The view of Consumer Brewery, which is situated in the top right corner of the photo, from across the Potomac River in Georgetown. (Photo courtesy the Virginia Room of Arlington Public Library.)

Last week a glimpse of an artifact in Continental Modern Pool Lounge led to an exploration of a quirky part of Rosslyn's history, Rosslyn Alley.

Now Arlington Public Library is bringing us back to an even simpler time for Rosslyn, when it was a bit of a seedy respite for Arlingtonians and home to the Consumer Brewery.

The brewery opened in 1896 and sat where the existing Key Bridge Marriott is located. It didn't last very long — in 1904 it became Arlington Brewery, and then during Prohibition it was a bottling factory for Cherry Smash. The building, with its smokestack and clock tower, was torn down in 1958 for a Marriott motel.

The full story is available over at the Arlington Library blog's Our Back Pages.

Shirlington has Capital City Brewing Company, but overall, the D.C. area has mostly lacked for hometown breweries for the past few decades. Recently, plans for several new breweries throughout the DMV have surfaced. Could it be that we haven't seen the last of Arlington Brewery?