Carlsberg

Why it is renowned

Carlsberg is one of the world's leading brewing groups, and its pilsner reaches around 140 markets.¹² At the Carlsberg Research Laboratory, Emil Chr. Hansen isolated a pure lager yeast, Saccharomyces carlsbergensis, in 1883; J. C. Jacobsen gave it free to other brewers, and the company says its original yeast is behind most lagers brewed today.³² The Oxford Companion to Beer records that the Carlsberg Brewery was the first, in 1883, to brew commercial beer from a pure culture of lager yeast.⁴ Beer under the Carlsberg name has been exported since 1868, when the first barrel went to Edinburgh.² Carlsberg received one of the Royal Danish Court's first purveyor appointments, more than a hundred years ago.⁵

The story

J. C. Jacobsen built Carlsberg on a hill just outside Copenhagen in 1847 and named it after his son Carl.⁶ The first brew was finished on 10 November 1847.² Jacobsen founded the Carlsberg Research Laboratory in 1875 and the Carlsberg Foundation in 1876; after his death in 1887 the Foundation took over the brewery and is still its principal shareholder.⁶² Most of the original buildings still stand at the Carlsberg site in Copenhagen, where the group has its central office.⁶

What to know it by

• Carlsberg Pilsner²The flagship pale lager, sold in around 140 markets
• Carlsberg Laboratory²1875Where Emil Christian Hansen isolated pure lager yeast in 1883
• Elephant Beer²Strong lager named after the brewery's elephant emblem