Valentine Fredrick Röttler was born in Baden Germany, he was the son of Wendling and Catherine Röttler.  In 1852 he emigrated to America through the port of New York.  He settled in St. Genevieve County, Missouri where, on the 10th of November,1854, he and Mary Eastmann were married and together they had eleven children.

Around the time of his marriage Röttler obtained a position in the Seitz & Co. brewery and began to learn the art of brewing.  In 1855 the Seitz brothers made Röttler a partner, and a few years later Röttler purchased the firm in its entirety.  He lost the building to a fire in 1872 and used the insurance money to purchase a brewery in the town of Ste. Genevieve.  Röttler rebuilt that brewery after another fire and this he continued to run for the rest of his life.

Valentine Fredrick Röttler died on the 20th of June, 1914 at the age of 82.  Upon his death Röttler's son Valentine Jr. took over the firm.  He ran the firm for just four years before Prohibition shut its doors in 1920.