In 1864 Gerard Adriaan Heineken convinced his mother that there would be fewer problems with alcoholism in Holland if the Dutch could be induced to drink beer instead of gin, and, moreover, that beer brewed in Holland was of such poor quality that he felt a personal obligation to produce a high-quality beer. Heineken's mother bought him an Amsterdam brewery known as De Hooiberg (The Haystack) which had been established almost 300 years before, in 1582. Heineken was only 22 when he assumed control of De Hooiberg, one of Amsterdam's largest breweries. He was so successful that after four years he built a new, larger brewery and closed the original facility. His business continued to grow rapidly, and after six more years, in 1874, he purchased a Rotterdam brewery to add to his operation. Heineken incorporated his company as Heineken's Bierbrouwerij Maatschappij N.V. (Heineken's Beer Brewery Company) in 1873.
During this time, using a new cooling technique developed by Carl von Linde, Heineken gained the ability to brew year round at a consistent quality level. Heineken was thus one of the first breweries in the world to eliminate the brewer's traditional dependence on seasonal natural ice. In 1879 Heineken hired Dr. Elion, a former student of Louis Pasteur, to research yeast. Over the next 13 years Elion systematically bred and selected a specific yeast cell for Heineken, which came to be known as the 'Heineken A-yeast' (yeast being the source of alcohol and carbon dioxide in beer). The Heineken A-yeast would continue in use into the 21st century and would eventually be shipped from Holland to all breweries owned or operated by the company, providing for a uniformity in taste among Heineken products, regardless of the different climates in which they were produced or consumed.
Heineken began to export just 12 years after the De Hooiberg purchase, with regular shipments to France. Exporting to the United States began soon after the founder's son, Dr. H.P. Heineken, assumed control of the company in 1914. Traveling on the Dutch liner Nieuw Amsterdam to New York, he met Leo van Munching, the liner's bartender. Impressed by van Munching's knowledge of beer, Heineken offered him a position as the company's importer in New York. The bartender quickly accepted. Van Munching distributed Heineken beer to the finer restaurants, taverns, and hotels in the New York area until Prohibition forced him to stop in 1920.