Haffenreffer Brewery: National Register of Historic Places Materials

The Haffenreffer Brewery is an intact example of 19th and 20th century industrial architecture. Located in Jamaica Plain between two major commercial streets, Washington and Centre, it is surrounded by a dense residential urban neighborhood. The Stony Brook traverses the site to the northwest; the brook has been in a culvert since the late 1870's when it became part of the drainage system for the Emerald Necklace park system designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. Set on an embankment behind the Brook, a railroad had always been accessible to the Brewery. This historic association is continued with the Orange Line, Amtrak/Commuter Rail tracks and Stony Brook station.

The complex's buildings were constructed between 1877 and the 1960s, a period during which they functioned as a brewery under the name of Boylston and then Haffenreffer. As the brewery operations expanded and changed, buildings were added both horizontally and vertically to create a complex of sixteen buildings. The central open paved quandrangle, onto which most of the buildings face, was formed by the intersection of Bismarck and Germania Streets. By 1946, when the brewery reached its peak operation activities, neither the 5-acre site nor its surrounding area could accommodate any more major buildings.

As the buildings vary in construction dates, so do they in architectural detailing. Most of the buildings display form and details reflective of the Classical Revival style, although evidence of other styles exist too.

Follow this link to read the entire National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form