Tag Archives: Huerich

Courtesy of The Beer Can Guide.

Whenever you hear the phrase “Old Georgetown”, it’s often followed by the word board. But in the middle part of the last century, the phrase was used to describe a much more enjoyable item: beer.

The shores of the Potomac just south of Georgetown once housed DC’s greatest brewery: the Christian Heurich Brewery. Started by its namesake, a German who immigrated here in 1866, it was built in 1894. Huerich ran the brewery both before and after Prohibition, gaining a reputation as the best beer in town. He passed away on the job at the age of 102 in 1942.

The brewery produced a series of different beers, mostly under the Senate Beer logo. But in 1950, the brewery introduced the new Old Georgetown label. It wasn’t until later in the year that Congress passed the Old Georgetown Act, which established the strong historical protections for the neighborhood’s architecture. Both were probably inspired in anticipation of the 1951 centennial of the neighborhood (the “Old Georgetown” signs at M and Pennsylvania that you see in GM’s header were also erected around then). Continue reading →