Brewers Exchange

Text

The Brewers Exchange, a gorgeous, three story terra cotta Renaissance Revival building designed by noted local architect Joseph Evans Sperry (who designed the Bromo Seltzer Tower, as well as many other Baltimore buildings) that stands at the corner of Park Avenue and Fayette Streets, was built in 1895 by the ale and beer brewers guild of Baltimore and constructed to serve as a forum for negotiating securities and commodities associated with the local brewing industry.

This handsome building, which features a host of elaborate decorative touches, including two-story half-round Ionic pilasters, cartouches, pediments, window surrounds, and a garland frieze. stands as a monument to the efforts of local Maryland brewers, many of whom were German immigrants who brought brewing techniques and technology with them across the Atlantic and whose hard work established Baltimore as the national center for their trade. Though the exchange only occupied this building for a decade, the still visible "BH" etched in the building's façade serves as a solid reminder of the prominent role brewing had in the economy and culture of Baltimore in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.