Carlsberg

In 1811, Jacob Christian Jacobsen, the founder of Carlsberg, enters the world. When his father dies in 1835, J.C. Jacobsen takes over as a brewer. J.C. was born to brew. Driven by his passion for beer and an early interest in the natural sciences, J.C. Jacobsen sets out on a lifelong journey to improve the quality of beer. His first stop is Bavaria where he studies the brewing techniques for a new beer at Gabriel Sedlmayr's zum Spaten brewery in Munich. In the summer of 1845, carrying two pots of Spaten yeast in a customized hat box, J.C. returns to Denmark by stagecoach.

On this long journey, he keeps the yeast cool by stopping frequently and dousing it with cold water. J.C. Jacobsen's first batches of lager are made in his mother's copper wash basin. They are refined in his brewery till he gets them just right.  This new lager needed a new brewery with larger cool storage space. Taking the name of his five-year-old son, Carl, and the Danish word for hill, "bjerg", he builds his new brewery just outside Copenhagen. With that, Carlsberg is born in 1847. International approval came just 21 years later when the first Carlsberg beer was exported to Great Britain.