2023 saw DC Brau’s Penn Quarter Porter win gold in the Robust Porter category in the World Beer Cup. It’s a big deal, as the World Beer Cup is essentially the World Cup, or Olympics, if you will, of beer competitions. With over 10,000 beers from 51 countries, only 103 beers won gold.
2023 also saw Atlas Brew Works’ Silent Neighbor Stout win a bronze in the Great American Beer Festival.
Judging solely on the criteria of medaling at the World Beer Cup and the Great American Beer Festival, you’d take DC for a porter and stout town. On that criteria the region did well. Sweetwater Tavern Merrifield, Virginia, won a bronze medal in the Strong Porter category for their Midnight Rider Imperial Porter. Vibrissa Beer in Front Royal, Virginia, won a gold for their beer, Scout, in the Sweet Stout or Cream Stout category. Similarly, northwest of the city, Waredaca Brewing Co. in Maryland took home a silver medal for their Milk Stout in the Sweet Stout or Cream Stout Category.
We have some world class dark beers brewed in the area, but their combined dark beer output is only a drop in the bucket.
Consider Atlas, DC’s third largest beer producer. If you ask them about their dark beer output you’re looking at about 5% of their annual beer production. That means that 95% of beer is NOT dark; 95 times out of 100 they’re NOT brewing stout, porter, or dark lager. Atlas notes that their dark beer output is 4% if you leave out dark lager, and closer to 5% if you include dark lagers like Czech style dark, or Dunkel, a German style dark lager.
Consider the city’s second largest brewer, DC Brau. Their dark beer output is even smaller. It could be even under 1% of total annual output. “So yes, a very very small percentage” writes Alex Spencer, head brewer.
If we turn our attention to DC’s biggest brewery, Other Half DC, their annual production of stout is 2.8%. That number shrinks if you consider their overall production of stout which is 1.5% (this includes their breweries outside the District). While Other Half’s DC location largely produced stout brewed to fill barrels, Other Half Philadelphia did also produce some non-barrel aged stout. It’s possible that Other Half could increase their percentage by a point or two in 2024 as DC is currently sitting on a decent grip of stout aging in barrels.
It’s been well over a century since you could really consider DC a stout and porter town. But I would be remiss not to mention Alexandria’s Port City Brewing Company who’s been brewing their Port City Porter since the brewery opened in 2011. It also has a robust history winning both Great American Beer Festival and World Beer Cup medals. While it is just one of the dark beers Port City brews, it is the largest, accounting for about 10% of overall sales according to the brewery. While Port City may be the largest brewer of Porter in the immediate DC metro area, their annual output makes it about 1 out of every 10 beers brewed.
Consider what public historians believe to be the very first brewery in DC, Andrew Wales’ Brewery, in what is today, Alexandria, Virginia. While there is no evidence that Wales’ brewery ever produced Porter or Stout, George Washington’s ledger does show what he purchased (and in another case owed) from Wales: 54 gallons of Strong Beer, and 52 gallons of Ale. In April 1768, Washington paid nearly £4 for a cask of Wales’ beer.
Thanks to the National Archives and their Founders Library, we know George Washington was invoiced for a hogshead of “fine old Porter” in 1760. Consider a hogshead like a keg (this is of course complicated by sizing like the 54 and 52 gallons Washington bought from local brewer Wales).
The beer coming from London, that fine old porter, was supplied by Benjamin Kenton, who had a wine and beer business there. In 1784, Kenton’s Porter supplier was a man named Felix Calvert of the Hour Glass Brewery on Lower Thames Street, according to Martyn Cornell. Cornell also says that Kenton was the best-known supplier of Porter to North America. Uncertain as to whether or not the Hour Glass Brewery was an exclusive contract, Cornell writes Kenton supplied Washington for years, up until 1768, which was the same year Washington bought beer from local brewer Wales. The secret to that “fine old Porter”? Why brettanomyces of course! It’s magic! So says I, and so says Cornell.
If you’d like to talk more about these wonderfully nerdy concepts, come see Favio Garcia, Director of Brewing Operations and owner of Dynasty Brewing Company, Steven T. Bashore, Director of Historic Trades for George Washington’s Mount Vernon, and myself at ChurchKey on January 18. We will discuss the Porter Garcia has been brewing for Mount Vernon, as well as the other historical beers I have consulted on.
Tickets can be purchased here.
