Beer · History · Short entry

Linde's refrigeration machine at Spaten

In 1873 Carl von Linde installed an experimental refrigeration machine at Gabriel Sedlmayr's Spaten brewery in Munich, the first mechanical refrigeration in a brewery.

Location: Munich, Germany

1873

An experimental refrigeration machine, using dimethyl ether, installed at Spaten; Linde later used ammonia.

Why it mattered

Freed lager brewing from natural ice and cold seasons, so bottom-fermented beer could be made all year.

Cold on demand

Lager ferments and matures cold. Before machines, Bavarian brewers packed cellars with ice cut from frozen ponds and lakes, and summer brewing was banned in Bavaria from 1553 until 1850. In 1873 Gabriel Sedlmayr persuaded Carl von Linde, an engineering professor in Munich, to install an experimental refrigeration machine at Spaten; Spaten could then brew bottom-fermented beer reliably all year. Linde left his chair in 1879 to found his ice-machine company and had sold 747 refrigeration units by 1890.

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