The night DC Beer Week changed forever

There were three DC Beer Weeks without beer from a DC-based production brewery.

In 2008, DC Beer Week co-founders Teddy Folkman and Jeff Wells brought into reality their vision of a whole week celebrating the DC craft beer scene while generating bar sales during the city’s traditionally slow mid-August. It was a wholly different beer environment than fans enjoy today. 

Brewpubs like District Chophouse, Gordon Biersch (at the now-defunct 9th Street location), and Capitol City Brewing (which was at that time still brewing at its Union Station location which is also now defunct) were slinging DC-produced suds, but none of the six current production breweries was yet open. The same was true of Port City, Denizens, and many more that we’re now familiar with in the broader DMV.

The Brickskeller was still open and neither ChurchKey nor Meridian Pint had served their first beer. Come to think of it, most of the places you probably think of as the top beer programs in DC hadn’t opened

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