Calvert Woodley Catalog 2025 - Flipbook - Page 36
Successful Brewers Need to Be Nimble
By Jon Brandt, CW Beermudgeon
W
hen you are a homebrewer and your friends
and family praise you for your creations, you
might wonder, “Do I have what it takes to run my
own brewery?”
Silver Spring native Julie Verratti started
homebrewing while in law school at George
Washington University and continued as she
worked her way up in the political world at the
Democratic National Committee and
MassEquality in Massachusetts. She and her wife,
Emily Bruno, who worked at the State
Department, enjoyed it, but they knew their
limitations.
“I knew I would never be an expert at it,” Julie
said, “but Emily and I had a lot of interest in starting a business.”
In the early 2000s, there was a rebirth in the local brewing
scene, with startups such as Port City Brewing in Alexandria
and DC Brau in the District taking wing in 2011. They were
the leading edge of a second wave of local breweries
operations such as Old Dominion in Ashburn, VA, and Foggy
Bottom in DC moved or closed for a variety of reasons. In
Maryland, breweries such as Heavy Seas (nee Clipper City),
Oliver and Brewer’s Art chugged along in Baltimore and
Brewer’s Alley in Frederick, but brewing in the DC-adjacent
suburbs was limited mostly to brewpubs such as Franklin’s in
Hyattsville, Rock Bottom in Bethesda and Gaithersburg’s
Growlers.
[Note from the Beermudgeon: The preceding paragraph is not
intended to be an exhaustive history of brewing in the DMV in the
early 2000s. If we left out one of your favorites, we apologize and
encourage you to email us at beer@calvertwoodley.com]
As Julie and Emily developed their business plan, legislative
changes in Maryland and Montgomery County made a brewery
more viable, relaxing food service requirements and allowing
small breweries to self-distribute their products rather than
having to find a distributor who likely wouldn’t prioritize their
beers over larger national brands. That’s when they made their
34 — C A L V E R T W O O D L E Y 2 0 2 5 F A L L S A L E
call to Emily’s sister’s brother-in-law, Jeff
Ramirez.
Jeff, a professional brewer since 2008 who
worked at Trap Rock Restaurant and Brewery
and Iron Hill in New Jersey and Mountain Sun
in Boulder, CO, was a graduate of the famed
Seibel Institute of Technology brewing school in
Chicago. No homebrewer he. A location for the
new brewery was located on East-West Highway
near Wisconsin Avenue in Silver Spring and the
group signed a 10-year lease in 2014 to get
Denizens Brewing Co. underway.
Initially, Jeff said, 75 percent of the brewery’s
production was for in-house consumption.
(Denizens hit CW shelves in 2015.) A food truck featuring
barbeque initially
provided food for
patrons, but within a year,
2013—Julie and Emily start
an in-house kitchen was
planning brewery; ask Jeff to
established and the
join
brewery was a lively spot
July 2014—Brewery opens in
for locals under the
Silver
Spring near intersection
premise that “Beer brings
of
Georgia
Ave & East-West
people together,” Jeff said.
Highway,
10-year
lease
Within five years,
Dec
2015—Denizens
first hits
Denizens had maxed out
CW
shelves
their capacity and
demand for their beers
June 2019—Riverdale Park
outside the brewpub was
production brewery/restaurant
growing, so they
opens
responded to a developer
2023—Silver Spring brewery
building out a retail
closes due to expiration of lease
development in Riverdale
March 2025—Collaboration
Park, MD, and opened a
with 2fifty BBQ on All American
full-scale production
Lager launched
brewery in June 2019,
Continued on page 35
complete with a full-service restaurant.
Timeline
