Region & History

With around 27,000 residents, Ehingen on the Danube is home to five breweries, which together brew 43 different beers, according to the town. This makes the town, perched on the edge of the Swabian Alb, the municipality with the highest brewery density relative to population, and it calls itself a 'beer culture town.' The group includes Berg Brauerei, Brauhaus Schwanen, Schwert Brauerei, Paulas Alb, and Rössle-Brauerei.

It wasn't always this modest. In the 17th century, when Ehingen fell under Swabian-Austrian territorial rule, the town had more than twenty breweries. Nearly every sizeable inn brewed its own beer, since beer had to be drunk fresh and transporting it across the countryside was impractical. Today's breweries are the survivors of that abundance.

Their founding years are mostly based on family records. Berg Brauerei traces its roots to an inn 'on the hill' mentioned in a letter from 1466; the Zimmermann family has run the brewery since 1757, now in its ninth generation. Schwert cites 1675 as its origin, Schwanen 1697.

Clergy brewed too. In Zwiefalten, Benedictine monks are said to have brewed their first beer in 1521, and a new brewhouse was built there in the 18th century. After the monastery was dissolved, the brewery passed into private hands in 1827 and continues to this day as Zwiefalter Klosterbräu.

There's no dedicated EU protected designation of origin for beer from the Alb. Where 'Schwäbische Alb' appears on a label, it's simply a geographic reference, not a protected seal. The breweries in nearby Laupheim, such as the Eble family's Kronenbrauerei, already lie in Upper Swabia, showing just how dense the network of small breweries remains to this day.