The year is 1829: David Gottlieb Jüngling, recently emigrated to America from the German town of Aldingen, establishes his small Eagle Brewery in Pottsville, Pennsylvania where there is a river with good spring water and a flourishing coal industry – and therefore many thirsty miners as customers. He brews his first brand of beer, Traditional Lager, the way he was taught by his father at home. Jüngling anglicizes his name by chang­ing it to Yuengling and quickly finds success, supplying as many as 27 restaurants just three years later.

Some 180 years later – since the second generation, the brewery has been renamed D.G. Yuengling & Son – Traditional Lager still sells extremely well and accounts for around 60% of the output, which in 2013 totaled 3 million barrels. This puts Yuengling in fourth place in the USA – behind Anheuser-Busch, SABMiller, and Pabst. However, in the almost two centuries of its history, the company has had to weather some very turbulent times.

For example, during the Prohibition pe­riod, Yuengling switched to small beer, the ice cream from a hurriedly procured dairy, and the management of dance halls in Phila­delphia and New York City. Relieved by the lift­ing of the alcohol ban, in 1933, Yuengling sent Theodore Roosevelt a truck load of beer, free of charge. Whether the president drank it has not been passed on; but what is cer­tain is that Yuengling’s business again took a sharp upswing.

In 1999, the family business reached the limit of its capacity with 750,000 barrels. Richard (Dick) Yuengling, fifth-generation owner, therefore purchased a former brew­ery in Tampa, Florida and one year later built a new brewery at the company’s headquarters in Pottsville. “This was what we needed for further success,” sums up Yuengling, “and that is the way it has been ever since.”

In 2005, Yuengling invested in a KHS keg line in Pottsville. This has been followed more recently by a further keg system for the Tampa site with a capacity of up to 420 kegs per hour. “Customers value our traditional, craft method of brewing,” says local COO Jim Helmke, justifying the investment. “There­fore, at 30%, our output of keg beer is extremely high considering our size.”

In any event, the high expectations associated with the new line, and which were no doubt fueled by previous experience with outstanding technology and services from KHS, have been fulfilled: “We are very happy with our new keg line,” says Helmke, end­ing on a positive note. “Yuengling can continue to grow.” The sixth generation is ready and waiting.