Best Brewing Company of Chicago Building

Best Brewery is a cluster of nine rectangular masonry buildings on Chicago's North Side, built in 1893 after an earlier brewery was torn down. Oscar Beyer of Milwaukee was the architect. The principal buildings are a six-story Brew House with a seven-story grain tower, a Machine House and a Boiler House, all of pale common brick with red face brick pilasters, limestone belt courses and Romanesque arched top-floor windows. A smaller office building from about 1885 was kept. The Hasterlik brothers bought the business in 1891 and ran it for roughly seventy years. During Prohibition the company made root beer, ice and malt syrup to stay open. After repeal it pioneered store-brand beers for grocery chains and was among the first locally to sell beer in cans. Production stopped in 1961. Equipment has been removed inside and some openings closed, yet the brewery's form and details largely remain. It is the last brewery complex on the North Side.