NRG’s Monstrous Event Shows DC Beer Scene What We’ve Become

It has never been like this before.

There are a lot of people in the DC area devoting column inches to this phrase or something like it these days, but when they do it, the tone tends to be rueful or concerned. You can almost hear the wringing of their hands.

Not me. I’m elated.

A little less than two weeks ago, the Neighborhood Restaurant Group held their seventh annual Snallygaster. To call Snallygaster a beer festival doesn’t give it enough credit, and it would also be giving too much credit to typical examples of such events, which often (but not always, fortunately, in our area) tend to be boorish booze grabs. Not Snally, which billed itself as a “beastly beer jamboree.”

It’s easy to take Snally for granted, which is what I said to my wife as we walked into one of its many entrances, this one at 7th and Pennsylvania Avenue NW. (Thanks to NRG for the passes to come by for the day and to my in-laws for babysitting; shout out to the many parents who brought their kids and to NRG for