History
1924
O. SALM & Co GmbH was founded in Vienna by Georg Welledits and Otto v. Salm. Georg Welledits was a young technician for brewery machines and had great plans and new ideas for the brewery industry. The steadily growing breweries at the gate of industrialisation required the design of new automatic cleaning and filling machines. Also, new technologies for the heating systems of brewhouses were needed.
1932
SALM already had representation offices in Prague, Bucharest, Sofia and Budapest.
1945
The war destroyed all production facilities, representation offices and also the head office in Vienna was bombed out.
It took more than 5 years after the end of the war to repair at least part of the company. In the beginning the major work was to repair the destroyed or damaged breweries in Austria.
1962
a very fruitful cooperation started between SALM Vienna and SÜMAK of Stuttgart. SALM developed several full automatic bottling systems which were manufactured by SÜMAK and distributed by SALM in Austria.
1976
SÜMAK ceased the production of bottling plants. SALM took over the production of these machines in Austria. At this time SALM had a market share of more than 50 % in Austria.
1978
Georg Welledits, the founder of SALM, died unexpectedly and his son, Walter Welledits, took over the management and started with exports outside Europe.
1980
Walter Welledits discovered a small brewery in a London pub during a business trip and was amazed, how successful this pub was. He started a cooperation with the manufacturer of this equipment, Robert Morton Ltd. As these systems were only able to produce English beers and Robert Morton Ltd. was not able to produce a brewhouse for decoction mash method SALM started its own development.
The beginning was a plain sheet of paper and the experience since 1924. Everything known so far was questioned, nothing was copied. After three years of cost-intensive developments the first time ever a remote heating system for mash and wort was presented to the world. The first time ever 100 mm PU foam insulation for fermentation and storage tanks with jacket cooling was offered in combination with a new type of glycol based latent energy storage cooling system.
The brewhouse control system was also renewed, for the first time an industrial computer was used to control the valve system as well as the heating system to increase the temperature along a calculated ramp.
1986
the prototype was installed in Thal Haslau near Graz. Against all sceptical opinions, the test run was a great success. This pilot plant is still in operation without any major modifications. In the following years the design was refined, a copper version was added and since 1990 new chassis forms and a new version of the computer have been available.
1994
SALM opened its own restaurant brewery, the SALM BRAEU in Vienna, which is also used as a training centre for SALM customers. Originally planned as a simple training facility, SALM BRAEU became one of the most known brewery restaurants in Europe.
2004
the first self-thinking computer control for Salm brewhouses was put into operation.
2005
The export prize was awarded to companies which are very successful.
2012
More than 100 plants have been installed in more than 38 countries throughout the world.
2015
Hofbräuhaus München decided in favour of Salm brewery plants for their licence breweries.
2019
The second brewery for Hofbräuhaus München is delivered to Buffalo, USA.
Salm establishes the second own brewery in Vienna’s Schwarzenbergpark. The brewhouse includes a brewery plant with 5000 hl per year on an area of 220 m². The restaurant will have approx. 300 seats and approx. 600 seats in the 4000 m² large park.