Carlsberg

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From Our Beer to Our City

By Caspar Jørgensen, Historiker (5 stories)

Beer was brewed at Carlsberg in Valby from 1847 until 2008. Then beer production for the Danish market was focused in Fredericia. But the Group Headquarters and a visitors' centre with a small brewhouse still remain in Valby. Now that the beer production has left, the ambition is to reuse the buildings as a new part of the city, Our City". Carlsberg has several buildings: The oldest brewery, Old Carlsberg, which was rebuilt after a fire in 1867, New Carlsberg with its elephant tower and the Brewhouse from 1901, the Power Centre from the 1920s and a number of other new buildings including New Tap from 1955. "

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Something brewing in Denmark

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Story written by Caspar Jørgensen

Time / Periode 1847

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In the 1840s, the people of Copenhagen were presented with a new type of beer, the first best-seller for the Carlsberg Brewery. The brewer J.C. Jacobsen, founder of Carlsberg, embarked on his beer career by experimenting with his mother's wash boiler as a brewing vat. Far from every experiment was successful, so J.C. Jacobsen took off to Munich and environs to visit the breweries and sample the beer. One of the breweries, Zum Spaden, was run by one Gabriel Sedlmeyr, who gave Jacobsen the special bottom-fermenting yeast he needed for brewing his new beer. However, transporting the yeast all the way back to Denmark was a troublesome affair. Jacobsen had a tin can made specially to fit in his hat case, and every time the stage coach or train made a stop, he rushed to the nearest water pump to cool the yeast. But the precious organism survived the journey unharmed, and in the winter of 1845-1846, J.C. Jacobsen brewed some 300 barrels of Bavarian-style lager, which sold out in no time.