National Bohemian Brewery

Historic Baltimore brewery first opened in 1885.

National Bohemian Beer, colloquially Natty Boh, is an American lager originating from Baltimore, Maryland. It was first brewed in 1885 by the National Brewing Company, but was eventually purchased by Pabst Brewing Company.

Nearly 90 percent of National Bohemian sales are in Baltimore. The beer is currently brewed under contract at the Molson Coors brewing facilities in Albany, GA. and Trenton, OH.; and is also owned by Pabst Brewing Company.

The National Brewing Company plant was located between Dillon, Conkling and O'Donnell Streets in the Baltimore's Highlandtown neighborhood. The site was first used in beer production in the 1850s, when brewer John Baier rented land at O'Donnell and Conklin Streets into which beer storage cellars were dug. After Baier's death in 1866, his widow Anna Maria Baier continued to operate his brewery, which was located on Canton Avenue. Anna later married Frederick Wunder and by 1872 they had built a brewery, known as Wunder's Brewery, on the National Brewing site.

In 1885, the Wunder Brewery was sold at foreclosure sale to members of the Straus family, who later incorporated the business as the National Brewing Company. In 1885, National Brewing Company began brewing their flagship National Bohemian beer by the barrel. Nevertheless, they were still considered one of the city's smaller breweries. In 1899 National was one of sixteen breweries that joined to form the Maryland Brewing Company, with the then massive combined annual production capacity of 1,500,000 barrels. In 1901, eight of the sixteen plants were closed and the surviving breweries, including National, reorganized to form the Gottlieb-Bauernschmidt-Straus Brewing Co. The G-B-S Brewing Company operated the National plant until 1919, but after the start of Prohibition it was foreclosed on and sold in 1920 to Abraham Krieger, who would later be the president of the Gunther Brewing Company.

The National Brewing Company building, which is located in the Brewers Hill Historic District, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.