Heinrich "Henry" Wahmuth was born in Lamstedt, Hannover, Prussia. He and his young family emigrated to America in 1854. They settled in San Francisco where Henry secured a job as an agent with the Albany Steam Brewery. In 1872 he opened up his own brewery at 612 Grove Street in that city. It became known as the Hayes Valley Brewery.

Henry retired in 1884 at age 60, but the brewery continued under the management of Frederick Bose & Richard Jurgens. The brewery tended to operate on both sides of the law during this time. In 1891 the firm was busted for having an illicit bottling house and reusing revenue stamps. The US Government seized the brewery and the Bose & Jurgens had to pay a $2500 fine to get it back. This was a lot of cash back then for a brewery with a capacity of only 12,000 barrels a year. Anyway, Heinrich Friedrich Wehmuth died on December 29, 1901, aged 77 years. His brewery, mismanaged as it was, went out of business two years later.