Brouwersgracht runs along the northern edge of the Jordaan, where Amsterdam’s old canal network met routes toward the IJ. Its name recalls brewing, while warehouses and Herenmarkt traces reveal the canal’s wider life as a freight route and neighbourhood workplace.
Quick facts
Amsterdam’s City Archives links the canal’s name to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century breweries that relied on canal deliveries of grain, peat, hops, and water.
The Amsterdam heritage register identifies three breweries on Brouwersgracht in the seventeenth century; none survived into the next century.
The Eenhoorn warehouses at Brouwersgracht 246–250 recall a brewery that stood there until 1684.
Get directions to Brouwersgracht. Confirm the visitor entrance and current access with the venue before travelling.
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Guide
Brouwersgracht is easy to admire as a picture of Amsterdam: a narrow ribbon of water, bridges, house fronts, and long warehouse façades. But its most revealing feature is its working scale. The canal belongs to the city’s northern and western edge, where waterways connected the expanding town with the IJ and helped move supplies, building materials, and goods.
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