Krombach emerged in documents for the very first time around 1300, and over the centuries has had 100 to 200 inhabitants. There used to be various breweries earlier on, as is borne out in the archives. Collection of so-called “excises” is mentioned in old invoices. This was an alcoholic beverage tax levied by the public authorities of those times on commercial sales of beer and wine.
In 1618, we find a police ordinance that decrees that anyone wanting to brew beer needs a license from the authorities. It can be further gathered from this ordinance, and this is what makes this issue really interesting, that drawing beer without one`s own brewery and without a drying kiln for malt was not allowed. Or vice versa: Only producers (=brewers) could sell to consumers. It can therefore be rightly said that an inn in those days invariably meant that a brewery operation was also included.
1803: Krombach Brewery mentioned on paper for the first time
Krombach lies favourably on the thoroughfare, along which traffic used to travel between Siegen-Nassau and Cologne-Sauerland. This through road towards Cologne – with the ascent to the so-called “Heck” (“back”) - made it necessary to change the teams of horses, resulting in relay stations in Krombach in the valley and in Kleusheim auf der Höhe that is already located in the region around Cologne. And that waggoners are thirsty people is nothing new, which is why this need was satisfied at the relay stations. The Krombach Brewery was mentioned in documents for the first time in 1803. At this stage of the family´s own brewery, the brewing operation had become the sole form of commerce. Specialisation was introduced and due to the favourable location of the through road the brewery rapidly gained in importance extending far beyond the small town of Krombach.
As early as in 1829, there were contractually fixed relations to the organisers of the Olp shooting match, which since then has been supplied year for year with beer from Krombach. In those days, delivery used to be for 25 so-called “ohm”, which according to present-day reckoning corresponds to about 37 1/2 hectolitres.
As of 1840: The industrial revolution: Steelworkers thirsty for Krombach beer
With the industrial revolution, new, larger consumer groups arose likewise very thirsty. Karl Friedrich Schenck, former bailiff and jurist in Siegerland, reports in his “Statistics of the former principality of Siegen” that “as a a consequence of the hard work which the inhabitants do in mining, in the emerging cottage industries of steel and hammering operations as well as other crafts great quantities of beer are drunk in the Siegen region”.
In the course of rapid industrialisation in Siegerland, the number of inhabitants doubled in the Siegen district within a mere 50 years (1850 - 1900). While the town of Siegen had 35 beer taverns and public houses in 1806, by 1913 it was an imposing 103. But there are any number of other social occasions where beer was drunk. In Siegen alone, for example – a town with at that time 30,000 inhabitants (in 1913) there were around 400 clubs and societies active. In other words, sales potential was there en masse.
1890: Krombach pilsener beer for the first time
As of about 1890, the first brewing experiments are documented in Krombach to produce a pilsener beer. It took a few years to master the new-type brewing process with the aid of other sorts of hops and other fermentation methods. However, these efforts were soon crowned with success, for the newly created flavour quickly met with public approval. The way the transportation routes were increasingly extended and upgraded had repercussions on business with the new beer. In 1861, the Ruhr-Sieg railway started to link the ore area of Siegerland to the region of the Ruhr.
And just as ore used to be loaded, beer can be forwarded to far-flung markets. In a nine-line notice, the Siegener Zeitung (Siegen Newspaper) proudly announced on 28th October 1901 that “as a result of its quality, Krombach pilsener beer is getting increasingly more admirers – and that abroad as well”. For, the paper went on to say, North German Lloyd had also ordered “a double carriage of pilsener beer” that was to be delivered to Antwerp. It was only five years later when the Siegener Zeitung reported that “Krombach pilsener beer has been introduced to numerous localities close to the big Dortmund breweries not only in Sieger and Sauerland, but far and beyond even to Westphalian coal-mining areas”.
1900: A model brewery emerging
However, industrialisation also had repercussions on brewing itself. Quantum technological advances – Pasteur (the discovery of fermentation), Linde (the development of artifical cooling technology) as well as industrial motive forces (the steam engine) – revolutionised brewing and made increased requirements on the financing demand to master this modernisation. The purely family-owned breweries vanished noticeably; in most instances only specialised, well-funded operations survided. The Krombach Brewery faced up to these challenges. “The beer brewery is built in a high, airy and very beautiful location of Crombach...,” begins the description of the Krombach Brewery in 1900.
