Johann Abraham "Abraham" Sprenger (I) was born in  in Albersweiler, Germany.  He was a butcher and for the first five decades of his life stayed in the town of his birth.  In 1820  two events would set Abraham's life in a vastly new direction.  On the 27th of March Abraham's wife Maria Barbara Kunz died and later that year he married Elizabeth Lauer.  Elizabeth was only 20 years old and her youth perhaps inspired Abraham to leave the old world behind and, at age 50, make a new life in America.

Abraham, Elizabeth and two of Sprenger's children from his previous marriage arrived at the port of Philadelphia on December 3rd, 1821.  They made their way to the German settlement of Reading, Pennsylvania.  The Sprengers were soon followed by his wife's parents, siblings and extended family. 

The Lauers were brewers who soon became quite successful in Pennsylvania Dutch Country.  In 1829 they persuaded Abraham to quit the butcher business and open a branch of the family business in Maytown.  Demand for the family's beer was strong and just two years later, in 1831, Abraham closed down the Maytown brewery in favor of a larger facility in Elizabethtown. Sprenger remained in Elizabethtown until 1836, then moved to the town of Lancaster, where he rented a brewery owned by his brother-in-law John Borrell.  He continued brewing at that facility until the age of 72, at which point his wife Elizabeth took over the firm and ran it for the next 15 years.

Johann Abraham Sprenger died on the 28th of August, 1854 at the age of 84 years, but the Sprenger reputation for good beer in Lancaster County would survive another hundred years.

John Abraham Sprenger Jr. was born in Reading, Pennsylvania.  He was raised in his family's brewery in Lancaster and took it over from his mother Elizabeth in 1867.  He ran the firm until 1873, when demand forced him into a newer and larger manufactory.  He purchased Philip Frank's brewery on 205 South Locust & Lime Streets and renamed it the Action Brewery.  This brewery bore the Sprenger name for the next 78 years.

In 1882 the brewery fell into arrears and it was sold at auction.  Through some legal effort John's ex-wife Adaline took ownership of the firm and the debt was written off.  She kept her ex-husband on as an agent and ran the brewery, now named the Excelsior, until her death in 1892.

John Abraham Sprenger Jr. died on August 28th, 1914 at the age of 85.  The Sprenger Brewery ultimately closed in 1951.