After my conference finished up on Wednesday I decided to head up to the Pearl Brewery complex located about 2 miles from downtown. I was struck by the similarities to the Toronto Distillery District where old turn-of-the century adult beverage making facilities were repurposed into food/shopping destinations.
The Pearl Brewing Company was a famous local brewery, established in 1883 along the banks of the San Antonio river where fresh, clean water was available for beer making. The beer it produced was popular with the areas German and Czech population.
In 1985, Pearl's parent company purchased the Pabst Brewing Company and assumed the Pabst name. In 1999, the Pabst Brewing Company began transferring its production to Miller Brewing, on a contract basis, and closing all of its breweries. Pearl beer is still in production at Miller's Ft. Worth, Texas facility, but the Pearl Brewery in San Antonio was closed in 2001. After 118 years of brewing along the San Antonio River, the doors to the Pearl Brewery closed.
Since then the area has undergone a significant rejuvenation and is now an area full of shops, restaurants, and condos. The Culinary Institute of America has a campus on the site of the former storage shed.
Of course I couldn't help put to compare things to the similar facility in Toronto. Whereas the Distillery District has more of a focus on the arts and has preserved more of the historic buildings the Pearl Brewery District had tons of free parking and many condos which would make the community seem vibrant and alive after the shops were closed. I also loved the fact that the area food culture was being enriched by the CIA and their wide selection of food programs. I also loved how the Pearl complex was well connected to the natural environment - the San Antonio river - whereas in Toronto you have little sense of what the pre-development environment must have looked like.
All in all it was a brilliant place to spend a late afternoon!
Comments