Edmund Resch (1847-1923) and Emil Karl Resch (1860-1930), brewers, were the sons of Johann Nicolaus Resch, ironmaster, and his wife Julia Bernhardine Louise Wilhelmine, both of Saxony. Edmund was born on 9 June 1847 at Hörde, Westphalia, and arrived in Australia in 1863. In 1871, after mining in Victoria, he moved to New South Wales where he and his mate were the first to strike copper at the Cobar South mine. After prospecting for a year between Cobar, Louth, Bourke and Gilgandra he went to Charters Towers, Queensland, where he built, then operated a hotel for four years. 

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Business flourished, for Wilcannia was a busy river port and center of a vast pastoral district. In September 1879 Edmund and Richard opened the Lion Brewery and in 1883 purchased a brewery at Cootamundra, renaming it the Lion Brewery; by 1885 they had branches at Silverton, west of Broken Hill, and Tibooburra on the Mount Browne goldfield. On 11 August 1885, however, the partnership was dissolved by mutual consent, Richard carrying on at Cootamundra and Tibooburra and Edmund at Wilcannia, where he built up an enviable reputation as a skillful brewer.

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In 1892 Edmund Resch installed a manager and retired to live in Melbourne. In 1895, however, he moved to Sydney to manage Allt's Brewing & Wine and Spirit Co. Ltd. In 1897 he purchased the brewery for about £67,000 and in 1900 also acquired the business and plant of the New South Wales Lager Bier Brewing Co. Ltd. Assisted by John Herbert Alvarez (d.1913), his able accountant and manager, and his sons Edmund (1879-1963) and Arnold Gottfried (1881-1942), who had both studied modern brewing methods in Europe and the United States of America, Resch embarked on a large building program, centralizing his combined interests in Dowling Street, Redfern. In July 1906 Resch's Ltd was incorporated with an authorized capital of £150,000.

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Resch's second business career was even more successful than his first. In 1901 he told a Legislative Assembly select committee on tied houses, where he was reprimanded by the chairman Richard Meagher for answering 'in an acrimonious way', that he was the only brewer in New South Wales who did not use 'salicylic acid and other antiseptics' in his beer, and, not surprisingly, that he was against tied houses. He successfully advertised in 1904-14 as 'brewer by appointment to His Excellency the Governor-General': his ales, beers and stout captured much of the State's market. From 1903 to October 1913 he was consul in Sydney for the Dutch government and on his retirement he was appointed knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau. 

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Edmund Resch died at Swifts on 22 May 1923, survived by his wife and sons, and was buried in the Anglican section of Waverley cemetery. Probate of his estate was sworn at £316,828. In 1929 Resch's Waverley Brewery was taken over by Tooth & Co. Ltd in exchange for shares issued to the Resch family.