Dreher St. John's beer - Fresh on tap!

Dreher St. John's beer - Fresh on tap! is a vintage Hungarian alcoholic beverage advertising poster from around 1937.

Franz Anton Dreher, bought the Klein-Schwechat City Brewery in 1796. His son, Antal Dreher Sr., continued the family tradition and learned the craft of brewing abroad (in England, Munich), and even developed a new type of beer, the so-called Lagerbier. Almost at the same time, in 1854, Peter Schmidt, who learned the craft of brewing in Munich, brewed the Kobanyai Ser (beer), in Budapest. He is also the founder of the Kobanyai Serfozo Tarsasag (Kobanya Brewing Company). This company was bought by Antal Dreher Sr. in 1862, as it represented serious competition for him. This year is the year of the “foundation” of the Dreher Brewery.

In 1870, after the death of his father, Antal Dreher Sr. took over the management of the company. By developing the factories and their capacity, he achieved that Hungary’s largest brewery was operating in Kobanya. In 1890, they were already producing 1.2 million hectoliters of the beverage. Under the leadership of his son, Jeno Dreher, the company was first transformed into a joint-stock company (in 1905), and then two years later they became independent from the parent company. He bought shares of the competitors one after the other. Haggenmacher Kobanyai es Budafoki Rt., Barber és Klusemann Serfohaz, and Elso Magyar Reszveny Serfozde Rt. The Dreher Kombinat, which was then created from them, also merged the Kiraly Brewery Co. of Kanizsa in 1928, thus creating the Dreher – Haggenmacher First Hungarian Share Brewery Co., which dominated the market by about 70%. In 1934, the neighboring Fovarosi Serfozo Rt. became its interest.