Look south as you cross the elevated section of I-395 in Washington, D.C.’s Southeast quadrant or pop up out of the Navy Yard-Ballpark Metro Station on your way into a Nationals game, and one of the first things you notice is brand-new buildings, pretty much everywhere.

This part of the nation’s capital—one of the few (at least formerly) industrial sections of this white-collar city—hasn’t been left out of the District’s development boom; construction cranes rise like a grove of urban redwoods around these parts.

But nestled among the luxury apartments and sleek new sports stadiums (D.C. United’s new soccer venue is coming soon), you can still find some holdouts from the years when this section of town was a fully operational naval manufacturing plant pumping out pieces of some of the nation’s great warships.

Bluejacket Brewery, in the Navy Yard’s Boilermaker Building, is one of the most attractive reminders of that era.

The 1919 structure was built to boost capacity of the city’s Navy Yard during WWI, and (big surprise) originally housed the manufacture of boilers for warships and installations. At its peak, the yard employed 25,000 workers and produced the entirety of the Navy’s ordnance (artillery) in 188 buildings on 126 acres of land along the city’s lesser-known Anacostia River.

Manufacturing on the site ceased by 1961 and by 2003, the General Services Administration sold the property to Forest City Enterprises who, with the help of the National Trust Community Investment Corporation, secured more than $9 million in federal Historic and New Market tax credits to restore the space.

By the time the regionally renowned Neighborhood Restaurant Group (which also founded Arcadia Center for Sustainable Food and Agriculture on the grounds of Woodlawn Plantation, a National Trust Historic Site) discovered the building, they had been working on the idea of a showcase brewery for five or six years. The combination of a historic structure with lots of space, great natural light, and a neighborhood that was rapidly growing in popularity was too good to pass up.

Though the building itself is relatively bare-boned and had been cleaned of most artifacts by the time the brewery opened in October 2013, there’s still no mistaking its historic character.

Its walls of windows, exposed metal frame, and Foundry-style Department of Public Works construction give it an unmistakable look. The brewery’s moniker, too, is a nod to the nickname for the Navy’s enlisted sailors while its bar and restaurant operation is referred to as the Arsenal.