WASHINGTON DC
Impressive Navy Yard-bound brewpub, sportsbar and restaurant, BLUEJACKET, was established in 2013. Inside a century-old factory with heavy industrial metal, steel columns and commercial grade windows, this red mammoth brick-based DC warehouse features a street level bar, two windy mezzanine levels and towering brew tanks everywhere.
The large wood-floored main dining room offers several community tables and semi-private booths serviced by the 20-seat silver-topped bar (with 22 homemade and 28 guest draughts).
Brewing director Ro Guenzel (formerly of Colorado-based Left Hand and Great Divide) has a flare for crafting a wide variety of traditional stylistic fare. There’ve been over 200 different beer recipes used in Bluejacket’s ten year stint. Cocktails, Scotch, rye, bourbon and wine are also available.
My wife and I consumed a dozen Bluejacket brews while visiting on a sunny Saturday afternoon, March ’23.
Bone-dry German pilsner, Love Cats, utilized floral citric-herbed Loral hops to provide a clean crisping for its musky mineral graining.
Another Bavarian pils, Self-Portrait, lifted lemon-dropped Hallertau hop herbage above dainty cracker-like pilsner malts.
Easygoing light-bodied aluminum yellowed rice lager, Gan Bei, retained a fizzy Saaz-hopped lemon spritz and herbal lemongrass minting atop rice-dried spelt graining.
Mild grain musk and sour lemon coalesced for cellared lager, Lost Time Kellerbier, a delicate moderation with slight vegetal tinge.
Flagship Lost Weekend, a rounded hazy IPA, let light vanilla creaming seep into salty yogurt soured milking, waxy tropical fruiting and dank pine resin – leaving ancillary guava, gooseberry and grapefruit tartness as well as peachy tangerine tanginess on its oated wheat base.
Tropical hop bomb, Smile In Disguise, another hazy New England IPA, regaled orange-peeled pineapple, grapefruit, peach and mango tanginess plus brisk lemon zesting over crystal malt sugaring.
Milk-sugared vanilla sweetened tropical fruited sour, Strangers In Paradise, picking up minor citric acidity as its salted mango, guava and passionfruit illusions and wispy green grape esters linger softly above acidulated pale malts.
On to the dark ales. Roasted nuttiness and soy-sauced brown rice combined for They Both Met Dark Lager, letting cola, walnut and Brazil nut illusions flutter before getting soapy.
Bittersweet chocolate and dark caramel received tobacco-roasted earthen mossing for Chimbley Sweep, a viable schwarzbier.
Soft-toned Eton Rifle Brown Porter had a nitrogenated smoothness as its coffee-dried nut char encountered desolate dried fruiting.
Mexican chocolate, cassia bark, vanilla beans and cacao nibs informed Mexican Radio Sweet Stout, bringing mild ancho chili heat to its molasses oats spine.
Brown chocolate-y milk-sugared coffee guided Sugar Snow Imperial Stout, gaining maple molasses, hazelnut paste, cinnamon bark and gingerbread niceties.