About the Project 

The fourth artwork in the Industrious Light series from artist Phillip Adams, this mural speaks to the scale of industrial brewery production and the grandeur of the Brewerytown neighborhood. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Brewerytown had 11 functional breweries that produced 50% of the beer distributed in Philadelphia. Bergner and Engel Brewing Company, the third largest brewery in the United States in the 1880s, was located across the street from the mural site and is featured in the left part of the design.

The brewing industry enabled the growth of complexes and adjoining neighborhoods, and the scale and sprawl of these breweries is still visible in the last remnants of the F.A. Poth Brewing Company, suggested visually in the mural behind the barrel wagons. After prohibition collapsed the brewing industry, Poth Brewery was the only survivor. Eventually all breweries moved primarily to the Midwest, and by 1987, every single brewer had vanished. As redevelopment starts to transform Brewerytown, this new mural helps us remember the ingenuity that shaped the very beginnings of the neighborhood.