Wooden barrels sit on their sides next to smaller boxes and barrels hold bottles in Monticello Beer Cellar.

Beer at Monticello

At Monticello, beer was a "table liquor" served during dinner, and Thomas Jefferson's earliest designs for his plantation included spaces for brewing and the storage of beer.

“ ...we are this day beginning, under the directions of Capt Miller, the business of brewing Malt liquors...”
Thomas Jefferson to William D. Meriwether, 17 September 1813
A green-glass bottles and ceramic bottles sit on a table and boxes of bottles sit on a brick floor next to a bench with a barrel.

Monticello Ales

Monticello's Andrew Davenport shares how an English brewer's fraught sea voyage led to Peter Hemings—an enslaved Monticello cook of "great intelligence and diligence"—becoming an accomplished brewer whose beer was the envy of Jefferson's neighbors.

Peter Hemings, an enslaved master brewer