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Yuengling — America's oldest operating brewery, Pottsville, Pennsylvania (founded 1829)

D. G. Yuengling & Son was founded in 1829 in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, by the German immigrant David Gottlob Yuengling, and is the oldest continuously operating brewing company in the United States. The original brewery still operates from its hillside complex at 5th and Mahantongo Streets in Pottsville, the seat of Schuylkill County in the heart of Pennsylvania’s anthracite coal region.

Origins: 1829 and the Eagle Brewery

David Gottlob Yuengling (1808–1877) was born in Aldingen, in the Kingdom of Württemberg, and emigrated to the United States shortly before opening a brewery at Pottsville in 1829, under the name Eagle Brewery — the eagle has remained on the company’s labels and crockery ever since. Pottsville in 1829 was a rapidly growing town at the head of the Schuylkill Canal and the gateway to the Southern Anthracite Field, conditions that made it both a market for and a recruiting ground of German-speaking brewers, coopers, and saloon-keepers.

The original Centre Street brewery building burned in 1831, and the brewery was relocated to its present hillside complex on West Mahantongo Street, where caves cut into the rock served as cool storage for lager before mechanical refrigeration.

D. G. Yuengling & Son

The ”& Son” was added in 1873, when the founder’s son Frederick joined the firm as a partner; the family name has remained on the masthead in every subsequent generation. After David’s death in 1877, control passed through Frederick to Frank D. Yuengling (1876–1963), under whom the brewery survived the most dangerous period of its history.

Surviving Prohibition (1920–1933)

Federal pressure on American brewing began before national Prohibition formally took effect. The Lever Food and Fuel Control Act of August 10, 1917 (Pub. L. 65-41; 40 Stat. 276) gave the federal government power to restrict grain for non-essential uses during the First World War, and grain controls under the Lever Act curtailed brewing output across the country in 1917 and 1918. The Eighteenth Amendment was ratified on January 16, 1919, and the War-Time Prohibition Act (Pub. L. 65-242; 40 Stat. 1045), signed after the Armistice but written into the wartime emergency, took effect on July 1, 1919, banning the manufacture of beer and wine. The Volstead Act (Pub. L. 66-66; 41 Stat. 305), passed over President Wilson’s veto on October 28, 1919, defined the enforcement of Prohibition under the Eighteenth Amendment, and full national Prohibition then began on January 17, 1920.

National Prohibition closed most of the country’s breweries; Yuengling kept its doors open by switching to near beer — cereal beverages containing less than 0.5% alcohol — and by opening a dairy, Yuengling Dairy Products, that produced ice cream at the brewery site. The dairy continued operating into the mid-1980s. When the Twenty-first Amendment repealed Prohibition in December 1933, the brewery shipped a celebratory truckload of “Winner Beer” to President Franklin Roosevelt at the White House, and resumed full brewing the same day.

The brewery today

In 1985, Richard L. Yuengling, Jr. — the fifth-generation descendant of David Gottlob Yuengling — bought the brewery from his father. Under his ownership the company expanded distribution out of Pennsylvania for the first time in its history, eventually adding a second Schuylkill County brewery at Port Carbon in 2000 and a third (the former Stroh plant) at Tampa, Florida in 1999. By the early 2010s the company had become the largest American-owned brewery by volume.

The Pottsville brewery offers public tours that descend into the original 1831 cooling caves; it remains one of the most cited entries on any short list of American industrial sites still operating on their original ground.

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Frequently asked

When was Yuengling founded?
D. G. Yuengling & Son was founded in 1829 in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, by David Gottlob Yuengling. It is the oldest continuously operating brewing company in the United States.
Who founded Yuengling?
David Gottlob Yuengling (1808–1877), a German immigrant from Aldingen in the Kingdom of Württemberg, founded the brewery in 1829, shortly after emigrating to the United States. He died in Pottsville on September 27, 1877.
What was Yuengling originally called?
The brewery was originally called the Eagle Brewery; the company name became D. G. Yuengling & Son in 1873, when David Gottlob Yuengling's son Frederick was admitted as a partner.
Where is the Yuengling brewery?
The original Yuengling brewery still operates at 5th and Mahantongo Streets in Pottsville, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. A second Schuylkill-County brewery operates in nearby Port Carbon (opened 2000), and a third brewery operates in Tampa, Florida.
How did Yuengling survive Prohibition?
Federal pressure on American brewing began before national Prohibition formally took effect: the Lever Food and Fuel Control Act of August 1917 (Pub. L. 65-41; 40 Stat. 276) imposed wartime grain controls that curtailed brewing output, the War-Time Prohibition Act (Pub. L. 65-242; 40 Stat. 1045) took effect on July 1, 1919 (banning beer and wine), the Volstead Act (Pub. L. 66-66; 41 Stat. 305) passed in October 1919, and national Prohibition under the Eighteenth Amendment then began on January 17, 1920. During national Prohibition (1920–1933), Yuengling survived by producing near beer (low-alcohol "cereal beverages") and by operating a dairy, Yuengling Dairy Products, that produced ice cream. The company resumed full brewing on the day Prohibition was repealed in December 1933.