John (Johann) Laible was born in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. He emigrated to America with his wife and children when he was 34 years old. They settled in Newark, new Jersey. John's wife passed away soon after they arrived and John remarried the next year.

In 1851 he partnered with J. Braun and established a brewery on Belmont Avenue. Laible then wrote to his brother-in-law Wilhelm Konrad Krüger and asked him to send his son to Newark to apprentice in the new brewery. Krüger obliged. John Laible died on the 21st of August, 1862 at age 46 years. He would never see the empire that his modest brewery would become.

The young Krueger he imported from Germany was none-other than Gottfried Krueger, and he was a model employee. Despite being hired to push a broom, Krueger would eventually earn enough to buy the brewery. He guided the G. Krueger Brewing Co. to great prosperity for decades, all the way to Prohibition. The brewery Laible established in 1851 finally closed in 1961.

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