as of 2010 one of the top five brewing companies in the world, based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Carlsberg was founded in 1847 by Jacob Christian (JC) Jacobsen (1811–87) on a hill outside the city of Copenhagen, where Jacobsen had been running a traditional, small town brewery that he had taken over from his father. The new brewery was named after JC’s son, Carl, born in 1842, and an adapted version of the Danish word for mountain, “bjerg.” JC was very interested in science, having been heavily inspired by his father who, without any academic background whatsoever, had followed lectures at Copenhagen University by the leading scientists of the day. JC believed that the art of brewing could be vastly improved by applying a scientific approach, and he was very open to new developments in brewing.

In 1875 he founded the world’s first brewery-owned and -run research facility, the Carlsberg Laboratory, where some of the foremost scientists in the world carried out both basic and applied science supporting the brewing industry. Scientists who worked at the Carlsberg Laboratory included SPL Sørensen, who developed the concept of pH, Johan Kjeldahl, who devised the analytical principle used for centuries to determine proteins, and Emil Christian Hansen, who invented and introduced at Carlsberg the use of pure yeast cultures in brewing. See hansen, emil christian. In the laboratory’s mission statement, JC Jacobsen wrote that no finding or invention made here could be kept secret, but must be shared with the world at large.

JC had already started experimenting in his old town brewery with the fundamentally new method of bottom fermentation, but the lack of cold cellaring possibilities, essential for brewing these beer styles, made this very laborious and only partly successful. See bottom fermentation. He managed, however, to earn enough money to build a new brewery designed specifically for bottom fermentation, using all the newest technology, including mechanical refrigeration.

JC Jacobsen’s sphere of interest expanded far beyond his role in brewing. He belonged to a group of prominent members of society who felt that they had an obligation to use their position to create social progress. JC’s success as a brewer quickly made him a very wealthy man, and instead of spending his money on a lavish lifestyle he formed the Carlsberg Foundation. The Carlsberg Foundation continues to this day to return the profits of the brewery back into Danish society by supporting mainly the sciences, cultural purposes, and, after the Foundation merged with The New Carlsberg Foundation, the arts.

The Carlsberg Breweries in the hamlet of Valby, now part of greater Copenhagen, were for many years actually two breweries intensely competing with one another—one owned by JC and the other by his own son. When JC’s son Carl came of age he was meant to succeed his father, whether he wanted to or not. JC was as tough, single minded, and patriarchal a father as he was a brewer and employer. So Carl was sent abroad to study brewing—his pleas to his father to allow him to return home were ignored. However, JC must have sensed that the tensions between the two were so profound that letting Carl take up a position in the existing brewery would be unwise. The solution to this problem was true to form—JC built an entirely new brewery, the Annexe Brewery, adjacent to his own, and in 1871 put Carl in charge of it. Regardless, the feud between father and son escalated year by year. Fundamental professional issues related to brewing processes, sales, and marketing separated the two, and Carl decided to build his own, new brewery next door, New Carlsberg, which opened in 1882. The two breweries did not merge until JC’s death in 1887.

Carl shared his father’s interest in and respect for science, but Carl was even more interested in art. The New Carlsberg Foundation, to which Carl willed his brewery and fortune, was created with the mission of donating art to Danish society, the most brilliant example of which was the creation of the beautiful downtown Copenhagen museum, The New Carlsberg Glyptotek. Likewise, the New Carlsberg Brewery was much more lavishly decorated than the older JC Jacobsen breweries, and today the building is one of the major tourist sights in Copenhagen.

Exports of Carlsberg beer began in 1868, with shipping to Scotland, followed soon after by exports to countries in the Far East and South America. Throughout the 20th century exports continued to increase in real numbers, as well as relative to domestic sales, so in the 1960s the first steps were taken to move production abroad. This international expansion was initially completed through agreements with UK brewers to package under licence because the UK market at that time was very big for Carlsberg. This was followed by license brewing agreements in several markets and, in the 1970s, dedicated, green-field Carlsberg breweries were built in far away countries like Malawi, Hong Kong, and the UK, with many other countries to follow.

Carlsberg was born as a lager beer brewery and has remained true to the lager tradition. Still, few major brewers of this magnitude have maintained a portfolio of bottom-fermented beers as varied as those of Carlsberg. These include the “flagship” “Carlsberg Beer,” nicknamed HOF at home, Elephant Beer, dark and strong bock style beers like the Easter Brew (“Påskebryg”) and the Christmas seasonal “47,” as well the darker traditional beers previously baring the “Old Carlsberg” brewery name, including “Gamle Carlsberg,” a Munich-style dunkel and the first beer released from Carlsberg by JC in 1847, and “imperial stout,” nicknamed “porter” and actually one of the first Baltic porters in the world. See baltic porter. On the more conventional side, Carlberg’s Tuborg Green is sold in 70 countries.

Today, Denmark is home to a vibrant craft beer revolution. See craft brewing. Carlsberg rowed into these waters fairly early, experimenting with new beer styles and food pairing in the early 2000s. In 2005, Carlsberg followed up this initiative by establishing a small “house brewery” called Jacobsen in connection with its visitors’ center in the oldest existing buildings on the original Carlsberg site in Valby.

Brewing at the main production brewery in Valby was stopped at the end of 2008, and production moved to other Carlsberg breweries in Northern Europe, most important the Fredericia Brewery in western Denmark, now supplying the domestic market with both Carlsberg and Tuborg beers. Carlsberg Group employs over 43,000 people worldwide.

See also denmark, tuborg brewery.