Nassau Brewing Company

Two buildings remain from what was once Nassau Brewing Company, just east of the elevated viaduct. One spans Bergen Street from the northwest corner with Franklin Avenue and was constructed from the corner (947-949 Bergen) to the west in four phases, from the mid-1860s to the 1880s. The second building (1024 Dean St.) was added in the 1880s, connected to the rear of the 1880s Bergen St. addition. Both buildings together formed an L shape by the 1880s. Beer brewing attracted many German immigrants to Brooklyn in the second half of the nineteenth century. Nassua Brewing Company closed in 1916. The first building (A on map) and the 1860s (B) and 1870s (C) additions along Bergen St. are vacant. The 1880s addition on Bergen St. and the Dean St. building (D and E) were rehabilitated in the 2000s to hold offices and residential condominiums.

Brewing beer in Brooklyn began in the 1850s, with German immigrants behind most of the breweries in the nineteenth century. Creation of the Ridgewood Reservoir brought a steady supply of fresh water to Brooklyn. By the 1880s, there were 35 breweries in Brooklyn, selling about $8 million annually. For the first few decades, the breweries served local neighborhoods. After refrigeration came into use, breweries started shipping beer to non-local markets. Brooklyn held 45 breweries in 1898. Breweries took a major hit when national Prohibition made alcohol illegal from 1920 to 1933. There was a legal loophole that kept at least some beer brewing going in Brooklyn - it was legal to make low-alcohol beer, so if inspectors found regular beer being brewed, the owners could claim this was beer that was in the process of being turned into the low-alcohol brew. The low point came in the mid-twentieth century when economic and crime woes reduced Brooklyn's population and led many to move out. There were no breweries left by 1977, but the first craft beer brewery opened in the Bushwick neighborhood in the 1980s. Craft breweries and the more recently introduced home brewing have made the gentrifying Brooklyn a beer-making mecca once again.

The Nassau Brewing Company may have started in 1866 as Bedford Brewery under George Malcolm, a Scottish brewer. Malcolm lost the property for non-payment of taxes, and it was auctioned off in 1871 to Ferdinand Munch and Christian Goetz. The owners lost the business in 1883 for violating laws against selling beer on Sundays; William Brown bought the complex in 1884 and called it Budweiser Brewing Company of Brooklyn. The company was not related to the St. Louis Budweiser brand, who sued and forced the Brooklyn company to change its name. Nassau Brewing Company became the new name in 1898; the complex closed in 1916.

The oldest part of the first building was constructed at the northwest corner of Bergen St. and Franklin Ave. (947-949 Bergen, A on map) in the mid-1860s and added onto in the 1890s; this red brick building is three stories tall along Bergen (south side) and two stories tall on the north. The simple architectural style, with its round-arched windows, is Rundbogenstil; the architect was Philip Engelhardt. The first addition, immediately to the west of A (943-945 Bergen, B), is slightly taller and once held ale vaults. By the mid-twentieth century, it held an auto body shop. The massive, brown brick addition to the west (937-941 Bergen, C) is three stories tall along Bergen and six stories to the rear. Designed by Charles Stoll, C was used for ice storage in front and a new, gravity-driven cold brewing process in the back. C has been re-labeled "NASSAU BREWING COMPANY" in white lettering facing Bergen St. The final, large addition to the west (925 Bergen, D) was designed by John Platte and built around 1885 in Romanesque Revival style. Ghost (faded) labeling remains on D's main facade from former tenants, reading "HEINZ/ 57 Varieties/ Food Products" and "Monti Moving & Storage." Huge underground vaults were needed under the brewery complex (A, B, C) for aging lager beer in cold temperatures. The brewery industry used blocks of ice cut from local waterways or ponds for cooling, until refrigeration was introduced. D was built to hold artificially refrigerated storage and brewing. A few businesses occupy D now.

When constructed in the mid-1880s, the rear of the surviving building on Dean St. (1024, E) was connected to the rear of the 1880s Bergen St. addition (D) by a hyphen. E was an engine house for the brewery and was originally two stories tall. In 2003, when the building was converted to apartments and studio space, a rooftop addition and a westward extension were built, including modern metal balconies. Parts of the rear of the three oldest portions of the Bergen St. building (A, B, C) were removed in 1919. The L-shaped complex (Buildings A-E) was listed in the New York and National Registers of Historic Places in 2014 for its architectural significance and relation to the history of the beer-brewing industry in Brooklyn.

Brewed in Brooklyn. Weber, John. Performed by Marshall Stevenson, Richard Wagner. U.S.. Janson Media, 2013. Film.

Ciccone, Patrick W. Taylor, Jonathan D. NRHP Nomination of Nassau Brewing Company, Brooklyn, N.Y. National Register. Washington, DC. National Park Service, 2014.