The Fix brewery () was founded in 1864 by Johann Karl Fix in Athens and is the first major brewery in Greece. About 30 years earlier, his father had started brewing beer in Greece. As purveyor to the court of the Greek king, the company was able to maintain a monopoly position in the Greek market for about 100 years. After the bankruptcy of the company in 1983 and several failed attempts to revive it, Fix beer has been brewed again in its own brewery since 2009. The reason for this is the relatively high popularity of beer in Mediterranean countries. History Beer enjoyment in the young Greek state In 1833, Adolph von Schaden, in a report about the Bavarian emigrants, mentioned the popularity of the British Porter beer among the Greek aristocracy. The same year, beer was also exported from Naples to Greece. Already before the Greek Revolution, there had been a first successful attempt to brew beer in Greece by an Armenian brewer in Tripoli. Briefly, damage to the beer production in Greece predicted good economic successes and recommended, in particular, Joseph Pschorr, to send one of his sons to build a brewery in Greece. Foundation of the Athenian brewery The brewery founder's father, Johann Adam Fix, a miner from Edelbach in Spessart, had followed the call of King Otto to Greece and had - like other Bavarians - settled in Iraklion near Athens. He was responsible in the management of the mines in Kymi, Euboea. Earlier, he had left his son Johann Georg behind with his mother. When Johann Georg traveled to his father at the age of twenty, he was to be picked up in Piraeus; but his father was murdered on the way by robbers. After the event, Johann Georg Fix was rescued in Iraklion, he stayed there and started to import barrels of beer from Bavaria. Later, he decided to produce beer himself and launched a small enterprise selling his home-made beer in Kolonaki (today a expensive and celebrated shopping area in the heart of Athens), which was a good place for socialising for the Athenian Bavarian community. Joseph von Ow, who was in the service of the Athenian royal court in 1837–39, wrote in his memoirs: "The Bavarian compatriots have company among themselves. - A brewery has been in operation in Athens for two years and is being used heavily. Professor G. Everus