The following is an excerpt from the book, The Breweries of Brooklyn, by Will Anderson.

Budweiser Brewing Co.

1024 Dean St. (Franklin Ave., Dean & Bergen Sts.)

This is a brewery whose history involves Czechoslovakia and St. Louis as well as Brooklyn. The Company's beginnings go way back to 1849, when Limberger and Walter was founded as a tiny lager beer brewery on Dean Street. The brewery prospered and grew, and then changed ownership in 1866 when Christian Goetz bought the plant. Goetz called his company the Bedford Brewery and he enlarged it into one of Brooklyn's more substantial breweries; by 1879 the Bedford Brewery was the 10th largest of Brooklyn's 43 breweries.

In January of 1884 a group of businessmen headed by William Brown bought the brewery - and things really started to happen! Brown poured considerable amounts of money into new machinery and plant improvements and alterations. As a result, output jumped from 30,000 barrels in 1883 to a tremendous 90,000 just one year later, in 1884. More interesting, however, is the name that was selected for the new company. Brown had been in the brewing industry for years; he'd been with the venerable Manhattan ale-brewing firm of T.C. Lyman & Co. for a time, and then had been President of the Williamsburgh Brewing Co., on Meserole Street. As he thought of his new brewery, however, he thought in terms of perfection - and he accordingly went to Europe to seek out the perfect beer to emulate back home in Brooklyn. In the Bohemian city of Budweis, in Czechoslovakia, Brown found the object of his search, for in Budweis there was brewed what he considered the "perfect concoction of malt and hops." Returning home, Brown used this "perfect concoction" as the model for his own Dean Street output - which he naturally called Budweiser, a name he also adopted as the company's name.

As might be expected, however, a Budweiser Brewing Co. in Brooklyn didn't set too well with the folks at Anheuser-Busch out in St. Louis. Anheuser-Busch had been using the name Budweiser for one of their several brands of beer since 1876, had trademarked it in 1878, and, not unexpectedly, were troubled that Brown chose to use the name in Brooklyn. And, making matters worse was the fact that Brown had expanded the market for his Budweiser well past Brooklyn up into New England, and was doing an especially big trade in Boston. Things finally come to a head in the late 1890's when Anheuser-Busch brought suit against Brown's Budweiser Brewing Co. In 1898, rather than defend a suit he obviously thought he'd lose, Brown changed the name of the firm to the Nassau Brewing Co. and ceased all usage of the word Budweiser.

As Nassau, the brewery remained in operation until 1914. The brewery buildings are still very much standing and well maintained today, and are used by serveral firms including the Franklin Body and Equipment Corp., Dean products Co., and Trestledean Collision Work.