Our story
2024
70th Anniversary
Ausländische Biere AG is celebrating a round "birthday", yet has remained young, continues to dynamically revitalise the market and welcomes "new" and "well known" beers. Whether lime, grapefruit, sour beer, APA`s, IPA`s, gluten-free, 0.0% etc.: Today, there are no longer any limits to the joy of experimentation of brewers worldwide.
2014
The beer culture thrives!
Numerous new types of beer were created with a wide variety of flavours, styles and characteristics. They stand out from the mass-produced beers of the larger breweries, enrich the beer market and appeal to the many "beer connoisseurs". Beer, a beverage that is over 6000 years old, has once again become an interesting topic.
2000
Dissolution of the beer cartel
After the dissolution of the Swiss beer cartel in 2000, which had long been the focus of the Swiss competition authorities due to its "monopolistic" nature, the beer market changed drastically once again and enabled other breweries to enter the market. Countless independent and artisanal microbreweries emerged.
1994
The premium Longneck
Further types of restaurants from the big, wide world (America, Australia, Mexico, etc.) found their way to "little" Switzerland and brought their cultures, beer types and drinks with them. Suddenly it was chic and fashionable to drink international beers straight from the stylish longneck premium bottles.
1984
Beer diversity
New styles of bars (pubs) with "service at the bar" were also characterised by a wide variety of international beers on offer. Consumers began to appreciate the various foreign beer styles and types and were delighted. It was a great enrichment to the "boring" classic Swiss beers with lager, speciality or dark.
1974
National distribution
Business developed favourably and the international beers were also offered and sold throughout Switzerland. The aim was also to be able to offer foreign tourists their familiar home beer during their stay in Switzerland. With the growing interest of the Swiss population in foreign cuisines and the associated internationalisation of gastronomy, other brands were added, such as Kirin with the first Japanese restaurants in Zurich or the English Watney's, Bass, etc. with the emergence of the first pubs, including the first Lord Nelson in Basel in 1968.
1964
Beer bottling hall
The Swiss beer market, which was sealed off with high import duties, meant that it was economically viable to import the beers in 100 litre barrels and bottle them locally. For this reason, an actual beer bottling hall was built on the premises in Güterstrasse, Basel with large beer tanks in the cooling cellar, a bottle washer, a beer bottle filler and later an automatic bottle labelling system. It was not until 1972 that customs duties were first abolished with the EFTA free trade agreement and the beer hall was used for other purposes.
1954
Founding of Ausländische Biere AG
As a result of the constant "discrimination" in beer distribution by the locally based, cartel of Swiss breweries, the brothers René and Kurt Rietschi, themselves owners of the Theodor Rietschi beverage wholesaler (founded in 1924), founded the company Ausländische Biere AG in 1954. The first beer back then was the Danish Carlsberg de Luxe. This was followed shortly afterwards by the Munich beers Hackerbräu and Hofbräu, which are still part of the company's selected beer portfolio today.
