The brewery was founded in 1825 by Franz Geyer, a gingerbread baker and mead producer. After World War II ended in 1945, Laško was the fifth-largest in Yugoslavia, and by 1991 it was the largest among 28 Yugoslav breweries. It lost much of the Yugoslav market in 1991 after Slovenia declared independence and the resulting Ten-Day War, although sales rebounded during the 1990s.