With the Compromise of 1867 the Austrian-based empire of the Hapsburgs struck a deal with the Hungarian Magyars, establishing a joint monarchy that encompassed the several peoples of a sprawling land between the unifying German and Italian states, Russia to the north and the Balkan kingdoms to the south. The new alliance would last until the conclusion of World War I and constituted a lumpy cohesion of numerous ethnicities embracing several religious ideologies and speaking over a dozen different languages. Even before the time of its dissolution in 1918 approximately 10% of its population of roughly fifty million would have emigrated to other lands, principally to North America. Along with simultaneous waves of emigration from Germany and Italy in the late 19th century, the population balance not just of Europe but also of the newly swelling lands across the seas was changed forever.

Where the history of brewing is concerned, it is this mass population shift, combined with the advances in yeast technology and industrialization taking place in Europe in the mid- to late 19th century, that brought about the worldwide lager revolution and redistributed Western and Central Europeans who would become the world’s dominant brewers for the next 100 years. One cannot necessarily attribute the efforts of every German-speaking brewer in St. Louis, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Buenos Aires, or Qingdao to the historical alterations of Franz-Josef’s Austria-Hungary, but just as certain events set the stage for the upheavals of war, so did they prefigure the activity that enwrapped the industry of world brewing during this period.

Migrations can be triggered by many things, and the 19th century brought about myriad considerations for movement. Industrialization created incentive for a general migration to the cities from the country; social unrest such as the failed revolutions of 1848 fostered discontent and a popularly felt need for escape; realignments of political and ethnic consideration bred both possibility and aversion; and with word trickling back from participants in earlier waves of migration to the Americas and elsewhere, a great deal of movement was inevitable.

Many German-style breweries that remain a part of our landscape were established immediately before and during this time. The large breweries of St. Louis and Milwaukee—Anheuser-Busch, Miller, Pabst, Schlitz, Lemp, and others—were able to take advantage of arriving waves of German-speaking workers to people their expansions. Slightly later arrivals were able perhaps to work first for those earlier established, and then, when the time came, to strike out for themselves. Adolph Coors was one of these later arrivals. Less specifically and less easily traced, much of the brewing culture that today lives on in South America, Africa, Australia, and Asia was largely sparked by immigrants looking to create opportunities in their new homes, using brewing expertise or at least awareness brought from the Germanic cultures of their origin.

It may seem convenient to link the societal unrest of the mid-19th century with the unrest of discovery then rocking the brewing world. But simultaneity cannot help but establish at least the possibility of relation. The isolation of pure lager yeasts and the founding of new beer styles dependent on greater technical achievement by Anton Dreher in Vienna, Gabriel Sedlmeyer in Munich, Emil Hansen in Copenhagen, and brewers in the Czech city of Pilsen (as well as through the immunological experiments of Louis Pasteur, who did much of his work with brewing yeasts) captured the world’s fascination with brewing innovation. When the Czechs, Bohemians, Moravians, Germans, and Austrians spread outward into the wider world, they were liable to carry with them their enthusiasms. They did not sweep all brewing culture before them, but they did establish a way of doing things wherever they went. At the same time emigrants from the winemaking regions of Italy and Hungary were busy themselves spreading world wine culture.

Not all migration by the various Central European peoples was so dramatic. Much was within Europe, as national and ethnic groups sought their enclaves or repatriated to traditional lands. Much was within established borders, and as such is even more difficult to trace. But movement of any kind spreads and strengthens culture, whatever other chaos it may create.

One irresistible footnote to the strangely entwined histories of the Habsburgs and beer is the fact that the Emperor Franz-Josef’s younger brother Maximilian was emperor of Mexico for the 3 years until his execution by firing squad in 1867 (the same year as the Austro-Hungarian compromise). Some years later, in 1890, a consortium of German- and Spanish-speaking brewers would establish the Cuahtémoc Moctezuma Brewery in Monterrey. Arguably their most distinctive product, Dos Equis (amber), would prove to be one of the world’s most enduring examples of a Vienna-style lager. See mexico.

See also austria, moravia, and vienna lager.