Diamond Brewery
The Diamant Brewery was a beer brewery in Magdeburg , which emerged from a brewery stock corporation through nationalization in 1947 and was taken over by the brewing group Brau und Brunnen in 1991 . Until it was closed in 1994, the brewery was located on the Lübecker Straße 127/128 property in the Neue Neustadt district .
history
Predecessor 1841–1871
On April 5, 1841, the brothers Albert and Hermann Wernecke founded the A. & brewery in their parents' house, the Bayerischer Hof on Berliner Strasse in Magdeburg . H. Wernecke . Albert Wernecke was a trained brewer, his brother trained as a businessman in the grain and banking business.
As early as 1843, due to the steadily increasing demand, a larger area had to be bought in the Neustadt to increase the production capacity. In the founding year, 1383 hectoliters of beer were produced, in 1853 it was 10,000 hectoliters and in 1870 it was already 70,000 hectoliters.
Since the brewery now had all the necessary machines, systems and buildings as well as its own 40 hp steam engine for the brewery, it was decided to convert the company into a stock corporation . The sudden death of Hermann Wernecke and a long illness of his brother Albert accelerated these plans.
Actien brewery Neustadt-Magdeburg 1871–1947
On August 18, 1871, the Actien brewery Neustadt-Magdeburg was founded with a share capital of 900,000 thalers or 2.7 million marks . Initially, the company was headed by the sick Albert Wernecke. In 1876 management passed to Gustav Wernecke, a son of the late Hermann Wernecke. He became the sole director in 1876. Albert Wernecke died in 1879 at the age of only 59.
Thanks to Gustav Wernecke's commitment, in the 1880s the brewery was one of the few in the region to have its own ice house, a well system, powerful steam engines and its own malt house . A factory railway also ran on the 77,000 m² site at the time. 180 employees were employed in 1888.
In 1905 the brewery acquired the Feldschlößchen brewery in Wittenberg including its malt house and in 1922 formed an interest group with the Leipziger Bierbrauerei zu Reudnitz Riebeck & Co. AG in Leipzig with mutual investments.
In the mid-1920s, the company owned catering establishments in Magdeburg in addition to the Bayerischer Hof (the ancestral home of the Wernecke family), the Fürstenhof , the Reichshalle and the Wilhelma . The management board at that time was made up of Tielko Heidebroek (at times also deputy director of the German Brewers' Association ) and Robert Litte , while Gustav Wernecke was still influencing the company as chairman of the supervisory board . Around 1930 Friedrich Scheffsky replaced Heidebroek on the board.
In 1937 the diamond was introduced as a patent-protected figurative mark in connection with the word mark Diamantbier . The advertising slogan “City and Country drinks diamonds!” Also became known far beyond the borders of Magdeburg.
In 1941 the brewery employed 680 people. With this, and with an annual production of almost 250,000 hectoliters of beer, it was the largest brewery in the province of Saxony . Since the overcoming of hyperinflation, the share capital has been 3.4 million Reichsmarks (RM) and increased to 5.1 million RM in 1942 through a capital adjustment (based on the legal basis of the Dividend Tax Ordinance (DAV) of June 12, 1941).
VEB Diamond Brewery Magdeburg-Neustadt 1947–1990
During the Second World War , 70% of the brewery's structures were badly damaged and 30% destroyed. Nevertheless, 79,000 hectoliters of beer were brewed again just one year later. In 1947 the brewery was expropriated and converted into a state-owned company (VEB), and it now traded under the name VEB Diamant-Brauerei Magdeburg-Neustadt .
As early as 1955, the production figures of the pre-war period could be reached again without significant investment in new technology. It was not until the early 1960s that the filling systems were modernized and a kieselguhr filter and pasteurization system were purchased. From 1961 the Diamant brewery became part of the newly founded VEB United Breweries Magdeburg as "Plant I" . ("Plant II" was the Börde brewery (Bodenstein brewery) in the old town , "Plant III" was the Sudenburger brewery in the Magdeburg district of Sudenburg .)
During the GDR era, kvass, a drink popular in the Soviet Union, was also brewed in the Diamant Brewery .
From 1973 to 1976 a longstanding landmark of the brewery was created: the 24 cylindrical, 22 meter high fermentation tanks .
Shortly before the fall of the Wall , the Diamant brewery, the core operation of the VEB Beverage Combine Magdeburg , which was founded in 1969, had an output of 550,000 hectoliters of beer.
After the turn
On January 17, 1991 the Diamant brewery became a 100% subsidiary of the former Erste Kulmbacher Aktienbrauerei (EKU) and thus part of the Brau und Brunnen group . Until 1994 beer was brewed on the premises in the Neue Neustadt. Until the end of the 1990s, Brau und Brunnen had diamond beer produced in other breweries belonging to the group. Then the brand disappeared from the market.
Most of the brewery site on Lübecker Straße became an industrial ruin. Some areas are now used as industrial areas.
New beginning
In 2005 the interest group Diamant-Brauerei Magdeburg was founded as a registered association with the aim of commemorating the history of the Diamant brewery in a museum room.
Since 2006, beer has been brewed again in a small building right next to the former brewery premises by the former production manager, master brewer Friedrich Sliva. Managing directors Carsten Thiele and Bernd Fricke founded the private brewery Diamant Magdeburg GmbH here . In the meantime this brewery has moved to the oldest surviving brewery building, which was built in 1841.
literature
- Handbook of German stock corporations . 30th edition 1925, part 2, p. 4105.
- Handbook of German public companies 37th edition 1932, part 1, p. 1140 ff.
- Handbook of German public companies 48th edition 1943, part 2, p. 1241 f.
- 150 years of the Diamond Brewery Magdeburg. (Festschrift) Magdeburg 1991.
Web links
- Web presence of Diamant Brauhaus M & G Gaststätten und Catering GmbH
- Photos of the former diamond brewery
- Historic brewery beer labels
- Early documents and newspaper articles on the Diamant Brewery in the 20th Century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Historical brewery directory Germany of the federal states Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia from approx. 1900 of the IBV Internationaler Brauereikultur-Verband e. V. , 1995, self-published by IBV, Stuttgart
- ↑ New interest group started work ( Memento from January 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Magdeburger Volksstimme of December 2, 2006
Coordinates: 52 ° 9 ′ 4.7 " N , 11 ° 38 ′ 28.3" E