In 1724, Peter the Great visited a German church in St. Petersburg and had a long conversation with the local pastor, Reichmuth. Having learned that his sons Karl and Friedrich had graduated from the famous brewing school in Munich and wanted to establish proper German brewing in the new Russian capital, the emperor gave the pastor travel money and signed a deed of gift for a plot of land on Krestovsky Island. The young German brewers were received upon arrival at the Winter Palace, and Peter personally laid the foundation stone for a new enterprise consisting of a malt-crushing windmill and a brewery. Less than three months had passed since the emperor died. Obstacles began to be placed against the German entrepreneurs, and soon they were forced to leave Russia for their homeland. The first owner of Krestovsky Island, Field Marshal Burkhardt Munnich, the builder of the Peter and Paul Fortress and the Ladoga Canals, remembered the will of the first Russian Emperor, although the foundation stone had already been lost by that time, and the Reichmuth family lived far from St. Petersburg.

Both before and after Elizabeth Petrovna, who ascended the throne, exiled Munnich to Siberia, attempts were made to resume work on the construction of the brewery, and along with it a restaurant and other entertainment for the Europeans who lived in large numbers in the Russian capital.

The years passed. The story of Karl, Friedrich and the "beer mill" project turned into a legend both in Russian St. Petersburg and in distant Bavarian Munich. As a result, taverns appeared on Krestovsky. According to the recollections of contemporaries, they served "good, strong and long-lasting beer." Their owners were German immigrants August and Amadeus Baum, Wilhelm Krause, and from 1873, the Tatar entrepreneur Khabibula Hasanovich Yalyshev.

At the end of the 19th century, a first-class restaurant, the Krestovsky Garden, appeared on the site of the taverns. Thanks to the legend of Charles and Friedrich that was passed down from mouth to mouth, the main drink of the Krestovsky Garden, where Peter intended the beer mill to stand, remained excellent beer.

Such lovers of the intoxicating drink as Igor Severyanin, Alexander Blok and Alexander Kuprin, the inventor of the radio Popov, the artist Konstantin Makovsky, Admiral Makarov, and the traveler Miklouho-Maclay visited here several times a week. The Krestovsky Garden continued to attract beer connoisseurs - local and visiting Germans and Englishmen. The poet Nikolai Stolin wrote in Parisian exile:

Among the captivating naiads

I chose a girlfriend

How good was the "Krestovsky Garden"

And the "March" circle.

Here is a Russian feast, a German feast,

Here life is wonderful.

While there is still peace in Russia,

Side by side they drink - the German - beer,

The Russian -  beer with foam.

The emigrant melancholy of Nikolai Stolin was not in vain, in Soviet times the "Krestovsky Garden" as an institution alien to the victorious proletariat was burned down, in its place there was a wasteland, where a training ground for novice motorists was later arranged.

Meanwhile, the descendant of the founder of brewing on the island Ludwig Reichmuth, a businessman from Karlsruhe, took up the history of his family and in 1999 came to St. Petersburg. He contacted the owners of the nearby restaurant "Russian Fishing" and offered to share the secrets of family beer preserved in the Reichmuth family if the brewery was revived in its former location. During the laying of the foundation, the very same foundation stone was discovered, dating back to 1725, with the inscription "Hie domini MDCCXXIV iussu imperatoris Russiae Petri I prima bracina Petropolitana est.", that is, "Here in 1724, by order of Peter the Great, the first Russian brewery was founded."