National Brewing Company
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National Brewing Company
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National Brewing Company building, May 2012
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| Location | 3601-3901 Dillon St., Baltimore, Maryland |
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| Coordinates | 39°16′51″N 76°33′53″W / 39.28083°N 76.56472°WCoordinates: 39°16′51″N 76°33′53″W / 39.28083°N 76.56472°W |
| Area | 8.5 acres (3.4 ha) |
| Built | 1885-1966 |
| Architect | Wolf, Otto; Backhus, Paul W. |
| Architectural style | Romanesque, Moderne |
| NRHP Reference # | |
| Added to NRHP | December 30, 2002 |
The National Brewing Company was a beer brewing company based in Baltimore, Maryland. The National Brewing Company operated from 1872 until the late 1970s. At the end of the 1970s, the National Brewing Company was purchased and their breweries were shut down. However, National's two most prominent brands, National Bohemian Beer and Colt 45, were kept alive and are now brewed in Wisconsin.
The complex was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002. It is located in the Brewers Hill Historic District.
In 1872, the National Brewing Company was built at the intersection of Conkling and O'Donnell Street in Baltimore, Maryland. The company was then known exclusively for its National Premium beer. In 1885, National Brewery Company began brewing their flagship National Bohemian beer by the barrel. Nevertheless, they were still considered one of the city’s smaller breweries. The brewery itself, still showing signs of stables from the days of horse-drawn beer wagons, was in dire need of renovations. Unavoidably, National Brewing Company was forced to shut down with the onset of the 13 year Noble Experiment in 1920; larger competitors, however, such as Gunther and Globe Brewing (maker of Arrow Beer), managed to sidestep Prohibition by producing near beer.
Shortly after Prohibition was overturned on April 7, 1933, Samuel Hoffberger acquired and modernized the company, thereby reviving the National Brewing Company. When his son, Jerold Hoffberger, returned from World War II in 1945, Hoffberger made him treasurer of the company at age 26. A year later, Jerold Hoffberger was named President of the National Brewing Company, a position he would hold for 28 years. At the time, the company was producing approximately 230,000 barrels of beer.
It was also around this time that Mr. Boh, a one-eyed mascot with a handlebar mustache, came to endorse National Bohemian as the beer “From the Land of Pleasant Living.” This notion was later adopted by the company’s jingle, which boasted how National beer was proudly “brewed on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay.” The brewery was quickly gaining a name for itself and, in the late 1940s, National became the first to place six-packs of canned beer on the market.
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