Pic(k) of the Week: Beer, Hand, and Questions.

Five years ago, when someone said 'Washington, D.C. beer', what they meant —with only a few exceptions— was beer enjoyed in the city brought into it from elsewhere.

On an October evening in 2011, local beer reporter, Tammy Tuck invited several area brewers, publicans, and writers to a local pub, The Bier Baron, to discuss that situation, the state of the Brewnion, the local beer scene in the city. Pictured above are her hand, her beer, and her questions and notes for the evening.

At the time, the D.C. 'beer scene' was already vibrant but the local, home-grown options remained few. Brewery restaurant District Chophouse, of the national Rock Bottom group, had opened in dowtown D.C. in 1997. Gordon Biersch, another national chain of brewpubs, was open and brewing in the city. And there was a brand-new production-only brewery in Washington, D.C. DC Brau had shipped its first kegs of beer in April 2011, becoming the first production-only brewery to operate in the nation's capital since 1956.

The venue itself was unique in Washington, D.C. beer history. Until 2010, it had been known as the Brickskeller, which for over fifty years had been nationally renowned as a good beer destination (its beer menu included over one-thousand choices), and a beer tasting venue with national and international brewmasters, when for years there had been few to host such.

In the five years following that conference, eight more breweries have opened in Washington, D.C., making for eleven in all, five of which are production-only breweries.

• 3 Stars Brewing (production-only brewery)
• Atlas Brew Works (production-only brewery)
• Bardo Brewpub (brewery/restaurant)
• Bluejacket (brewery/restaurant)
• DC Brau (production-only brewery)
• District ChopHouse (brewery/restaurant)
• Gordon Biersch downtown (brewery/restaurant)
• Gordon Biersch Navy Yard (brewery/restaurant)
• Hellbender Brewing Company (production-only brewery)
• The Public Option (brewery/restaurant)
• Right Proper Brewery (brewery/restaurant)
• Right Proper Brewery (production-only brewery)

None of the 'pundits' gathered that night in October 2011 knew that all of this was to be, but we were bullish. I was one of Ms. Tuck's invitees. I drank, I talked, and I took this photo.

-----more-----

• Here's my report on that evening of Brewnion. I fared poorly as stenographer-of-the-minutes.
• Bluejacket technically is not a brewpub. It is the name for the production-only brewery that exists together with a restaurant, The Arsenal, in the same building in Washington, D.C.'s fast-growing Navy Yard neighbourhood.
• Right Proper began as a brewpub. In December 2015, it opened a second, production-only facility.
• As of 2010, both Gordon Biersch locations and the District Chophouse are owned by CraftWorks Restaurants & Breweries, Inc., a chain that also operates Rock Bottom brewpubs, nationwide.
• In my first sentence, I used the word "they" as a gender-neutral singular pronoun. In 2016, YFGF has jumped aboard that grammatical faux pas bandwagon.


• Pic(k) of the Week: one in a weekly series of personal photos, usually posted on Saturdays, and often, but not always, with a good fermentable as a subject. Camera: Canon PowerShot SX130 IS.
• Commercial reproduction requires explicit permission, as per Creative Commons.


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