Leopold bought the small brewery of the hospital of Pécs in 1848 and transformed it into a big beer manufacture during the 1850s.
The factory's young and ambitious chemist Emanuel Kristian Scharbach developed that new brewering technology which brought the company great success.
[2] The first official recognition came on the 40th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 General Exhibition of Pécs (Pécsi Általános Kiállítás) where the company was awarded with a golden prize for its beer.
He called it Abbázia, and it had a covered and an open-air part where thousands of people could spend their spare time drinking and talking.
The locals loved the beer garden because it offered them a metropolitan feeling and there was enough space for revelry and charity ceremonies.