A couple of weeks ago I had lunch with Barrett Lauer, Head Brewer at District ChopHouse, to catch up and learn some local craft beer history. I wanted to learn more about Barrett’s tenure as a DMV brewer and his long history of teaching interns to brew. In my household we call Barrett’s DC operation “The ChopHouse Farm”.
Barrett is well known in the DMV brewing community - you may have read about him in Garrett Peck’s book “Capital Beer” or in a recent online interview at DCBeer.com “The Beauty of Barrett Lauer”. I’ve recapped my conversation with Barrett below.
My first interview question was “What did you do before brewing?”. I got two sets of answers to this question - first a set of answers from Barrett’s “early years” - what formed Barrett’s appreciation for creating and beer. Second, I got an answer about events related to Barrett’s brewing years – aka his resume.
Early Years:
1) Barrett’s mother cooked most of the Lauer family food from scratch and Barrett often helped her in the kitchen. I think of brewers as chefs - many chefs (and probably brewers) begin their life’s journey in the family kitchen learning about ingredients, technical execution, recipes and tasting the delicious results.
2) Teenage Barrett Lauer had a good friend that moved to Brussels, Belgium. 14-year-old Barrett spent two months over two summers in Brussels. As one would expect young Barrett learned firsthand about Belgian beer by eating and drinking like the Belgian locals.
Brewing Years:
In 1994 Barrett was a sculpture major at the Maryland Institute College of Art and a line cook at Oliver Brewing Company’s brewpub The Wharf Rat. Barrett bonded with The Wharf Rat head brewer, Howie Faircloth, over music, like the band Uncle Tupelo. In 1995 Faircloth left The Wharf Rat for Globe Brewing Company - this gave Barrett a brewing opportunity. The Wharf Rat brewhouse had a seven-barrel, basic, English produced Peter Austin setup that had been imported by Alan Pugsley. Oliver Brewing used all English ingredients, English equipment and brewed English style beer – “the only thing that was American was the water” according to Barrett. The brewing schedule at The Wharf Rat was aggressive – they brewed 2000 barrels in one year on the 7 barrel system.
In 2000 Barrett began his “German brewing chapter” at the Baltimore Brewing Company’s DeGroen’s Grill location. Baltimore Brewing Company was a family operation headed by fifth generation Dutch brew master Theo de Groen. Barrett started at DeGroen’s as a growler filler and on the bottling line. At the time DeGroen’s/Baltimore Bewing Company was one of the most technically advanced breweries in MD. Everything at DeGroens, from equipment to ingredients, was German (although their silo was Canadian). The DeGroen Marzen was their flagship beer but Barrett’s favorite beer that BBC brewed was their Pilsner. Barrett orders Victory Brewing Prima Pils when he sees it available on menus because the brewers who co-founded Victory Brewing Company also apprenticed under Theo DeGroen at Baltimore Brewing Company.
The DeGroen family moved back to Germany, closed down Baltimore Brewing Company and that ended Barrett’s German brewing chapter. He applied for an open brewing position at District ChopHouse, which is part of the Craftworks portfolio (Gordon Biersch, Rock Bottom, ChopHouse). After interviewing with Geoff Lively (Head Brewer, Rock Bottom Bethesda) Barrett was hired and began his long tenure as Head Brewer and brewer “farmer” at District ChopHouse. Barrett notes that the Penn Quarter, DC neighborhood, where ChopHouse is located, was much different in 2004. The only restaurants in the neighborhood at that time were the Austin Grill, Penn Social, Jaleo, Gordon Biersch, and District ChopHouse - and as Barrett remembers they were exceptionally busy. District ChopHouse continues to be a DC landmark and Barrett has built an amazing legacy that includes award winning beer and nationally known events, for example District Chophouse and Brewery Cask Day/Night and events during National Police Week.
The Farm and How I Know Barrett:
As Barrett said during our interview, in reflecting on his career: “I’ve made lots of friends along the way”. I know Barrett because of Farm Alum and good family friend Micah Krichinsky. Micah, a microbiology student at Howard University, became Barrett’s 4th or 5th intern approximately 12 years ago. Barrett remembers Micah as a good listener, a note taker and a capable intern. Micah “graduated” from the Farm and moved on to brewing at Capital City Brewing Company (and moved on to other breweries, like Dogfish Head – my interview with Micah is up next). It was at Cap City that Micah encouraged my husband, Matt Ryan to apply to deliver kegs and thus launched Matt’s brewing career. Essentially, although he didn’t learn at Barrett’s Farm, Barrett is responsible for Matt’s brewing abilities.
As a Cap City “keg man” Matt got to visit Barrett often – he would pick up, wash, and redeliver Barrett’s kegs and Barrett would feed him lunch. Pretty much all I knew about Barrett until recently was that he created many successful brewers through his internship program, provided wonderful lunch and lived in Baltimore.
Wrap Up:
My Barrett interview ended with a discussion on what our drinking styles and favorite beverages are as well as thoughts on the hazy juice bomb beers that are so popular today.
If Barrett is drinking then he likes to start with a Pilsner, move to a more flavorful beer or try beer that he’s never had, and he’s not just a beer guy – he also likes bourbon. As far as the hazy juice bomb craze Barrett had what I thought was a very solid observation - these types of beers are very social media friendly –very visually stunning. Instagram helped develop their popularity. Hazy juice bombs are like drinks that one would have on vacation – people like to look at pretty pictures and dream about vacations - the hazy juice bombs tick all the right boxes.
It’s been fun learning about Barrett’s personal history and contribution to the DMV brewing scene. If you are enjoying any DMV craft beer, then I feel pretty confident that there are less than six degrees of separation from your beer back to Barrett Lauer. Thank you, Barrett!