Philip Zang, future Denver brewery magnate, was born in Bavaria. He emigrated to America in 1852 and settled in the town of Louisville, Kentucky. In 1859 he and Philip Meyer purchased the Joseph Metcalfe Brewery on Market Street. He renamed it the Kentucky Brewery and employed his brother Joseph to tend the saloon in front. But the Market Street brewery was an old facility and Zang stopped brewing there after less than two years. The firm was leased by John Englin who converted it into a Malt House. Meanwhile the Zangs established their own Louisville Malt House on Sixth Street, between Main and the River.
In 1864 Philip Zang and William Vogt established the Phoenix Brewery and Gardens on Phoenix Hill. Two year later he picked up Phillip Schillinger as an investory and as a baker likely provided food for the daily picnics and weekly parties thrown at the Gardens. In 1868 Zang's Beer picked won Gold Medals in both the Louisiana Mechanical and Agricultural Fair and the Kentucky State Fair.
On May 10, 1869 a golden spike was driven at Promontory, Utah, signaling the completion of the Transcontinental Railway. Zang, the businessman, saw an opportunity. He closed his Louisville brewery that year and moved west to Colorado. There he went in to partnership with John Good to purchase the Rocky Mountain Brewery in the town of Denver.
Denver in 1869 had just been designated the territorial capital of Colorado. It was a town of around 4000 people, mostly young miners hoping to strike it rich in their claims along Cherry Creek. In 1870 the railroads came to town, and with them an economic boom and a steady population growth of 100 people a day. Denver would end the decade with a population of 35,629, which was comparable in size to Atlanta, Georgia.
By 1870 Zang had purchased Good's share in the brewery and was in complete control. He grew the firm to be the largest such concern west of the Mississippi. He ran the Rocky Mountain until his death on February 18, 1899. His brewery continued on in his name for another 16 years, until Colorado prohibition laws forced it's doors shut in 1915.
