Region & History

Which brewery is Brazil's oldest? Cervejaria Bohemia in Petrópolis cites 1853 as its founding year and is therefore considered the country's first brewery. This is a self-declared claim, but it's widely accepted in Brazil. Sources name German emigrants as founders, usually Henrique Kremer, occasionally also Henrique Leiden.

The city was only ten years old at the time. Emperor Dom Pedro II signed the decree on March 16, 1843, for a summer retreat high in the Serra, where the air stays noticeably cooler in summer than in Rio. The German engineer Júlio Frederico Koeler laid out the streets, and construction of the summer palace began in 1845, finally completed in 1862. German colonists settled around it, and by 1859 there were roughly 3,300 of them.

The brewery changed names often. After Kremer's death in 1865, his heirs ran it as Augusto Kremer & Cia., later it was called Imperial Fábrica de Cerveja Nacional, and in 1898 it became Companhia Cervejaria Bohemia. In its early days, the house reportedly bottled six thousand bottles a month and delivered them by cart.

In 1960, Companhia Antarctica Paulista bought the brand. Today Bohemia belongs to Ambev, the Brazilian arm of AB InBev. In 1998 the Petrópolis plant closed due to lack of space to grow, and brewing continued in the state of São Paulo. In 2012 the old factory reopened, now also housing the Museu da Cerveja with guided tours.

There's no protected designation of origin for Brazilian beer. "Bohemia" is a brand, "Pilsener" a style designation. The name evokes Bohemia, the homeland of pilsner, but says nothing about the origin of the recipe.