George John Enzbrenner was born in Bavaria. He was educated in his native land apprenticed as a brewer. At age 34, unsatisfied with opportunities in Germany and flush with the promise of the New World he set out alone for America.

He landed in New York City in 1849 and soon found residence in Hollidaysburg, the prospering newly-designated Seat of Blair County, Pennsylvania. In 1853 he moved north 7 miles to set up a brewery of his own in the mountain town of Altoona. Four years earlier Altoona had been little more than a plan on a surveyors map, but in 1853 settlers were rapidly moving in, and its population was approaching 2000.

George Enzbrenner ran his brewery there for twenty eight more years, and in that time he married Elizabeth Laubacher and had eight children. When he died on the 21st of December, 1880, Conrad, his oldest, took over.

But fate decreed that Conrad himself would die two years later, and this unexpected event thrust ownership of the brewery into the hands of his estate. Eventually a public sale was ordered, the result of which, after some legal maneuvers was that George's 21-year-old John, a baker by training, became owner. John renamed the brewery the Empire, and ran it ably for the next fourteen years before selling it in 1896 to John Kazmaier who ran it until Prohibition. The brewery was resurrected upon repeal as the Altoona Brewing Company and the firm operated for 41 more years, ultimately closing in 1974.

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Associated Breweries