Unfortunately, there’s not much biographical information I could find about Carl.
Here’s a short history of the brewery from Hobby db:
The brewery Dinkelacker is a Swabian brewery. It was founded in 1888 by Carl Dinkelacker in Tübinger Strasse in Stuttgart, where even today a brewery of the company is located. The founding was a challenge as there were already many established breweries in the area at that time. However, the brewery withstood the competitive pressure, so that it was one of the largest breweries in Stuttgart at the end of the 19th century. The annual production in 2013 was approximately 600,000 hectoliters.
In 1994, the actually competing breweries Dinkelacker and Schwaben Bräu opened a joint logistics center under the name Dinkelacker-Schwaben Bräu Logistik (DSL) . In 1996, Dinkelacker and Schwaben Bräu merged to form Dinkelacker-Schwaben Bräu AG in order to be able to survive in the increasingly difficult market. In 2003 InBevexpanded to the German market. The company took over the beer division of the Spaten-Franziskaner-BräuGmbH, which was also the majority shareholder of Dinkelacker-Schwaben Bräu AG. Thus, Dinkelacker operated from October 1, 2004 to December 31, 2006 under the umbrella of InBev. Since 2 January 2007 Dinkelacker together with Schwaben Bräu under the name Dinkelacker-Schwaben Bräu GmbH & Co. KG is again an independent family-owned company.
The brand has been available in the U.S. off and on over the years, including being served at the New York World’s Fair in 1964. While I attended that World’s Fair, I did not sample the being, being only five years old at the time.
Brewery wagon in the early 20th century.
The brewery today.
