Nature is healing. River otters have been spotted in the Inner Harbor. Dolphins are returning to Chesapeake Bay. Mr. Boh will soon reappear in the city’s skyline.
After more than two years since the Brewers Hill sign stopped functioning, National Bohemian will unveil a new, more environmentally friendly Mr. Boh on Sept. 25, according to a press release.
I wasn’t fully ingrained in the city at the time, but my longtime Baltimore resident co-workers said Mr. Boh used to be neon and used to blink. Sometime in the fall of 2022, the 27-foot neon sign at the top of the former National Brewing Co. plant went dark. He then became more like a “box light sign,” illuminated by different colored lights. He stopped winking.
People talked about it on Reddit. Our food reporter tried to get some answers.
Nitasha Chopra, who had just started working as a brand manager for Natty Boh around that time, got a lot of emails where people asked her what was going on, she said in an interview with The Baltimore Banner.
She gets it, she said, and she appreciates the passion and nostalgia people have for the Mr. Boh sign.
“It’s got a lot of character, a lot of charm,” she said of the sign. “Mr. Boh himself is extremely charming as well.”
The way the story goes is that Bill Struever, of Struever Bros., Eccles & Rouse, and designer Alex Castro came up with the idea of a Mr. Boh sign while having a beer, according to a Baltimore Sun article from 2004. Someone told a story to Struever of a time beer flowed through the street because someone turned on the wrong tap while making beer.
“We said, ‘We have to find some way to celebrate this fine tradition, because there’s nothing more important than having a good beer,’” Struever said in the article.
The design, the engineering and installment of the sign were all done by Baltimore-based firms, even though the brewery left the city in the 1990s. You could argue it’s no longer a local beer, but those who drink it are, for the most part, Baltimoreans.
As a brand, Natty Boh used to be more innovative, said Chopra, referencing Day Beer and Crab Shack Shandy. The revamping of Mr. Boh is the beginning of something new.
It took some time to get the ball rolling on fixing the sign, Chopra said, mainly because of cost. But changing the sign to LED means it will last longer, be easier to maintain and be more efficient energy wise, Chopra said. It also means Mr. Boh will come in other colors: Orange for the Orioles if the team makes it to playoffs, purple for the Ravens and rainbow for Pride Month, Chopra said.
As a journalist, I knew I had to ask the important question: Will he be winking?
Technically, Chopra said, he will be blinking, as he only has one eye.
