Category:Breweries in Allentown, Pennsylvania

Beer-making has been a part of Allentown almost since its founding in 1762. A tavern was in Center Square before the American Revolution, selling beer brewed by the Moravians in Bethlehem and Nazereth. Allentown began brewing beer in the 1840s.

The first known brewery in Allentown was the William Oberly Brewery, which opened in 1848 at Sixth and Lehigh streets, where the Allentown Racquetball and Fitness Club is today. During the Nineteenth Century Allentown hosted a dozen breweries, mainly established due to the excellent ground water which was filtered through limestone, which underlies much of the city. By the Civil War, along with the Oberly Brewery, the Leopold Kern Brewery, Eagle Brewery and James Wise Brewery all were established in the city. Most of these breweries were gone by the Twentieth century, with three main breweries dominating by the time of Prohibition in 1920.

All three of the breweries turned to making low-alcohol beer during Prohibition, along with soft drinks and various waters. Then returned to full-time beer-making in the 1930s with the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment.

It was after World War II that the brewery industry in Allentown began to change. Daeufers made a rich, thick, dark beer that was no longer popular in the post World War II era when returning GIs wanted a lighter beer. The brewery closed in 1949.

Beginning in the 1950s, a few dozen giant breweries in the Midwest of the United States took control of the American beer market and local brews began to decline. By the early 1960s both Neuweiler and Horlacher faced growing competition between the market share of the beer giants and the growing preference by the public for their lighter product. On May 31, 1968, Neuweiler's closed its doors. Horlacher lasted about a decade longer until it closed in 1978. It was the last of the major local breweries to go out of business in Allentown