Frederick Fredolin Neef was born in Wolfach, in the Black Forest of Baden, Germany. His father Rudolph was a well-known hotellier in Germany.  He ran a resort and made Kiefernadeln Oil, (the original St. Jacob's Oil), an elixr brewed from pine needles.

Frederick was educated at the Gymnasium and began his career as a clerk for the illustrious Credit Lyonais in France.  Later he became a traveling salesman for a large silk firm in Lyons, a position from which young Frederick would rise to become assistant manager.

But the promise of the new world was calling, and in 1871, at age 24, Frederick emigrated to America and joined his younger brother Max and uncle Fredolin in St. Louis, Missouri, which was at the time the western edge of the America.  He found employment there at a wholesale paper and wallpaper firm.  Apparently this situation was not commensurate with his ambitions so the family soon journeyed even further west.  In 1872 the Neefs found a new home in Omaha, Nebraska where Frederick obtained a position as a bookkepper, and later salesman, in Willis & Andresen, the largest wholesale liquor dealers in the city.  Still unsatisfied, the Neefs once again packed their bags and followed the Platte River 550 miles west into the Colorado Territory and the city of Denver.

They landed in Denver in 1873, just one year after the city had established its first police department.  In 1876 Fred Neef appears in the city directory as a retail liquor dealer at 241½ 15th Street.  In 1877 he is listed in partnership there with his younger brother Max.  By 1880 the firm Frederick Neef & Bro. occupied the entire building at 241 15th and were doing business wholesale.  

In 1891 the Neef brothers sold their liquor business and purchased the Western Brewery from John Dostal and  renamed it the Neef Brothers Brewery. The brewery was successful but struggled to find a niche amid the giant breweries of Zang, Tivoli and Coors.  Thus they were most vulnerable when anti-saloon forces put pressure on the industry.  When Colorado went dry in 1914 the Neefs struggled to find a product to sell.  Snappy, their near beer, failed to catch on at levels enough to sustain the brewery and the plant closed down for good in 1917.  Frederick Neef lived a long life in retirement and died in 1939 at 92 or 93 years of age.

Learn more at the links below

Associated Breweries