Outgrowing De Hooiberg
By the mid-1860s, De Hooiberg was doing what Gerard had hoped it would do.
Beer was selling.
Orders were increasing.
Confidence was returning.
And yet, the brewery itself could not move.
Situated along the Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal, De Hooiberg was surrounded by canals, neighboring houses, and a city that was growing tighter by the year. Complaints about smell and polluted canal water began to reach the municipal authorities. The city demanded improvement — but offered no solution. There was no modern drainage system, no space to expand, no room to adapt.
The brewery was boxed in by its success.
For Gerard, this was not a crisis of quality, but a problem of space. The beer could be made better. The process could be improved. But only if there was room to do so.
At De Hooiberg, that room no longer existed.
Choosing Space Over Convenience
The new location lay outside the city, in the Buitenveldersche Polder, beyond the Weteringpoort. It was not the easiest choice. Building there required additional infrastructure, higher costs, and patience.
But it offered something De Hooiberg never could:
space.
Space for storage.
Space for modern brewing equipment.
Space for growth that would not be constrained by canals and neighbors.
Gerard accepted the extra expense deliberately. The brewery he envisioned could not be built cheaply or halfway.
It had to be built properly — or not at all.
A Brewery for What Came Next
In 1867, just outside the Singelgracht, Gerard Heineken builds a new, modern steam brewery after a design of the brewery complex by the architect Isaac Gosschalk. This new brewery had to be a modern brewery driven by steam engines.
The new steam brewery consisted of two major parts: the brewery itself and next to it the boilerhouse with the steam engine, behind which stood a tall chimney. The main building was of a symmetrical design. On either side, component buildings with step gables served as storage place for malt, hops and barrels, and partly as a cold store. The middle section, in whose facade two small towers high up flanked a large bow window, contained the brewhouse and behind it a fermentation chamber.
Core brewing components (ca. 1867)
Contemporary sources describe the new steam brewery as a compact but modern industrial installation, designed for efficiency and controlled production.
- Water boiler (waterketel)
Used to supply heated water for mashing and cleaning
Capacity: approx. 135 barrels - Mash tun (roerkuip)
Used to mix malt and water during mashing
Capacity: approx. 35 barrels - Brew kettle (bierketel)
Used to boil wort
Capacity: approx. 128 barrels - Cooling / settling vessel (gelkuip)
Used for cooling or clarification prior to fermentation
Capacity: approx. 100 barrels - Cooling trays / coolships (koelbakken)
Used for rapid cooling of wort before fermentation
Total capacity: approx. 160 barrels
You’ll notice something subtle and important here:
👉 The mash tun is much smaller than the brew kettle
That tells us they brewed multiple mash charges per boil, which was typical for the period.
Supporting Page : The First Brew in the new Brewery