One of America’s oldest breweries is for sale on Craigslist. Well… it might be. Joe Sixpack has some background info over at the Daily News on the “was it a brewery or wasn’t it” question about the house in Burlington County, NJ:
The evidence is sketchy.There is nothing in the house that shows any sign of beer-making. It’s possible the brewery was razed completely and this old house was built in its place.But Kimmel points to the location of the original main entrance, on the side of the house, as proof of its age. If it was a re-built house, he said, you’d expect the door to face toward the street and the scenic river. Instead it faces toward the location of what historians believe was the old malt house.Could this really be America’s oldest standing brewery?”If it’s true, it’s certainly very exciting,” said Dale Van Wieren, an area beer historian and author of “American Breweries II,” a chronology of American breweries. Currently, he said, the title of oldest standing brewery goes to the Patrick Creagh house in Annapolis, Md., circa 1749.Gregg Smith, an author who has written about American beer history, said it’s possible Kimmel is on solid ground. “But then again,” he said in an e-mail, “most substantial farms and settlements had one and could in one way or another make the same sort of claim.”
Either way, the Craigslist post makes a great read. Recommended.
Did this old house make brewing history? [Daily News]
The Oldest Brewery Building in the United States, 1690s [Craigslist]
[Photo via Curt Hudson / Daily News]