The assessment of the contemporary observer is unequivocal, “as a result of their expedient configuration and appointment, the structural installations and machinery make up a harmonious whole and therefore a model brewery”. Several steam engines were set up at one and the same time in the brewery, with the help of which energy was generated that was needed for the brewing process. Even the brewing room was equipped in the most modern manner for the conditions at that time. In 1899, it was extended to a double brewing room, being set up for a malt fill of approx. 32 hundredweights. With this equipment, 34,908 hectolitres could be brewed in Krombach in 1904, one year later even 39,908 hl. Per-capita consumption in the German Reich at that time in 1910 was about 101 litres.
1908: The “Krombach” brand emerges
The beginnings of branding can be traced back to 1908. A so-called “factory brand” emerged for the very first time in a small advertising brochure. The brewery`s own profile was to be underscored more strongly and more clearly in public. The benefits are obvious: Consumers are provided with a definitive brand recognition cachet. Selecting their own “emblem”, the brewers from Krombach proceeded adroitly, for they chose as the reference point for their consumers the category “homeland” in an iconological and semantic manner. They made the consumer an emotionally high-carat identification offer: The product and region tended to be one.
As dear and lovely as home is to the consumer, just as indispensable is the beer coming from the region of home. Nothing has really changed in this right up to the present day. The emblem or landmark chosen is significantly the“Kindelsberg Tower”. The connection is given: The brewery lies at the foot of the outcrop called Kindelsberg, and this is why it seemed natural to select this outstanding landmark as the emblem of the brewery. Although the Krombach isle has today become the mythical icon of Krombach brand advertising, at least one aspect has remained intact: The link to the home region. The Kindelsberg Tower is still to be found in the brewery`s coat-of-arms on every bottle to the present day.
1914 - 1945: Wars & Crises
In 1914 an epoch came to an end. What followed were two world wars, deprivation, need and misery. True, there were inbetween phases of recovery when social life was stabilised and consumers again drank more beer, but the standard of living no longer attained, even in the best times of the Weimar Republic, the level before 1914. The Great Depression had catastrophic repercussion with 6 million jobless and as a consequence resulted in the national socialists coming to power. Within a mere two years, total beer production of the German Reich dropped from 58 mill. hl to 37 mill. hl. Even in those difficult times marked by political insecurity, scarcity of raw materials and a downturn in consumption, the Krombach Brewery managed to secure its continued existence. In this period, a brewery peak of approx. 40,000 hectolitres was attained.
The Second World War started on 1st September 1939. The incidents that we know from the way the First World War developed now repeated themselves. Lager and so-called “vollbeer” were no longer allowed to be marketed by state regimentation as of 1st January 1940. Systematically the original wort content was mandatorily reduced in the period following, and light and small beers also put in an appearance in Krombach instead of the peace beer. Allied bombing attacks laid waste to Siegen and its industrial areas, just as to the cities on the Rhine and Ruhr rivers. 1945 saw the capitulation signed on 8th May 1945 – with a little more than 20,000 hl. being produced in Krombach up until 31st May 1945.
1945: Starting again
Reconstruction started slowly under the most indigent circumstances. Those who were lucky enough to have survided were confronted with ruined towns and countryside. Industry was laid low, traffic and transport likewise, because there was no fuel and the victorious allied powers initially prohibited any communication between their zones. An economy of scarcity prevailed everywhere. Supplying the absolute necessities of life was difficult, and even a long time after the war allocation of goods and rationing were the order of the day. This also applied to the Germans` most popular drink:
While total output before the war was at 57.1 mill. hectolitres (per-capita consumption: 82.2 l), in 1948/49 barely 11.03 mill. hectolitres was brewed (per-capita consumption: 25 l). In the British zone, which incidentally Siegerland also belonged to, it was - to begin with - prohibited to use barley for brewery purposes, since logically after the war the Allies initially wanted to ensure the population at large was supplied. But, as we all know, necessity is the mother of invention. In Krombach they looked systematically for ways out of this short supply, producing a beverage similar to beer with whey and saccharin. In 1949, production in Krombach had dropped to around 19.000 hl – the absolute rock bottom; subsequently, however, it was to get constantly better.
