WILMINGTON - A newly placed monument saluting the late Delaware brewer Christian Krauch will he unveiled at 11 a.m. Oct. 28 at the Wilmington & Brandywine Cemetery. The event is open to the public.

According to Delaware beer historian John Medkeff Jr. Mr. Krauch is considered “Delaware’s Father of Lager Beer.” The ceremony will be at his gravesite, which has been without a marker since his death 150 years ago.

According to Mr. Medkeff’s book “Brewing in Delaware,” Mr. Krauch was one of America’s earliest lager beer brewers and certainly one of the most influential figures in the state’s brewing history.

Mr. Krauch got his start brewing in his Philadelphia saloon after his arrival from Bavaria in 1838. Two years later, German brewer John Wagner arrived in the Quaker City with what is believed to have been the first lager yeast to reach U.S. shores. By 1850, Mr. Krauch relocated his saloon and brewing business to the burgeoning city of Wilmington and introduced lager beer to the First State. He was a respected elder of Wilmington’s German community and helped found the singing club that would later become the Delaware Saengerbund.

Mr. Medkeff organized the publicly funded campaign, which concluded in early September. The Krauch family and Wilmington Brew Works, and two organizations to which Mr. Krauch once belonged – Washington Lodge No. 1 and the Delaware Saengerbund and Library Association – assisted with the fundraising effort.