Tally's Beer Archive

Founded before 1900

The Old Guard

863 breweries in this archive were founded before 1900. The oldest has been brewing since 1040 — four centuries before the printing press. Read in order, the list is really a record of who managed to stay independent and who eventually sold.

863
Pre-1900
131
Still independent
102
Macro-owned
374
Closed

102 of these 863 are now owned by a conglomerate. That number is the argument this archive keeps making: age is not the same thing as independence, and a brewery can outlive four centuries and still end up as a line item. Trace any of them.

01

16 breweries

Before 1500

Monastic and municipal brewing, mostly Bavarian, mostly still standing.

02

51 breweries

1500 – 1699

Court breweries, Trappist abbeys and the first family names that survive today.

03

59 breweries

1700 – 1799

The British and Irish houses, and the first brewery in North America.

04

109 breweries

1800 – 1849

Industrial brewing arrives. So do most of the names a macro conglomerate now owns.

05

628 breweries

1850 – 1899

Lager goes global, and brewing follows empire into Asia, Africa and South America.

Founding years are as recorded on each brewery's page, and older dates are frequently contested — several of these houses claim a founding earlier than the first surviving document supports. Where a date is disputed we say so on the record rather than picking the more flattering one.