Anton Dreher - Expansion To Hungary

Expansion To Hungary

Among his three sons, Anton Dreher Jr. entrusted Jenő with the management of the Kőbánya brewery, which became a corporation in 1907 under the name "Dreher Antal Kőbányai Serfőzdéje," and was a market leader until World War I. The Dreher family business became a corporation in 1905 and the Hungarian company became independent of the mother company in 1907. Jenő Dreher continued to buy shares of his competitors, Haggenmacher Kőbánya and Budafoki Rt., Barber and Klusemann Brewery and the First Hungarian Brewery Corporation (founded in 1867).

When Anton Dreher died in 1921, his oldest son, Anton Eugen (b. 1871) took over the brewery business, but he died in 1925. The 10-year-old Oskar died in 1926, and with him the line of brewers. The Dreher Combine, which was merged from these two companies in 1923, also bought up the Royal Brewery Corporation of Kanizsa in 1928. As the result of the grand scale expansion, Dreher-Haggenmacher First Hungarian Brewery Corporation was launched in 1933, and acquired 70 percent of the market.

The two other Kőbánya Breweries - Polgár and the Municipal Brewery – were left with only a quarter stake of the market. Dreher beer was exported to North and South America, western Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia, where ever Germans, Austrians and Hungarians migrated, and became a worldwide brand name. After the death of his elder brother and his great nephew, Jenő Dreher sold off the Austrian portion of the family business.