Tradition since 1731

OeTTINGER Brewery’s story begins in 1731 in what is today the Braugasthof Forstquell Brewery in Fürnheim, in the shadow of the Hesselberg mountain, in Middle Franconia in Bavaria. An ancestral portrait gallery, a large photo collection and a host of quaint brewing artifacts reveal the rich family history. And centuries later, the Kollmars maintain a strictly traditional brewing process here – using the copper brewing vat situated right at the heart of the rustic tavern.

In contrast to many other breweries, which own extensive land and run their own pubs or restaurants, enabling them to secure and grow their beer sales, the Fürnheim brewing family simply lack the financial means for growth until the middle of the 20th century.

However, in 1956, just a few kilometers away in Oettingen, Otto Kollmar successfully raises the funds required to purchase the former “Fürstliche Genossen­schafts­brauerei”. With eight employees to start with, the Kollmars begin large-scale brewing operations for the first time, producing around 5,000 hectoliters (50,000 crates) of the finest OeTTINGER beer every year.

During the 1970s, more and more supermarkets spring up on the outskirts of towns and villages across Germany. By this time, Otto has already passed OeTTINGER’s destiny into the hands of his son Günther. But Günther Kollmar is not just a brewer with heart and soul; he is above all a non-conformist visionary. With the gastronomy sector already well established as a sales channel for all other breweries, Günther quickly spots that the new supermarket infrastructure may well present an opportunity – selling beer for private consumption at home! However, in order for this to be made a reality, the beer must not only taste amazing, it also has to be cheaper than in the gastronomy sector.

Günther Kollmar sets about optimizing all business processes. Thanks to the latest brewing and bottling plants, economies of scale when purchasing, and consistently forgoing advertising and sponsoring across the board, OeTTINGER Brewery is able to produce beer in a far more cost-effective way than its competitors. In order to cut out the cost of middle men, Günther Kollmar chooses to distribute the drinks directly, establishing the company’s own fleet of trucks.

The OeTTINGER concept is born.

Our OeTTINGER Brewery grows. In 1989, a second brewery, plans for which focus on maximum efficiency and sustainability, is put into operation in Oettingen. In fact, a 3.6-kilometer-long subterranean beer pipeline still connects the two locations to this day.

OeTTINGER Brewery experiences its biggest surge in growth with the introduction of can deposits: As a cost-effective alternative, many consumers switch from purchasing beer in cans to buying beer in OeTTINGER’s reusable bottles. The Kollmars realize that they need another production site in order to meet this high demand, eventually opting for the Mönchen­gladbach Brewery in North Rhine-Westphalia. The can filling lines acquired in NRW allow OeTTINGER to venture a step abroad: In order to make use of the facilities, OeTTINGER immediately starts to fill cans for export.
OeTTINGER is transformed into the market leader, remaining Germany’s largest and most successful beer brand for a period of time.

Say goodbye to the wonder years. Beer consumption in Germany steadily falls. Demand for particularly cheap drinks is increasingly on the rise. Cost-effective brands experience a boom. OeTTINGER Brewery, which has been streamlined for efficiency purposes, seizes the opportunity to use its plants to full capacity and partners up with numerous retail chains in the area of production. OeTTINGER expands again, and as a result is in a position to acquire the Brunswick Brewery in Lower Saxony.

The visionary Günther Kollmar passes away in 2013. However, our OeTTINGER Brewery remains a family-run business. Nevertheless, over the centuries, we have grown from being solely beer brewers to flexible and multifaceted drinks manu­facturers. Today, OeTTINGER is one of Germany’s largest beer brands measured by production and ranks as one of the 30 most influential beer brands worldwide. Under our main OeTTINGER brand, we brew and mix more than 30 different drinks. From 2013 onwards, our entire beer range displays the “GMO-free” label. In particular, our Pils, Export and Weißbier varieties, which are our biggest-selling beers in Germany, are distributed for sale in over 100 countries. Since 1980 alone, we have won more than 250 national and international awards for our consistently high standard of service and longstanding product quality.

Each year, OeTTINGER fills approxi­mately two billion bottles and cans with around eight million hectoliters of beer, beer-mix drinks and soft drinks. All of our raw materials are sourced from the immediate areas around our four brewing sites. Around 800 proud and hard-working OeTTINGER employees work in Oettingen South, Oettingen North, Mönchen­gladbach and Brunswick as well as at our distribution center in Walldorf, from which we deliver the products to our customers regionally across Germany using our own fleet of motortrucks.

Top quality, a wide range of products and a conscious decision to forgo advertising, partnerships with the food and beverage industry and cost drivers, as well as low prices and global availability, are all aspects that continue to be firmly anchored in our company philosophy.

And hopefully, this passion for beer will be inherited by many more generations to come as an integral part of the Kollmar family DNA!