Today is the birthday of Josef Sedlmayr (July 18, 1808-March 12, 1886). He was the son of Gabriel Sedlmayr, who owned Spaten brewery, and Josef owned the Franziskaner brewery, though the two breweries later merged.
Joseph Sedlmayr in 1861
Here’s a very short biography on Find a Grave:
Owner of the Franziskaner Brewery in Munich, which was established near the Franciscan Monastery in Munich in 1363. Up to and during Sedlmayr’s time it was known as the Franziskaner-Leistbrauerei.
According to Spaten’s website (which owns Franziskaner today)
At the same time, one of the sons of Gabriel Sedlmayr – Joseph, was the owner of the brewery Leist (Leistbrauerei), which dates back to the fifteenth century.
In 1858, he bought shares in the Franziskaner brewery, and from 1861 Joseph Sedlmayr becomes its sole owner.
In 1865, the entire production of the brewery Leist is transferred to the Franziskaner-Brauerei.
At Oktoberfest in 1872 becomes presented a new beer with an amber colour, which gave rise a new style known since then as Marzenbier.
And here’s a timeline from the Sheehan Family Companies website:
- 1363 – Franziskaner’s roots can be traced back to 1363. It was in this year that the brewer Seidel Vaterstetter is first mentioned as the owner of the ‘brewery next to the Franciscans’ in the Munich Residenzstrasse. The name ‘Franziskaner’ derives from the Franciscan monastery diagonally across the street.
- 1841 – The Franziskaner Brewery moves to Lilienberg in Munich’s eastern suburb of Au. In the same year Augustin Deiglmayr, a son-in-law of Spaten’s owner Gabriel Sedlmayr the Elder, buys the Residenzstrasse brewery.
- 1861 – Joseph Sedlmayr, owner of the Leist Brewery (probably founded in the 15th century) and son of Spaten’s Gabriel Sedlmayr the Elder, buys out August Deiglmayr, with whom he has been co-running the Residenzstrasse brewery since 1858.
- 1865 – The Leist Brewery in Sendlinger Strasse stops its brewing operations, which are now left entirely to the Franziskaner Brewery.
- 1872 – ‘Ur-Märzen’, the amber-colored Oktoberfest beer from Franziskaner-Leist, is served for the first time at the Schottenhamel Tent on the Oktoberfest fairgrounds. Brewed from a Viennese recipe, this golden-yellow beer is stronger than the summer beer.
- 1909 – Gabriel Sedlmayr III, the son of Joseph Sedlmayr, turns the Franziskaner-Leist Brewery into a family-owned joint stock company, the ‘Joseph Sedlmayr Zum Franziskanerkeller (Leistbräu) AG’.
- 1922 – The Franziskaner-Leist Brewery and the Spaten Brewery, likewise owned by the Sedlmayr family, unite to form a single joint stock company, the ‘Gabriel und Joseph Sedlmayr Spaten-Franziskaner-Leistbräu AG’, in order to combat the economic problems of the crisis-ridden postwar years and to capitalize on synergies.
- 1935 – The Munich artist Ludwig Hohlwein designs the company’s distinctive trademark, which is still used today. The Franciscan Friar continues to stand for the unsurpassed quality of Franziskaner’s premium weiss beer.
Curiously, the iconic Franziskaner image of the monk that’s used on their labels was only created in 1935
