Wicküler brewery
| Wicküler Brewery GmbH
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|---|---|
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| legal form | GmbH |
| founding | 1845 in Elberfeld ( Wuppertal ) |
| Seat | Dortmund |
| management | Thomas Schneider, Guido Mockel, Uwe Helmich |
| Branch | Brewery of Radeberger Group |
| Website | wickueler.de |
| Status: 2020 | |
The Wicküler brewery was founded as a house brewery by Franz Ferdinand Joseph Wicküler in Elberfeld in 1845 and was the leading brewery in the Bergisches Land from the end of the 19th century to the end of the 20th century . An independent brewery no longer exists today. The Wicküler Pils brand has been produced by the Dortmunder Actien brewery on behalf of the Radeberger Group since 1992 . Wicküler Radler is produced and bottled by the Frisian Brewery in Jever .
history
The Wickülers came from the Cologne suburb of Mülheim , where they practiced handicrafts in the 18th century . At the beginning of the 19th century, members of the Wicküler family worked in Münstereifel as innkeepers , bakers and brandy brewers.
Franz Ferdinand Joseph Wicküler
Franz Ferdinand Joseph Wicküler (born January 13, 1813 in Münstereifel ; † 1882) was married to Friederike Wilhelmine Hildebrandt , who was the same age . Lured by the commercial and religious opportunities of the Bergisches Land and the accompanying boom in brewery start-ups, Franz Ferdinand Joseph Wicküler settled from Münstereifel in Elberfeld between 1842 and 1845. In 1845 Franz Ferdinand ran the brewery with restaurant Im Fürsten Blücher in Elberfelder Wilhelmstraße , which he moved to Mühlenstraße in November 1846 . In 1853 he acquired several rock cellars and land at Ronsdorfer Straße 5, at that time the Distelbeck , and set up a brewery and the summer restaurant Auf der Klüse there .
Franz Joseph Wicküler
His third child, Franz Joseph Wicküler (born October 15, 1851 in Elberfeld; † August 17, 1916 in Mühldorf am Inn ) grew up with his siblings Anton Robert (born October 19, 1847) and Wilhelmine Antonie (born May 25, 1849) in this Environment. He showed an early interest in brewing and in 1876 took over the management of the brewery as the remaining son (after the death of his older brother on April 25, 1867) (sole owner since 1882). Because of a well- founded complaint , he was not called up for military service and assigned to reserve reserve 2 . He married Laura Küpper (born July 11, 1854) in Elberfeld on October 17, 1876 , the daughter of Gustav Küpper (owner of the Küpper brewery ) and Julie Heiderhoff . The Wickülers were Catholic and the Küppers Reformed denomination , so long-term business interests were suspected behind the marriage. The couple soon separated. Franz Joseph Wicküler later lived with his partner from aristocratic circles.
Wicküler separated from the restaurants and in 1877 set up a modernization plan for the local sales market with a population of 200,000. In the following years the cellar structures for fermentation rooms were expanded several times , in 1883 a brewhouse was built, in 1884 mechanical cooling was introduced, and in 1886 two steam engines were installed to drive the malt mills . The beer output increased sixfold compared to 1876 to 31,189 hectoliters . On March 8, 1887, the company was transformed into the Wicküler Brewery Aktien-Gesellschaft with a share capital of 1.5 million gold marks . On June 2, 1887, Wicküler started producing Pilsner beer . In 1896 the company merged with the Küpper brewery, which had got into financial difficulties due to its strong dependency on exports . The share capital was increased to 3.5 million gold marks. With the merger, the Wicküler-Küpper-Brauerei Aktiengesellschaft moved into the front row of the large West German breweries. In 1899/1900 the production of 200,000 hl was exceeded for the first time. The brewery's exports grew rapidly through the acquisition of patents for the preservation of beer for shipping to tropical countries, among others. In 1909, the Wicküler brewery introduced bottled beer. In 1912 the machine park consisted of seven steam boilers with a heating surface of 785 m², four steam engines with a total of 600 HP, eight ammonia compressors and five dynamo machines .
At the end of the 1905/06 financial year, Franz Joseph Wicküler had to resign as chairman of the board of the stock corporation for health reasons, and he had to give up his work on the supervisory board because of his stay in the mental hospital Bonn - Endeich . In the last years of his life he was represented in the management by the brewery expert director Gottlieb Hellmannsberger. On August 17, 1916, Wicküler died of a serious nervous disease. He left no descendants; his only child, Franz Walther Wicküler , died on May 23, 1877 at the age of twenty days. Under the direction of Franz Joseph Wicküler, production increased fifty-fold between 1876 and 1916, he left behind one of the leading breweries in the Bergisch area, measured by capital and operating equipment, production, export and the size of the building.
