Louis Hebrank was born in Hohenzell, Bayern, Germany. In 1853, at age 16, he emigrated to America with his parents, brothers and sister. The young family settled in Parkersburg, West Virginia.

Soon after arriving his father Charles established a brewery with Marcus Rapp to establish the first brewery in Parkersburg.  Louis learned the ropes of the brewing trade there.  By 1864, when he was 27, Louis had settled in Lubeck, a German community outside Parkersburg. 

They Hebranks and Rapp opened a second brewery in Lubeck in 1878. The Lubeck brewery lasted only a few years but the Parkersburg brewery was popular. While Hebrank died in 1896 and Rapp died in 1904, the brewery lived on, closing up shop in 1914, when West Virginia state Prohibition laws made brewing beer illegal.