June 9, 2016

Report on DC Beer Week

Spoiler Alert! It was amazing!

Nick and I just returned from attending Washington DC’s beer week. DC has a vibrant craft beer scene, which is aided by Washington’s excellent pro-competition beer laws. If a beer is not represented by a distributor in DC, then it is perfectly legal for a bar or package store to purchase the beer directly from the brewery and transport it themselves into DC where they pay a small tax on the beer by volume and then are legally able to sell it.

This is why Pizza Paradiso can have Maine Beer and Grimm on their list and Churchkey can do a Shorts tap takeover. These laws also can cut down the cost to the bar and consumer. Sovereign is able to buy beer directly from the importer Shelton Brothers. So they don’t have to pay another middle man to mark up their Belgian delights like de la Senne.

So in a 3 day whirlwind we hit the following spots:

Day 1:

Toki Underground for Ramen (excellent base for drinking beer!)

Pizza Paradiso which was doing a Ballast Point Fruit Tap Takeover, most of the beers we have had, so we drank some bottles that we couldn’t get in Atlanta!

Church Key for Shorts and Surley 50 Tap Takeover

Meridian Pint for Wicked Weed

Jaleo for dinner (just for fun, not beer related)

Iron Works for a night cap

Day 2:

Blue Jacket

DC Brau

Churchkey for a Southern Brewery Tap Takeover (Wicked Weed, Burial, Fonta Flora, Parish)

Sovereign

Meridian Pint for Firestone Walker and New Belgium tap takeover (I never got pictures at Meridian Pint because there was pinball, so I was very busy playing Lethal Weapon 2.)

Black Cat for a show by Diaherrea Planet sponsored by Oskar Blues

Day 3:

Right Proper Brew Pub, who was featuring all their barrel aged brews