In 1878 Master Brewer William Gideon Åberg and his wife Onni founded a brewery in Iisalmi for the purpose of fighting drunkenness. In the spirit of the author Zacharias Topelius, they wanted to offer milder alternatives to citizens possessed by a lust for spirits. At that time, there were some 78 breweries in Finland. Olvi is the only one left in independent Finnish ownership.
