Private brewery

The roots of today's Egger private brewery lie in the 17th century. The suburban brewery of “Pierpreu” Hans Gwercher in Kufstein was first mentioned in a document in 1675. Since 1866, the brewery and a sawmill, which is the basis for the success story in the wood processing industry, as well as the agriculture in St. Johann, Tyrol, have been owned by the Egger family.

Soon there is no longer enough space under the Wilder Kaiser for the expanding company and so Fritz Egger comes across Unterradlberg while looking for a new company location. Two striking criteria led to the decision to move from Tyrol to Lower Austria:

1.   Enough water of outstanding quality
2.   2/3 of Austria can easily be provided by this location

So the decision was made to leave home and in 1976 the outdated brewery in Kufstein finally closed the brewhouse. The brewery in Unterradlberg was completed in 1978 and the first beer was bottled in June of the same year.

From day one, work in Unterradlberg follows the German Purity Law.

Getting into the beer business was very difficult at the time because the beer market was controlled by the beer cartel. A few large beer producers had a firm grip on the market. Only with the exception of private sales the trade in beer was protected by cartel regulations. But the Egger family didn't let that deter them.

With a competitive price and a good deal of courage, Egger Bier takes on the competition. Shortly afterwards, the private brewery received support from Hans Dichand, publisher of the Kronen Zeitung, with its advertising campaign “An Egger Beer for Every Viennese”.