I was taking a Sunday walk with a friend, when she noticed a large building on the roadside.
“What’s that”, she asked.
“That” was a former brewery. Founded in the mid 19th century it changed ownership several times. The oldest buildings were original, the newest one was the grey concrete building from 1968, which was used for cooking the malt and bottling the beer.
The brewery was sold to a nationwide operating company in the late 60’s and brewing stopped in 1979. After that the company built a large storage and distribution centre on the same lot. The rumour had it, that all machinery used to brew beer was still inside the buildings.
I had tried to gain entrance several times, but doors were always locked. I told this to my friend, who wanted to take a closer look anyway.
“No entrance?” she said and pointed at the main entrance of the concrete building. One of the windows was missing.
The rumour had been true. The huge cooking basins were still there, although badly destroyed. Someone had removed the machinery that very year.
The basins were partly inside the floor. Most above the ground level had been destroyed.
It’s difficult to realize, that the last bottles of beer left this place 37 years ago.
Even the brick structure had been damaged, when someone had removed the brewery equipment.
The windows on the ground floor had been destroyed and covered.
The building contained lots of thrash, which really didn’t belong there.
Above the ground floor was a lot more machinery. It looked very exotic, and I couldn’t really determine what it was used for.
The place didn’t exactly look like an office, but there was some paperwork done. Or if not done, at least stored.
The paperwork has ended up on the floor of the adjacent room.
The floor was covered in cardbord boxes and insulation.
To be continued in part two.