The 2016 Beer in Review Roundtable

Towards the end of every year, the staff of this site get together and discuss what they liked, and maybe what they didn’t, about beer–especially local beer. What follows is an edited transcript of that conversation. Here’s to more of the good stuff in 2017.

Overall

Tony Budny: It has been interesting to me to track the changes of 3 Stars and DC Brau this year, as they’ve both made tons of changes to keep up with the Joneses and experienced growing pains along the way but also put out some killer stuff. Overall, I think it’s been a year full of monumental growth for the scene, from Brau and 3 Stars to Right Proper’s expansion to what hopefully will be a ray of light from darkness for Hellbender out of bankruptcy. We talked during the year about how stale some of us felt it had gotten, but I’ve ended the year impressed that it seems many brewers here have gotten the message. They didn’t change their identities and took risks that I think will pay off next year. I am optimistic about th