Brewing beer and Massachusetts are deeply linked, with beer being a key player for the last 425 years in Massachusetts. An exhibit coinciding with Massachusetts 250 is a must visit for beer lovers and history fans alike.
Brewing Massachusetts: How Beer Shaped the Bay State
The Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association (PVMA) operates the Memorial Hall Museum, located in the heart of Old Deerfield. The PVMA is a non-profit founded in 1870 to preserve the stories of the region’s colonial settlers and its Indigenous Peoples, especially the Pocumtucks.
Supported by Massachusetts 250 grant funding, Brewing Massachusetts is housed in a rebuilt 18th century tavern that reflects how it would have looked during the American Revolution. The exhibit, the museum’s largest and most ambitious ever, is open Fridays through Sundays through October 11, 2026. Through rare artifacts, photos, and documents, this exhibit tells the story of Massachusetts brewers spanning the timeline from the Pilgrims (there was a lot of beer on the Mayflower), the Revolution (it was on tavern tables when the Boston Tea Party was planned), Prohibition (it was in the Jazz Age speakeasies), to present day and in between.
The museum proclaims that “no state has been more impacted by brewing than Massachusetts, but this story hasn’t been told in one place, until now.”
Artifacts on Display
Brewing Massachusetts uses the tavern room to bring visitors into an 18th century tavern to get a glimpse of tavern life and the significance of taverns to the people of Massachusetts at that time, shining a light on the role that taverns and beer played in shaping the beginnings of our country. In fact, the exhibit takes visitors through five different rooms, arranged chronologically, including re-creations of six different spaces: colonial kitchen, tavern, saloon, Prohibition bootlegging, 1970s dive bar, and craft beer bar.
The exhibit features many historical elements, many of which are sensory and hands-on. Of the many artifacts on display, visitors are able to see and experience:
- a 1795 tavern sign that once swung in front of the Root Tavern in Montague, Massachusetts
- a side table made from the floor of the Hancock House, one of Boston’s most famous taverns
- colonial brewing ingredients to smell and feel
- clay stoneware bottles made in Worcester, Massachusetts in the 1860s
- a 1956 brewery tour video
- a handwritten 1930 statewide ballot asking whether prohibition should be repealed
- a wooden beer barrel from the Brockers Brewing Co. of Worcester from the early 1940s
- a handmade wooden sign on loan from Night Shift Brewing
Dive More into Massachusetts Brewing History
Learn more about brewing in Massachusetts through the years, from the Revolution to Prohibition to the modern day craft beer craze, in this fascinating deep dive from the Massachusetts Brewers Guild.
And, you can’t talk about brewing beer and the revolution without mentioning Samuel Adams Beer. A key part of the craft beer revolution, The Boston Beer Company’s brand, named after the Founding Father, has two locations in Boston: the original Brewery in Jamaica Plan and a Taproom steps from Faneuil Hall.
As Memorial Hall Museum curator Ray Radigan puts it, his hope is that the next time visitors sit down anywhere and have a beer, “they will realize they’re engaging in an age-old activity, one that shaped the growth of our state continues to impact the world we live in today.”
Please drink responsibly and do not drink and drive.
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