The pre-prohibtion breweries map: here, is part of a larger project that I've been spending pretty much all of my free time on lately. The focus of this project is the study of the historic geography of the brewing industry in the United States, generally. More specifically, I'm looking at the breweries that have survived for the last hundred years as functionally obsolete structures. These buildings were often monumental expressions of local, and frequently German identity. They were constructed around the equipment and processes required to brew beer. After the passing of the Volstead act in 1919, these structures and the equipment housed within them were useless. Many breweries never re-opened after the repeal of prohibition. Most of those that did, had failed by the 1980s if not sooner. My goal is to document how the 20% or so that have survived have been reused and adapted to the contemporary urban fabric. What does exactly 100 years of obsolescence do to a widely distributed type of industrial structure?

 

I will be posting updates to this site as the project progresses. I've been working on in-depth studies of the brewing industry in select cities such as Philadelphia and will post those maps soon-ish. I will be adding the locations of breweries that have been demolished to this map as well. I'll also be adding information on sources when I have time.

 

Please contact me if you have any comments, information or suggestions: hedlunch@yahoo.com

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