Schloßbrauerei Kaltenberg

The era of kings, nobility and court is long gone - at least in Germany. The last monarch wielded his sceptre in 1918, after which the country became a democratic republic. What remains is a series of noble families that hardly have any political function these days. Instead, the princes and princesses are business people or support charitable causes. Luitpold Rupprecht Heinrich Prince of Bavaria, for example, studied law and today runs both the Nymphenburg Porcelain Manufactory and the König Ludwig Schlossbrauerei Kaltenberg.

A brief outline of royal beer history

Long before the current Prince of Bavaria was even born, his ancestors were already directing the brewery's fortunes. Duke Ludwig II commissioned the construction of the Fürstenfeld monastery after having his wife executed for reasons that later turned out to be false. The castle brewery is located there today. He was also the one who brought the brewing business to Munich: in 1255 he ordered the construction of a ducal brewery, laying the foundation for the city's beer history. And Munich's development into the world's white beer capital is also thanks to a Wittelsbach monarch. In order to get a large mountain of debt under control, Maximilian I of Bavaria established wheat beer, which had previously been largely banned. With ducal privilege, he granted brewing rights and catapulted the beer style to the top. A positive side effect was excellent revenues, which brought the state budget back into balance. Another relative of the current managing director is the founder of the Oktoberfest. The occasion for the first grandiose celebration on what is now the Theresienwiese was the wedding of Crown Prince Ludwig and Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen. Another king with a beer influence was King Ludwig II, who was interested in science as well as art and music and supported the establishment of the Royal Polytechnic School in Munich. Beer research was carried out there from the very beginning and the key figure in modern refrigeration systems, Carl Linde, presented his discoveries on refrigeration machines in a lecture there. During all this time, the finest beer was brewed in the King Ludwig Castle Brewery in Kaltenberg.

The best of eight centuries

However, it was Prince Luitpold of Bavaria who led the company to true success. It was thanks to his tireless efforts that the company underwent comprehensive modernization. The prince placed his bets on the then rather unusual dark beer and achieved great success with it. Today, the brewery's product range consists of a selection of hand-brewed specialties, which are produced using modern technology and from selected raw materials. The brewery team draws its knowledge from an incredible 800 years of brewing experience, which you can taste!