Alte Kantine

Alte Kantine is a Berlin venue within Prenzlauer Berg’s KulturBrauerei complex, with room for up to 450 people. Its defining feature is the setting: a renovated former Schultheiss brewery interior where red-brick columns and round arches frame the main event space. The scale suits a lively club crowd while retaining the close, enclosed feel of an old industrial room; a second hall accommodates around 50 people.

Brewery walls, then a cultural reset

The story begins with the Schultheiss brewery at Schönhauser Allee. The company became a joint-stock business in 1871, and architect Franz Heinrich Schwechten designed a representative brewery tavern on the site in 1892. Alte Kantine now sits inside that former brewery ensemble, whose working life ended in 1967 after heavy wear on the plant led to production being shut down and its machinery removed.

A second turning point arrived after reunification. The Treuhand took control of the deteriorating grounds in 1990; KulturBrauerei gGmbH followed in 1991, beginning the site’s cultural reuse. A first sale process collapsed in May 1993, and further ownership attempts also fell apart before a major restoration began in September 1998. That project preserved much of the industrial structure and brought tenants back during 1999–2000. Alte Kantine emerged among the KulturBrauerei’s longest-running locations, carrying that conversion into a programme built for public gatherings.

What the room offers now

Expect a broad, party-led diary instead of a single genre lane: regular dance nights sit alongside concerts, readings, theatre, variety shows, discussions and exhibitions. The venue also takes private hires, promotion events and record-release parties, so bill styles can shift sharply across the week. For live music, the useful details are the brick-pillared main hall, its vaulted arches and modern technical setup; the smaller adjoining room, with large workshop windows and a Prussian-cap ceiling, offers a more compact option.