Nineteen fifties: The economic miracle
The period of reconstruction – the economic miracle – stood in the middle of intensive modernisation and rationalisation. The economic reports of the period from 1950 to 1960 read as a sequence of accounts chronicling all kinds of new buildings, new machines and investments. The gradually rising standard of living as well as the accumulated demand in terms of consumption had their impact on the consumption of beverages. While in 1946 pro-capita consumption amounted to just 25 litres, by 1959 it had risen to 91 litres. And the Krombach Brewery grew much faster than the market itself. Within but a few years, the Krombach Brewery will have more than quadrupled the pre-war production of 1938/39 (51,457 hl).
New fermentation cellars, new brew houses, a new bottle cellar, an extended carpark - this line-up could be continued endlessly– made the rapid rise possible to one of the leading pilsener brands. In 1959, the Krombach Brewery filled 180,000 kegs and a total of 26 mill. bottles of beer. In the following years, output was steadily on the up. In 1967, the Krombach Brewery celebrated an output of 500,000 hectolitres and just five years later they had got there: At last, the proud figure of 1,045 million hectolitres could be posted. The Krombach Brewery now ranked amongst the biggest Federal German private breweries. To safeguard this volume and in order to be able to expand still further, the brewers were always prepared to invest in the future. New paths were blazed particularly in terms of brewing technology. The Krombach Brewery was one of the first major breweries to introduce closed fermentation in big tanks as early as at the beginning of 1970.
1967: Friends – let us enjoy a Krombach together!
While the brewing giants of that time in the Ruhr region were mainly interested in the production of export beer, in Krombach they realised that it was right to concentrate on one single product – on pilsener-brewed beer. Moreover, Krombach was understood as a brand article early on with specific sales promotion for consumers – firstly in the home region, then in the Ruhr area and Westphalia, finally on the national level.
Advertising with the forester and the almost legendary slogan “Friends, let us enjoy a Krombach together” were conjured up at that time, and that was also the beginning of the brand`s present-day natural positioning. The well-known Krombach Isle in the Lake, surrounded by forests in the Central German Uplands, is the contemporary continuation of the old advertising campaigns. In that, this continuity is an essential factor of the success in Krombach.
Nineties: The ascendency
Expansion of brand advertising was a consequence of the sales network being extended in the catering trade and commerce. Success was soon felt: As early as at the end of the eighties, the brewery premises became too small, and the logistic and bottling plants were completely replanned and built at a separate site, so that today some70,000 sq.m. of area are available for loading and bottling. In 1990, the 2 mill. hectolitre mark was surpassed for the first time. In the same year, Germany experienced, historically speaking, the so-called “turnaround”; the GDR dissolved and the Federal Republic of Germany had 18 mill. new consumers in five new German Federal states.
The Krombach Brewery immediately started an intensive marketing offensive in the East, and just 2 years later an output of 3.2 mill. hectolitres was posted and, in turn, only three years later 4.1 mill.
2005: The leading premium brand in Germany
After an historic record result had been posted in 2003 with 4,865 mill. hectolitres, the following year saw the 5 mill. hl mark being at last impressively excelled with 5,440 mill. hectolitres. In 2004, a new record high was scored – for the third year running - with 5,518 mill. hectolitres. Alongside the flagship brand of Krombach pilsener beer, the most-sold and most popular pilsener brand in Germany, a brand family has been most successfully established in the last six years. Krombach non-alcoholic (1999), Cab (2001) and Krombach shandy (2002) were able to post more than 500,000 hl for the first time.
Over and above this, large investments were made to strengthen the Krombach brand in future as well. Ten million new beer cases were introduced into the returnable cycle in the second half of 2005, new bottling and logistic plants being planned.
