John A. Beyer was born in New York City, the son of a Baker. In 1864 he met and married Elizabeth "Lizzie" Betz Yuengling, the daughter of Pottsville, Pennsylvania brewery founder David Gottlieb Yuengling. Through this marriage he befriended her brother, David Yuengling Jr., and met their extended family of brewers, maltsters and tavern owners.

Shortly after the treaty of Appomattox was signed ending the Civil War, John A. Beyer, the junior Yuengling and Yuengling's uncle John F. Betz founded a brewery in the ruined Confederate capital of Richmond Virginia. For Baier and Betz it was pretty much a hands off venture, as it was 350 miles away from their homes and families in the North. As such the junior partners soon washed their hands of the project and left Yuengling to carry on the brewery himself. Eventually Yuengling also became an absentee owner and the brewery closed in 1878.

Yuengling struggled to be a beer maker independent of his father, but a string of failed breweries led the son to finish his life in poverty. John F. Betz went on to become a brewery magnate. At the height of his career he commanded no less than four breweries in New York and Philadelphia. John A. Beyer had a long career as a flour merchant in New York. His marriage to Lizzie produced a daughter, Emma. He died on the 2nd of April, 1901, at 58 years of age.

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