Field Trip: San Antonio, TX

What with the recent disappointments regarding Louis Lehle's Dixie Brewery on Tulane Avenue, the near-completion of the rehab of August Maritzen's Pearl Brewery [AKA San Antonio Brewing Association] in San Antonio by Roman and Williams was inspirational.

Over the course of his career, Chicago architect August Maritzen (fl. 1890s) worked on nearly eighty breweries in Canada, South Africa & the United States, including the Florida Brewing Company (Tampa FL).  He trained in the office of Fred W. Wolf, who had partnered with Louis Lehle from 1889-1894.(1) By 1896, he claimed to have received brewery contracts from nearly every state in the union.(2) His Pearl Brewery ceased operations in 2001.

This year, the building will reopen as a 146-room luxury hotel.(3)

Images above: Pearl Brewery, San Antonio, Texas, as photographed 13.02.2014 by K. Rylance; Dixie Brewing Company, New Orleans, Louisiana, as photographed 30.03.2014 by K. Rylance.

(1)Susan K. Appel. "Pre-Prohibition American Breweries." Journal of the Brewery History Society 136 as viewed online at: http://www.breweryhistory.com/journal/archive/136/AppelColour.pdf

&

Lynn Pearson. "Ale and Farewell: The German Style of Brewery Architecture." Brewery History 123 (Summer 2006) as viewed online at:  http://www.breweryhistory.com/journal/archive/123/Architecture.pdf

(2)"The New Brewery." The Plain Dealer (25 February 1896): p. 5.

(3)Valentino Lucio. "Development at the Pearl Heating Up." My SA (6 February 2013) as viewed online at: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Development-at-the-Pearl-heating-up-4254393.php