On Monday, I popped into Pizzeria Paradiso Georgetown. It had been far too long since the last time I took my rosy cheeks inside for a small pie and a pint. It’s spring break for my child and we had just dropped grandpa off for his cancer treatment at George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates. So to Georgetown we went.
Pizzeria Paradiso is a beery place beloved by all. Not to be outdone by food critics and folks born here, people who just got into town equally love the pizza. Looking at strollers, suitcases, and sweatshirts reading “Rhode Island,” the span of tourists ranged from teens to septuagenarians. I heard Boston and faint northeastern accents, and it was pleasant to note conversations in Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian. Despite a packed house upstairs, we were seated quickly and the service was speedy and attentive.
When Pizzeria Paradiso began in 1991, it was a woman- and LGBTQ+-owned restaurant in “the gayborhood” of Dupont Circle, a decade after the pride parade changed its name to Gay and Lesbian Pride Day in 1981. What is today Capital Pride, an annual LGBTQ+ festival, began in 1979 and in 1980 a nonprofit formed the P Street Festival Committee as the event grew.
When Ruth Gresser first opened her pizzeria on 20th and P Street in 1991, two years into George H. W. Bush’s presidency, she had only one draft beer: Rogue Dead Guy Ale. Draft lines were installed and today a dozen beers pour from the draft lines at the original pizzeria. On any given day you are likely to find some excellent beers from around the world, if not some of the best beers in metropolitan DC. When I went to Georgetown all of the drafts were American-made craft beers, and the draft list at Dupont was also exclusively American craft from the likes of Wild East, Oliver Brewing, Right Proper, Caboose, Drowned Lands, Thin Man, City-State, Forest & Main, Crooked Crab, 7 Locks, and ANXO Cider.
Pizza P’s draft lines today pour locals like City-State, Manor Hill, Silver Branch, and Denizens, over the years they’ve poured beers from and hosted drafts from Cantillon, Birrificio Italiano, Birrificio del Ducato, Freigeist, and the Brussels Beer Project. My draft Monday was Paradiso Dunkelweizen, a dark wheat beer, 5.4% ABV, brewed by Denizens Brewing Co. It paired wonderfully with the Siciliana pizza. The dark hefeweizen was the winner of the Pizzeria Paradiso homebrew competition, brewed in collaboration with Denizens.
When Gresser opened, the plan was to sell more Italian wine than anything else. That’s what her Dupont Circle pizzeria did. In 1991, Washington Post Food Critic Phyllis Richman exclaimed “The pizza gods have showered blessings on us,” writing, “our prayers were answered with wood smoke and yeast.” The yeast-forward beers like Weihenstephan Hefeweissbier and Saison DuPont would follow, though years later.
Gresser opened her second location, 11 years later in 2002, Pizzeria Paradiso Georgetown. Worth noting that when the pizzeria opened, not one of the breweries on draft today was in business. Georgetown Pizza P began with four taps: Rogue Dead Guy Ale, Jever Pils, Chimay Tripel, and Fordham Helles Lager. Georgetown would eventually have something her Dupont location did not: Birriria Paradiso. Gresser launched Birriria Paradiso in 2006 in the basement with manager Thor Cheston—today co-owner of DC’s Right Proper Brewing Company—at the helm. Recognizing the local demand for high quality beer, Birriria Paradiso featured 16 draft lines and hundreds of bottles and cans.
They began trafficking in bier Belgique, and the opening draft list featured Chimay, Van Honsebrouck, Brasserie DuPont, and Brouwerij Vergaeghe, amongst others. Cheston was bringing in so much Belgian beer—he’d travel to Belgium at least once annually and meet brewers—that one of his importers nominated him for the Knight of the Belgian Mashstaff award. In 2009 he became Sir Thor Cheston, Knight of the Brewers’ Mash Staff.
Gresser wrote to DC Beer and noted the key leadership she had, a host of folks who progressed good beer forward in DC:
Of course Greg Jasgur followed Thor and ran the program for 10 years overseeing the development of the programs at the new Dupont (2009), and Old Town (2010). Drew McCormick (first woman beer manager in the city) headed the program when we opened in Hyattsville (2017) and Spring Valley (2018).
Thankfully, Cheston had a copy of the original draft list as it appeared in 2006 and furnished us with a copy. I have to say that if I were to see this list today, 18 years later, I’d be thrilled with these draft choices. Enjoy.
