The San Antonio Brewing Association’s Brewhouse, that looked like a storybook castle, was not completed until 1898. The San Antonio Brewing Association hired Chicago-based architect August Maritzen, one of the foremost brewery architects of the day, to design the new facility. Maritzen, who was born in Krefeld, Prussia (now Germany) on January 31, 1862, emigrated to the United States in 1882. Before his death in San Mateo, California, in 1925, Maritzen would be credited with the design of more than 80 brewery buildings in the U.S., Canada, and South Africa. Alfred F. Beckmann, a prominent San Antonio architect and graduate of Hanover Polytechnic College, supervised construction of Maritzen’s brewhouse and other buildings, including the bottling house, wash-house, ice plant, new beer vault, boiler house, and the magnificent brewhouse (the name can still be seen today carved in stone over the door of the main brewery building). The brewhouse, an enormous structure, built in the Second Empire style popular at the time, with its arched windows and mansard-roofed tower, reaching 125 feet, was San Antonio’s tallest building. German-born masons used the brick and limestone prevalent in the area. Beckmann referred to the structure as an all-steel edifice enclosed with brick. The floors were steel beams and concrete arch flooring. Lumber was used only for doors, window or door frames, and on the roof. The City Brewery grew to resemble a small city. New buildings were added, among them a new administration office were completed in 1904. By the time the new construction was finished, few breweries could match its impressive scale.
