DC Brau Check In

Visit Date: August 29, 2021 

I can't believe that since we moved here in 2017 we hadn't been to DC Brau. 

It's kind of the best known of the breweries in the DC area, brewing beer since 2009. Their history is a pretty interesting one. I used to travel to DC for work before we relocated, end up at the small bar at DCA with an hour or two to kill, order some food and drink a couple of beers while still doing some tech support to fill  the time. 

DC Brau was always the local I'd get. In fact, it was the only local at the time. 

When we first moved here, we were both still taking it super easy with beer but we'd go to Waredaca just to go look at the horses, or the Brookville Beer Farm to take in some music and have a nice lunch. 

Both are pretty convenient to our location.

We just never found our way down to the neighborhood and area where DC Brau is located. 

Out running some errands, Doug realized where we were so we dropped in. 

There was supposed to be some sort of festival/music action going on at the location and I was worried about being around other people. I'm still cautious about being in crowds, even outdoors. There was a DJ laying it down, and 4 people out back, and no one inside. 

So we decided that the DJ tunes were not our style, and inside was nice with no humans. 

The staff here is incredibly friendly, they have two serving stations going and we visited both. 

They don't serve food, but to my joy we realized they were next door to Roaming Rooster. The Roaming Rooster food truck was always a must-visit when they were in our neighborhood by my office, back in the olden days when we went to the office. I was missing their delicious sandwiches, so we made it a point to order. 

I started with the Oktoberfest (pictured above) because "tis the season" as we say. It's time. It was a nice beer with great flavor, and a great starter for our visit. Lovely caramel color, very cold, refreshing! 

Moving on to Joint Resolution, one of the Flagship beers, and one I am pretty sure I'd had a few times before, back in the airport days. 

Joint Resolution is a hazy IPA with a light ABV (5.5).  It is easy to drink, a nice hazy unfiltered look, good lace, and reminded me a lot of Harpoon UFO back in Boston.  

Not pictured but worth mentioning, Doug had the Maple Brandy barrel aged Stone of Arbroath, it had the heavy duty barrel aged/scotch ale sensibility, and for me this isn't a "drinkin' beer." It's a sipper, and one that should take a good long time to enjoy. 

He then moved on to El Hefe Speaks, the blueberry Hefe. 

It wasn't as flavorful as we had hoped. But was nice. Probably for him the most unimpressive of the beers where I wasn't the big fan of the Stone of Arbroath. He enjoyed that one much more than I did. 

We enjoyed studying the artwork throughout the brewery, unique and colorful. Typical of what you may see around with kind of a "gnome" theme, which creeped me out a bit. I'm not a gnome fan. I didn't take nearly as many pictures of the wall art as i should have. Trust me, it's really cool. 

I closed things out when we ordered our lunch from Roaming Rooster, and I enjoyed the Turbo Boost Multiball with my hot and spicy delicious freaking sandwich. 

So good. 

Perfect combination, the right flavor to go with something spicy (you don't want fruity and spicy, or boozy and spicy, you want just the right thing to tamp down the heat). 

We brought a sampler box home with us, since Geoff was not with us to enjoy the trip. There were beers in the collection that I didn't have at the brewery, and I didn't even get to enjoy them because the boy and Doug both got to them before me. 

I highly recommend stopping in at DC Brau if you're cruising up Bladensburg Road. Location and looks wise, you may not know you're in the right place but you are. Drive down around back, go on in, and enjoy. And get some Roaming Rooster too!