Boston once had 29 active breweries and 24 of them were located in the Stony Brook
Valley (in Roxbury and Jamaica Plain). After the forced shut-down of Prohibition, only
six managed to reopen in the 1930s. This brewery complex, the Haffenreffer, Brewery was the last to close in 1964. You can see the smokestack above Building E. The bricks spelling out HAF had to be removed in the 1980s due to instability. An art project by Bob Maloney restored them in 2016.
The present day Brewery complex we are standing in contains 14 buildings built between 1869 and 1914. The Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation spent 30 years rehabbing the buildings. By 2010 they achieved 100% occupation of all the spaces.
But let’s discuss the first use of these buildings, brewing. The Haffenreffer Brewery, like many along the Stony Brook, started out using the vertical brewing process. (Look at Building F and H) Raw materials for beer (malt and hops) were hauled to the upper floors and the beer was processed as it moved down the building. Newer buildings illustrate the move to the horizontal brewing process (the side that Boston Beer is in). This process is still used in this complex by the Boston Beer Company (the makers of Sam Adams). They use this area as a test facility and are open to visitors to tour the facility. They are the biggest tourist draw in Jamaica Plain. If you go in to visit the Tap Room - please talk up this tour you are using to everyone in there!
You can still see vestiges of the time when this complex was its own little town. Building B is the Paymaster’s House and you can still see the Night Depository to the right of the door (has #31 on it). Building C is the old blacksmith shop.
[head out of the complex on Germania Street]
The old stable building (Building A) houses the offices of the JPNDC who have worked tirelessly to find reuses for these old buildings.
[continue on Germania Street to the corner with Brookside Avenue]