The time after Franz Joseph Wicküler
From 1916 to 1971 the company operated as Wicküler-Küpper Brauerei GmbH , Elberfelder Straße , Bendahl , Barmen. Shortly after his death, the concentration of the breweries planned by Franz Joseph Wicküler and finally carried out at the beginning of 1917 took place through the dissolution of the brewery on Ronsdorfer Straße and the unification of the entire beer production in the Bendahler department ( 51 ° 15 ′ 19.7 ″ N , 7 ° 9 ′ 55 ″ O ). Occurring raw material shortages and through call- related shortage of labor during the First and Second World War led to a decline in production and export business. During the Second World War, the company lost two thirds of its production facilities and the important markets of Saxony , Silesia and large parts of central Germany . However, Wicküler soon resumed its previous market position after the brewery's kegs and bottles were already represented worldwide in 1948/49. The Küppers-Kölsch brand , the Adler brewery , the Gesenberg brewery , the Waldschloß brewery and finally the Carl Bremme brewery were bought; Wicküler participated in Sion and Reginaris .
At the beginning of the 1980s, the Werhahn family, with 96% share ownership, converted the brewery with 600 employees into a limited partnership and thus back into a private brewery . At the end of the 1980s the company had 1,300 employees. In 1990 job savings (excluding layoffs) were announced; Brewing capacities were to be relocated from Wuppertal to Cologne, but draft beer production was to remain in the city. However, the Werhahn family sold the group to the Dutch Grolsch brewery. All efforts, including those of Prime Minister Johannes Rau , were unsuccessful. Nothing remained of the Wuppertal brewery location, production was completely relocated to Küppers-Kölsch in Cologne . Part of the brewery was to be relocated to the former Waldschloß site on Märkische Strasse, but production at the Carl Bremme brewery also ended in 1992. Of the 439 employees in Wuppertal, more than 200 lost their jobs, and the bottling plant at Bendahl was soon closed. Grolsch sold the company in 1994 to the Dortmund group Brau und Brunnen , which since 2004 has been part of the Radeberger Group in the Dr. August Oetker KG . Brewing was initially continued in Cologne, and from 1996 onwards in the Dortmund Union brewery . Finally, the Wicküler head office with 54 jobs, which still existed in Wuppertal, was closed.
Products
Former beers
- Wicküler export
- Wicküler Pils (also bottled for Deutsche Lufthansa )
- Wickuler Kern Malz (forerunner of the Wicküler malt beer )
- Wicküler Alt
- Wicküler Stern beer (before 1930)
- Wicküler Zweock ( strong beer with high original gravity )
- Wibbel Alt
- Küppers Kölsch
Current types of beer
- Wicküler Pilsener
- D-Pils (for diabetics )
- Wrapper Radler
production
| year | Hectoliters |
|---|---|
| 1876 | 5,000 |
| 1886 | 31,189 |
| 1889/1890 | 55.006 |
| 1894/1895 | 75,401 |
| 1899/1900 | 200,000 |
| 1914/1915 | 266.912 |
| 1957/1958 | 750,000 |
| 1987 | 800,000 (1) |
(1) only Wicküler Pils
Others
- Wicküler sponsored numerous cultural events such as the music city of Wuppertal , the song projects Wuppertaler Kulturpromenade , cultural-historical hikes and Bergisch dialect competitions.
- The Wuppertal Medal was awarded annually from 1980 until the Wuppertal site was closed by the brewery together with the Westdeutsche Zeitung to exemplary citizens of Wuppertal.
- With the slogan "! Guys ... Wicküler beer" encouraged three horse and laughing Musketeers in the TV - advertising "after a long day ride" to enjoy Wicküler Pilsner .
- Wicküler advertising was often seen in the Wuppertal sky on an airship of the WDL Luftschiffgesellschaft in the 1970s under the nickname The Flying Musketeer .
- In Wuppertal-Unterbarmen, at the corner of Bendahler and Elberfelder Strasse, there is the Wicküler fountain .
- On October 15, 1996, the Wicküler City shopping center was opened in Wuppertal- Unterbarmen .
- Among other things, Wicküler-Küpper received the order to supply all European troops with beer during the Boxer Rebellion in China .
literature
- Home chronicle of the city of Wuppertal. 1960, pp. 414-416
- Wuppertal Biographies, Bergischer Geschichtsverein eV, Dept. Wuppertal
Web links
- Aerial view of the brewery around 1970
- Early documents and newspaper articles on the Wicküler brewery in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
Individual evidence
- ^ Björn Thomann: Franz Joseph Wicküler (1851-1916), brewing entrepreneur. Landschaftsverband Rheinland, accessed on April 16, 2016 .
- ↑ Martin Andree: Media make brands: a media theory of marketing and consumption. Frankfurt a. M., New York 2010, p. 82.
- ↑ Ulla Dahmen and Klaus Koch: Men like us: Slogan lives on ( Memento from August 18, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), Westdeutsche Zeitung from February 5, 2005.