The Netherlands
Lieshout
Bavaria
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The Bavaria brewery from Lieshout is one of the oldest breweries in the Netherlands.
The brewery, named 'De Kerkdijk', sold it's products as early as 1719.
The beers were brewed by Laurentius Moorees, a brewer of beers and wines.
His doughter, Brigitta, married Ambrosius Swinkels and continued brewing beer.
From that day on the name Swinkels has been connected to the brewery.
Brigitta and Ambrosius had multiple childeren of which Laurentius became the most important for the continuation of the brewery.
He improved the brewing and was able to increase the production.
His son Franciscus was able to improve production even more.
On November 2 Jan Swinkels was born, Franciscus eight child.
When he took over the brewery from his brother Cornelis, the brewery was already changed significantly.
Cornelis had gone to Aken (Germany) to learn more about brewing and had modernised the company.
This not only improved the quality and taste of the beer, but also increased the production.
When Jan Swinkels the brewery became the number 1 income for the family in place of the farm.
Jan Swinkels layed the foundation for the brewery to become a regional brewery.
Production doubled between 1890 and 1900.
Jan Swinkels also experienced the difficult period of the first world war.
Just before the war the company completed it's own maltery.
The brewery took great risk during the war by importing raw materials from the United States.
But this garuanteed the future of the brewery.
After 1918 everything was ready for the economic recovery.
In 1925 the 73-year old Jan Swinkels turned the growing company over to his three sons, Frans, Piet and Jan.
A new brewery with the name, N.V. Beiersch-Bierbrouwerij Bavaria, was already build.
This brewery was build to brew the bottom fermenting Bavaria beer.
Bavaria beer was pilsner beer, for which demand had grown.
In 1935 a new brewhouse was build and in 1938 a bigger, modern maltery was added.
The three brothers kept increasing their knowledge by study travels to Germany.
Production reached a low point because of the second world war.
But intensive advertising turned the bad times around.
In 1955 they started modestly making sodas under the name 3-ES, named after the three Swinkels brothers.
The brewery had volalitile growth since then.
The brewery is now headed by 11 members of the Swinkels family, from the sixth generation.
1956 the brewery had it's national brakethrough.
The company started selling beer to national store changes.
This was done under the bavaria name as well as house brands.
In a short period Bavaria grew from a local to an important national brand.
In the 1960's Bavaria did a lot of building.
In the 1970's Bavaria entered new markets, especially South-Europe
But they also sold beer in Afrika and the Middle-East.
For these countries Bavaria brew a special alcohol-free beer, they started this in 1978.
When the Dutch market started asking for alcohol-free beer, Bavaria already had 10 years of experience.
This was the reason for the succes of Bavaria Malt.
Currently Bavaria is a flourishing company.
Bavaria produces 160.000 tons of malt yearly in their own maltery and has it's own well water.
Bavaria brews beer in all it's forms, from pilsner to old brown, bokbeer and malts to it's special beers Moreeke, 8.6 and Millennium brew.
(Info from: Bavaria, 2000)
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