District Chophouse’s Barrett Lauer Discusses All Manner of Beer Topics

Picture a world, without DC Brau, 3 Stars, Atlas, Right Proper, Bluejacket, Bardo, and no Hellbender, too. Is this an alcohol-free, neo-Prohibition, dystopian future for DC? No. It was the state of the DC brewery scene nine years ago.

It was 2004, and Barrett Lauer had just accepted the post of Head Brewer at the District Chophouse. July 4th was his first day on the job, and the question posed to him by his management was, “What are you going to do differently?” Lauer, an artist by education (who studied three years at Maryland Institute College of Art), was overwhelmed with the blank canvas before him. “Quite frankly I was intimidated with all the freedom. I didn’t want to start rocking the boat that much.”

On his third month on the job, Aramark management, the food team at what was then the MCI Center, called Barrett and said they needed 30 kegs. “They wanted 15 kegs of Light Lager and 15 kegs of the Nut Brown Ale,” Lauer recalls. It was a 3-day home stand where the Aramark manager i