Nevada Brewery, Nevada City California

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In the years that followed the discovery of gold, brewing became an important industry in California. The old Nevada Brewery building is one of two remaining of 15 breweries once located in Nevada County. Located near the old City Plaza, once the social center of Nevada City, it is the largest commercial/industrial granite building still existing in the area. Necessitated by repeated fires which often leveled whole towns during this time period, construction of stone was rarely found outside the Gold Country, and very few examples remain in California today.

Because of the demand generated by the Gold Rush, and the years of mining that ensued, brewing rapidly became one of the most important industries in the northern and southern mines. Following the discovery of gold, approximately 155 breweries of varying sizes were in California. Fifteen were located in Nevada County, and five of these were in Nevada City. These fifteen breweries produced 500,000 gallons of beer annually.

The old stone brewery on Sacramento Street is the only one of those breweries remaining in Nevada City, and one of two remaining in the county. It is the largest commercial stone building surviving in Nevada City, and is one of few extant granite structures in the entire Mother Lode and the state as well. Disastrous fires brought about building with non-combustible materials in structures designed for permanence, but although readily available, granite was seldom used in construction. Instead, most non-wooden buildings were of rhyolite tuff, schist or brick. The Brewery's brick detailing of clay from the Mother Lode has endured a century of Sierra gold belt weather, and the lime mortar in the building is in good condition.

Presently appearing as one structure, the north portion of the Nevada Brewery building was constructed in the mid-1850s, and in 1882-83, the south portion was added by George Gehrig on the site of Temperance Hall which was destroyed by fire in 1881. The brewery operated for several years under various ownerships and in 1893, Simon Hieronimus moved his brewing operations to the stone brewery from Searls Street, following a fire at that location.

Mr. Hieronimus was well known throughout the mining country both as a brewer and a cooper. Born in France in 1849, he came to the area in 1876 and established his first brewery in the tiny mining town of North Bloomfield, 20 miles to the east of Nevada City. When mining declined in that location, Hieronimus moved his family and business to Searls Street. Ultimately, he moved the brewing operations to the Sacramento Street site, were he produced steam beer until his death in 1911, at which time Simon Hieronimus, Jr., became brewmaster.

Although the Brewery ceased bottling operations permanently because of Prohibition, ownership of the property remained within the Hieronimus family for several years. Following this period, with a succession of ownerships, the building and the beer cooling/storage cave and tunnel built into the side of the hill at the rear were used for various bar/dining/dancing enterprises. In the 1930s, the Brewery was an especially popular entertainment place, drawing customers from as far away as Sacramento, some 60 + miles. Over the last 40 years, the building has been in and out of use as a beer distributorship and an eating/entertainment spot. Ownership has changed frequently and at present, the building is not occupied.

Building Description

Fronting on Sacramento Street, bounded by Boulder Street approximately 50' to the north, and Rough and Ready Ditch to the south and east, the old Nevada Brewery is a 2-1/1 story structure, approximately 63' x 83', of quarried rough-cut granite with lime mortar. The north portion of the building was constructed in the mid-1850s; however, the Brewery achieved its significance with the expansion to its present unusual configuration in 1882-83. The original facade of the building is in excellent condition and remains largely intact. A second-floor level balcony on the original north structure has been removed. A lean-to addition at the rear has not greatly altered the original appearance.

The earliest existing photographic evidence and the measured drawings of the exterior of the building indicates there was a stone building constructed in the mid-1850s which still remains incorporated in the total structure today and is approximately 29' wide and 41' long, three levels in height, with a simple wood frame gable roof. The building plan shape is a parallelogram, approximately 7' out of square.

The brick "Temperance Hall" building (built pre-1857) was directly south and adjacent to this stone building when the "Hall" burned to the ground in 1881.

When the fire was over, the southern half of the stone building main roof was fire-damaged. Also, the roof over the second-floor balcony was destroyed (iron ledger brackets for this roof still remain in the stone wall, although the balcony itself was probably not badly damaged. The three columns supporting both the balcony and the roof were possibly burned off just above the handrail, so the posts were cut off and ornament caps were applied. This roof over the second-floor openings was never replaced.

This original structure had four openings on the west elevation (Sacramento Street), two at the main level, symmetrically located, with two at the second story balcony level. The south wall had three openings, one each at the first and second levels, directly above each other, and one at the basement level. The north elevation had no openings at the ground level, but two window openings at the second level.

Existing iron pintle hinges are still in place at the east (rear) and south wall openings. Both walls are now interior to the Brewery structure but leave evidence that these were exterior walls earlier.

There is evidence of only one exterior stair sloping from grade to basement level, east to west, near the southeast corner (rear) of the building. This stair pit was later used for the water hydraulic elevator running from the basement through the second floor.

This would give an explanation to early reports of the Brewery being considerably more than 100 years old, when it is recorded that the time of construction for the addition was 1882-83.

In 1882, when Mr. Gehrig started construction of the new brewery building on the property to the south of the earlier stone structure, the stone wall of the west facade was constructed flush and parallel with the face of the original building, although it is evident that different masons did the work. The original building has more regular horizontal coursing whereas the later structure has a rougher surface and more irregular method of laying the rock.

The roof ridge of the original building ran east and west. The north half of the roof had not been severely damaged during the fire and still exists as the original slope. The new roof was constructed with the ridge running north and south approximately 67' from the ridge of the original building to the base of the hill. There was also a fairly large wood cupola built astride the ridge approximately in the center of the building. The gable end at the south was sloped 30 toward the east. The south stone wall was constructed with an acute interior angle because of building on the property line of an unusual shaped lot (which followed the base of the hill contour).

The four Sacramento Street openings on the original building were constructed with cut stone totally around each opening. As the 1882-83 addition proceeded, cut stone was used only at the arched opening for the exit of the brewery wagons. All four of the window openings at the street facade used brick keyed jambs similar to the window construction at the north elevation of the original building.

At the present time, the entire rear elevation (east) is wood frame and corrugated tin walls. There is no evidence of the 1882-83 structure ever having a stone or other masonry rear wall. At the north elevation of the shed addition behind the original building, there is presently a partial masonry wall approximately 7' high.

Sometime between 1890 and 1910, the ridge/gable roof that was put over the new section of the brewery in 1882-83 was removed and replaced with a shed type, corrugated tin structure that still exists today. There is no physical evidence remaining that the roof might have burned off, nor has research revealed any information as to why this portion of the roof was reconstructed. The roof framing of the original building (1850s) still remains.

When the shed roof was added, it was necessary to do additional masonry work to close in the Sacramento Street gable end. This was accomplished by adding a brick wall on top of the original stone parapet. At this time, an additional window was added at the attic level and the north and west elevations were plastered.

As late as 1960, a portion of the second floor balcony still remained, although the original posts and handrail had been removed ("modernized"), and steel diagonal supports were added as the structural element. This entire canopy was removed circa 1975.