William Wagener was born in Germany. His family emigrated to America in the 1850s, settling in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin. In 1874, 37 year old William and his younger brother Frederick moved north to start a brewery in the town of Sturgeon Bay on Door Peninsula. The brewery was barely five years old when, in late October 1878, William accidentally shot himself in the hand. Despite the efforts of surgeons blood poisoning set in and he died on the 6th of November, 1878. His distraught brother sold the brewery a few months later to the Leidiger Brothers, who ran the firm until Prohibition shut it down on January 16th, 1920. The brewery made a brief resurrection upon Repeal as the Schonbrunn Brewing Co., Inc., but was finally shut down for good in 1939.

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