Boston History: What Happened to My Beer? Exploring Boston's Lost Breweries

While searching the online photo archives at the Boston Public Library, I came upon a collection called "Boston Brewery Posters." While looking at old maps of Boston, I was always struck with how many breweries there were.

So, let's connect the maps with breweries, and see what stories unfold.

Here's G.F. Burkhard's Bock Beer. But we need an address.

A few Google searches later, and I find Burkhardt was located in Roxbury. This article about 
Boston's Lost Breweries, is a treasure trove of information, and talks about Burkhardt:

Burkhardt built two large six-story Roxbury Puddingstone buildings and a large stable forming an L shaped enclosure around the adjacent Houghton and Company Vienna Brewery. Gottlieb, or George Burkhardt and his son, Gottlieb Jr., ran the brewery until Gottlieb Senior died in 1884. It continued brewing until Prohibition closed it in 1919. It stayed open, however, until 1929 producing cereal and other grain products during the dry period. Burkhardt made both beer and ale. Their labels were Tivoli Beer, Extra Lager Beer, and; starting in 1912, Red Sox Beer, to honor that year’s World Series Champions. They also made Augsburger Lager & Augsburger Dark, Salvator Lager, Brown Stock Lager and Bock style Lager. They produced over 100,000 barrels a year of beer alone, plus Golden Sheaf Ale, Cream Ale, Brown Stock Ale, Old Stock Porter, India Pale Ale and; also starting in 1912, Pennant Ale.

There's the brewery, taking a couple city blocks at Parker and Station Streets. This entire lot is now a parking lot in Roxbury. 

Here is a 1931 of the area, with the buildings that are still standing today overlaid with grey.

Here's the same map, with existing buildings overlaid in green for better contrast. Look at how much of Roxbury has been torn down and replaced since 1931!

Zooming in. Wait, there appears to be two buildings (I missed them while making the map above) still on the block that was the brewery.

How poignant that we can see the Pru and the Hancock at the same time as the remains of this block. Actually, this is another brewery, the A.J. Houghton & Co. “Vienna” Brewery. Located at Station and Halleck Streets, it was active from 1870 to 1918. Explore the area on Google Street View. From the Boston's Lost Breweries article: This is the only landmark brewery in Boston, having been protected by the Boston Landmarks Commission, despite its poor condition.

A.J.Houghton & Co Brewery still stands in Roxbury.

While this poster says the office was at 16 Arch Street near Milk Street in Boston, the brewery itself was at 1276 Columbus Avenue, the present site of Roxbury Community College.

The Pfaff Brewery and the Norfolk Brewery were next to each other on the site that is now Roxbury Community College.  From the article:
A third brewery, Habich “Norfolk” Brewery, active from 1874 to 1902, was located at 171 Cedar Street and occupied the same College site. Habich was the first Boston Brewery to make Lager beer in the 1850’s.

Jacob Wirth is Boston's oldest remaining microbrewer. This poster is from 1875.


How cool is that: Jacob Wirth is still there, amazingly unchanged from 1868! Explore in Google Street View. So, what happened to my beer? It's all gone, except for Jacob Wirth's. In Boston.

The Jamaica Plain Historical Society's excellent article tells the full story of 24 breweries that once dotted Roxbury and Jamaica Plain:

Beer making in Boston was in its heyday in the early 1900’s. Try to imagine the clatter of horse-drawn, iron-wheeled, wagons bringing raw materials in and finished product out of the 24 breweries in Roxbury and Jamaica Plain which were located on or near Columbus Avenue, Heath Street and Amory Street. Add the pungent odors of hops, yeast, slowly cooking grains and the coal and wood smoke billowing from each of the 24 smokestacks and you begin to sense the impact these breweries had on their neighborhoods.

And why were they located here? There are two simple reasons: abundant and crystal clear water from the aquifer along the Stony Brook along with artesian wells bubbling to the surface around Mission Hill; and the relatively cheap land after the City of Roxbury merged with Boston in 1868. These conditions, combined with the demand for the new German type Lager beers, drove the expansion of the industry locally.