Christian Heurich Brewing Company

The Christian Heurich Brewing Company was a Washington, D.C., brewery founded in 1872 and incorporated by Christian Heurich in 1890. First located near Dupont Circle on 20th Street NW, it expanded to a much larger site in Foggy Bottom in 1895 after a major fire. The new brewery was located along the Potomac River at 26th and D streets where the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts now stands. The Heurich brewery was the largest in Washington's history, capable of producing 500,000 barrels of beer a year and 250 tons of ice daily.

The Christian Heurich Brewing Co. closed in 1956, "because of a decline in sales and because of the knowledge that the government would seek to acquire the site of the brewery for the approaches to the new Theodore Roosevelt Bridge." For five years, Arena Stage staged productions in the former brewery, which it nicknamed "The Old Vat." The brewery and all of its buildings were torn down in 1961.

Christian Heurich, a native of Saxe-Meiningen, was born in 1842. He apprenticed as a brewer and butcher, then spent his Wanderjahr working at breweries throughout what is now Austria, Germany, France, and the Czech Republic. In 1866 he migrated to the United States, first living in the Fells Point area of Baltimore with a sister and her husband, then spending time in Chicago, Kansas, and St. Louis before returning to Baltimore. Heurich wanted to start his own brewery, but debated where the best opportunity existed. The growing popularity of lager beer was matched by an increasing number of German-owned breweries in the U.S. but many of the major cities already had a number of existing breweries. Partnering with a fellow German immigrant and coworker, Paul Ritter (brewer), Heurich decided upon Washington, DC. The city had expanded radically in size during the American Civil War (1861-1865) and a new city government worked to improve the capital city, to make it a world-class capital city. Led by Vice-chair of the city's five-man Board of Public Works, "Boss" Alexander Robey Shepherd, the foul canal which ran down what is now Constitution Avenue was filled in, roads were paved, and sewer and water lines were installed. The frantic pace of improvement soon attracted the ire of Congress, and the independent DC government was eliminated. However, Shepherd's improvements did make the city more attractive to new comers, including Heurich and as many as a dozen other brewers.

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