The Brewers Association Old-Weihenstephan (Alt-Weihenstephaner Brauerbund, AWB) traces its roots back to the 1862 founded Aca ... demic Brewers Association Weihenstephan (Akademischer Brauerbund Weihenstephan, ABW) and is based on its principles. The ABW was a purely professional academic association that was neither religiously nor politically or nationally oriented. After the First World War when Weihenstephan was acknowledge its status as university the students of the ABW like many other Germans at that time were attracted by nationalistic ideas and introduced stricter rules like in other more conservative student fraternities. The association changed its name to Bavaria and became a duelling fraternity. Most of the existing members, who had studied before, did not like the new alignment and founded in 1921 the AWB, which was based on the traditional ideals and principles of the ABW. Within a couple of years the number of members of the new AWB exceeded those of the old ABW, mainly due to members which left the old organization to join the new one. After the voluntarily dissolution of the organization during the Nazi regime the AWB was re-established on 14.12.1949. In 1956 the association bought the mansion of Earl Preyssing on the Weihenstephan hill and converted it to its seat and meeting place with several students’ apartments. Today the AWB is one of the largest and most lively student associations in Germany with over 550 members (of which about 10% are students). All of the members have an academic degree in brewing science and technology and almost all of them are related to the brewing or beverage industry. read more