The Reno Brewing Company: Sierra Beer and Fourth Street's Brewery District

Walk East Fourth Street past Spokane today and the brewery district announces itself in taprooms and patios. The street earned that reputation in 1903, when the Reno Brewing Company opened at the southwest corner of East Fourth and Spokane Streets and began turning out Sierra Beer. By 1907 it was the largest brewery in Nevada, and it brewed until 1957. The brewery itself came down in 1959. One building from the company survives: the 1940 bottling plant at 900 East Fourth Street, now under renovation.

This is the story of the company and its beer: the three partners who built it, the run through Prohibition on near beer and soda water, the glass-and-brick bottling plant of 1940, and what stands on the corner now. It sits beside the story of its neighbor and rival, the Rainier Brewing Company bottling works just down Spokane Street, and of the road that made Fourth Street worth building on, the Lincoln Highway.

The Founding on East Fourth

The brewery opened in 1903 on a corner chosen for the railroad beside it. Corn, malt, and hops came in by rail, and finished barrels went out the same way. Three men stood behind it: Jacob Hook, a master brewer who had emigrated from Germany in 1886, and John Maurer and Peter Dohr, second-generation Germans from Wisconsin who had come to Nevada by way of Montana. All three were in their thirties. The Reno papers greeted the opening by noting that the town "need no longer send east for lager."

The first brew was Sierra Lager, and 600 barrels were ready when the doors opened. The building cost $40,000. An electric ice plant chilled the barrels in a large refrigerator room, and a 380-foot well supplied the water.

Sierra Beer and the Largest Brewery in the State

By 1907 the company had added a five-story brick annex and was making three beers: Sierra Beer, Malt Rose, and Royal Lager. Its 3.5 percent beer was advertised as "just enough to aid digestion." Sierra stayed the flagship for the life of the company, sold in barrels and bottles, while Royal also came in cans. In the 1930s the line included One Sound State, and the company slogan was "Buy Better Beer."

Prohibition, Repeal, and the 1940 Bottling Plant

When Nevada went dry, many of its breweries closed for good. Reno Brewing stayed open by making near beer, soda water, seltzers, tonics, and fruit-flavored soft drinks, and it sold a New Style Lager promoted as "yeast in liquid form." When repeal came in 1933, demand for real beer rose at once.

In 1940 the company built a new bottling plant beside the brewery, at 900 East Fourth Street. It is brick and glass block, 130 feet along Fourth Street and 100 feet deep along Morrill, with the largest single-span steel roof in Nevada, fifteen skylights, and chrome-painted walls for brightness. Conveyors carried the bottles through the line without a hand touching them at 110 a minute, and the plant employed an average of 26 people year-round.

Closure and What Stands Today

Large national brewers squeezed out the regional ones over time, and Reno Brewing stopped brewing in 1957 after a ruinous financial arrangement with the local millionaire LeVere Redfield. The assets were sold, and Joseph Hobson of Frontier Land and Cattle Co. took the property. The brewery was demolished in 1959 to make way for a casino that was never built. Hobson bought the bottling plant in 1958 with the same plan.

The plant has outlasted the brewery by nearly seventy years. Tenants included a concrete company and a plumbing supplier, and it has stood largely vacant since 1989. In February 2021 a Reno real estate firm, Highway Ventures, bought it for $2.26 million. Its owner, Josh Thieriot, put the approach this way: "restore the past to preserve the future." Crews have repointed the brick, replaced broken glass block, put on a new roof, and restored the original skylights. A remodel permit filed in late 2025 calls for dining, beverage, and retail tenants around a central open space with a tap bar.

The corner gave East Fourth its beer reputation. The informal brewery district runs from Evans Avenue to Sutro Street beside the tracks, and the Rainier works at 310 Spokane Street, built in 1905 and listed on the National Register since 1980, still stands nearby.

At a Glance: The Reno Brewing Company

• Opened in 1903 at the southwest corner of East Fourth and Spokane Streets, 990 East Fourth Street.
• Founded by master brewer Jacob Hook with John Maurer and Peter Dohr.
• Flagship: Sierra Beer. Also Malt Rose, Royal Lager, and One Sound State.
• The largest brewery in Nevada by 1907, with a five-story brick annex.
• Survived Prohibition on near beer, soda water, seltzers, and tonics.
• Built a modern bottling plant at 900 East Fourth Street in 1940.
• Stopped brewing in 1957; the brewery was demolished in 1959; the bottling plant is being renovated.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where was the Reno Brewing Company?

At the southwest corner of East Fourth and Spokane Streets in Reno, at 990 East Fourth Street. The brewery is gone; the 1940 bottling plant next door survives at 900 East Fourth Street.

Who founded it?

Master brewer Jacob Hook and his partners John Maurer and Peter Dohr, in 1903.

What was Sierra Beer?

The company's flagship, first brewed as Sierra Lager in 1903 and sold in barrels and bottles until the brewery closed.

When did it close, and can I see the buildings?

Brewing ended in 1957 and the brewery was demolished in 1959. The bottling plant stands, with its roof and skylights restored, and is being renovated for dining and retail.

Conclusion

The Reno Brewing Company made a corner of Fourth Street into Nevada's beer address, and it did so in brick, steel, and glass built to last. The brewery fell to a wrecking crew, but the bottling plant, with its fifteen skylights, is being given another life.

We return to Reno's railroad-and-highway past often at The Eclection, from the neighboring Rainier bottling works to the Lincoln Highway that ran along Fourth. To bring a piece of that era home, explore our curated collection at The Eclection.

Resources & Further Reading

For deeper study, these are reliable, non-commercial starting points:

• Online Nevada Encyclopedia — articles on Nevada history, people, and places.
• Nevada Historical Society — the state museum and research library for Nevada history.
• Reno Historical — local history of Reno, including the Reno Brewing Company and its 1940 bottling plant.

Hero image: a 1914 Sierra Beer advertisement from the Reno Brewing Company (Lake County Examiner, April 30, 1914). Public domain.