Okocim Brewery

The brewery was established in 1845 by Johann Evangelist Götz (1815-1893), a German beer maker born in Wirtemberg, Joseph Neumann from Austria-Hungary, and local Polish noble Julian Kodrębski.

During the "Rabacja", a Polish-inspired peasant uprising in Galicia in 1846, directed at Polish nobility and affluent merchants complicate to Austrian partitioners of Poland, Götz barely escaped with his life.

He survived thanks to help from local friends and the fact that the workers of his brewery stood up in his defense, certifying that his business provided good pay and decent working conditions.

[4] Among other endeavors they funded a statue of Adam Mickiewicz, a gallery and the Juliusz Słowacki Theatre in Kraków, and contributed money to buy the Wawel castle from the Austrian authorities.

[5] At the end of the war, in 1945 the brewery was nationalised by the communist authorities of the People's Republic of Poland and reorganized as the "Okocimskie Zakłady Piwowarskie" (Okocim Beer Factories).

In 2008 the palace was resold to a private couple who plan to transform it into a five star hotel and modern spa, which would include the opportunity to bathe in the beer produced by the brewery.