hailing from Seville, Spain, built the first European-style brewery in the New World. He is first heard of in records dated 23 August 1541, when his application for royal authorization to set up a commercial brewery in New Spain (now modern Mexico) was being debated in Madrid by the Council of the Indies. An apparent beer aficionado, Carlos V, King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, used the Council of the Indies to administrate his North American territories.

In the city of Nájara, on 6 June 1542, Don Alonso de Herrera signed a contract with the Crown that licensed him to brew beer in the “Indies” for a period of 20 years. He was liable to pay one third of his profits in tax, supervised by the Viceroy, Antonio de Mendoza. The price of beer was estimated at 6 reales (20.1 g or 0.7 oz of silver) per arroba (approximately 11.5 l).

The Crown, in return, made him corregidor (district governor) of an area of the valley of Mexico inside what is now Mexico City where the hacienda (estate) “de El Portal,” the site of the brewery, was situated. This allowed him, among other privileges, imports free of excise duty.

After early problems, with his Flemish brewers leaving for home or going off to work the mines, production appears to have increased steadily. The last figures we have, from 1552, give a monthly average of 246.5 arrobas (about 28 hl). The brewery seems not to have survived its founder.