BEER AND LAŠKO BREWERY

The gingerbread and honey-cake maker FRANZ GEYER bought the former Valvasor spital in the town of Laško in 1825. He slightly rearranged the ground-floor premises and allegedly established a small craft brewery there.

Nothing certain can be said about Geyer’s beer. Perhaps the first Laško brewer brewed the well-known “stone beer”, particularly popular in Carinthia, the taste of which we can only guess. However, it is possible that he was already brewing the technologically more demanding Bavarian beer, supplying the Laško market and the immediate surroundings.

FIG. 1: Laško in a depiction by Josip Ojsteršek from 1835. Next to the bridge stands the New Hospital, in which Franc Geyer’s brewery allegedly operated a few years later.

After the great fire of 1840, which severely damaged Laško, GUSTAV ADOLF ULICH renovated the brewery building, and that same year the inscription “Braeuhaus” shone on its facade. He even sent porter-style beer to Egypt and India.

In 1866, the new owner of the brewery, ANTON LARISCH, kept the germination plants, malt house, hop drying room and offices in the former spital building, while on the opposite bank of the Savinja, below Šmihel, he built a new factory for the industrial production of beer in just two years.

FIG. 2: In a graphic by J. B. Asorett from 1850, we can see the inscription Braeuhaus on the facade of the New Hospital.