3.7 🍺 above average
2006 was a landmark year for craft beer in the nation’s capital. Microbreweries were finally emerging from the crash of 2000, rebranded with a new moniker (“craft breweries”) and driven by a new generation of brewing pioneers and visionaries. The legendary Brickskeller was as out of date as its fabled beer list and would close within four years. But in its place a new kind of beer bar—a taphouse—was catching the attention of beer lovers in the DMV.
In Alexandria, Greg Engert and Michael Babin had just opened the restaurant Rustico with 50 temperature-controlled taps, five hand pumps, and 500 bottled beers. Just across the river in Georgetown, Thor Cheston was doing the same thing on a bit smaller scale by converting the basement of Pizzaria Paradiso into the craft beer bar Birreria Paradiso. This Georgetown spin-off of the popular Dupont Circle restaurant, offered 16 taps, 80 bottles, and just one hand pump, but the selection, curated by Cheston, was like a brewing hall of fame. Here were definitive examples of such German styles as pilsener (Jever), hefeweizen (Weihenstephaner), and weizenbock (Schneider); a British bitter (1998’s Champion Beer of Britain Coniston Bluebird) and two ESBs (Fuller’s and Harviestoun); an American IPA (Dogfish 60) and DIPA (Dogfish 90); an assortment of classic bocks and stouts from Rogue (Shakespeare and Dead Guy) and North Coast (Old Rasputin); and six quintessential Belgian beers.
Cheston’s interest in beer was wide-ranging and exhaustive, but his greatest passion was for the artisanal, idiosyncratic, often strong, yeast-forward beers brewed in the Belgian tradition. After a brief stint as beer buyer for a Belgian restaurant in Philly, Cheston returned to DC to run the beer program for the Belgian-style bistro Brasserie Beck. For his many years promoting Belgian beer in the US, Cheston was rewarded with a knighthood in 2009 by the Belgian Brewers Guild. Within four years, Sir Cheston would be calling the shots at a beer-centric eatery of his own.
Nathan Zeender had always preferred wine over beer until he discovered the flavorful, sometimes vinous tasting Belgian beers that Thor Cheston was pouring at Birreria Paradiso. Making good wine, Zeender reasoned, was not something you can do in your basement, but through his friendship with Michael Tonsmeire, he discovered that good beer was within the reach of any homebrewer with the passion, patience, and persistence to learn the craft. Zeender and Tonsmeire began collaborating on complex beers fermented with sour Lactobacillus bacteria, funky Brettanomyces yeast, and wild microbes floating in the air. These mixed fermentation beers could then be aged in barrels and blended to match whatever flavor profile a brewer might imagine. Tonsmeire would go on to publish American Sour Beers, the definitive text for homebrewers, in 2014, and open his own brewery, Sapwood Cellars, in 2018, with partner Scott Janish.
Zeender continued to experiment, brewing highly individualistic beers, often yeast-driven and frequently based on obscure historical styles like low-gravity Danish “ship beers” or smoky, sour Lichtenhainers. DC’s City Paper called Zeender’s basement in Brookland the “best brewery in D.C. that you’ve never heard of.” Washington Post beer critic Greg Kitsock wrote that Zeender’s beers were unlike anything he had ever tasted. “I can imagine beer geeks queuing up to pay $50 or more a case [in 2010].” Eventually Zeender’s brewing career came full circle when Thor Cheston, who had first introduced Zeender to Belgian beer, tasted one of Zeender’s Flemish-style brown ales. “I was floored,” Cheston recalls, “I knew that Nathan is such a talent that if we don’t grab him and bring him on board, someone else is going to.” With Zeender as head brewer, Cheston and partner John Snedden of Rocklands Barbeque & Grilling Co. opened the Right Proper brewpub in December 2013. (The colloquial name is sort of a Southern equivalent of New England’s “wicked.”)
Located in the heart of the Shaw neighborhood, next to the Howard Theatre, Right Proper occupied the former Frank Holiday’s Pool Room, where a teenage Duke Ellington would come to hang out with the jazz musicians playing next door. A large mural on the brewpub’s exterior portrays Ellington and many of the musical greats he encountered at Holiday’s. More abstract murals painted on brick from Nico Amortegui and Kelly Towles set the mood inside.
Cheston and his wife, Leah, created a menu featuring hearty Southern-inspired items like chicken and dumplings, corn muffins, and black-eyed pea succotash, with all entrees priced under $20—ridiculously affordable for a DC restaurant in the 2010s and in keeping with its goal of being a neighborhood eatery.
Just as affordable were Right Proper’s beers, with some pints as cheap as $4. The initial selection included the triple dry-hopped pale ale Raised By Wolves (5% ABV); the unfiltered kellerbier Being There (5.3%); the low-alcohol grisette Ornette (3.7%), brewed in Right Proper’s lone open-fermentation vessel; and The Duke (6.9%), a strong golden ale fermented with a Trappist yeast; plus three collabs with DC Brau, Lost Rhino, and Devils Backbone and an authentic Belgian saison from St. Feuillien on a guest tap. Some of Zeender’s more adventurous mixed fermentation beers were available in 750 ml bottles. It was an incredibly ambitious line-up for a brewpub, and fully in keeping with the Zeender’s emphasis on yeast-driven beers as an alternative to the hop-driven ales that were beginning to dominate craft beer taps. “I just don’t have any interest in following the hop saturation train,” Zeender told BeerAdvocate in 2015.
When Cheston hired Zeender, he did so with the understanding that he’d run the small five-barrel brewery like a workshop, constantly experimenting, with an emphasis on sour beers. In Right Proper’s first year, Zeender brewed more than 70 different beers. Some of his more successful experiments included Diamonds, Fur Coat, Champagne (3.6%), a Berliner weisse flavored with Meyer lemon zest and elderflowers and dry-hopped with grape-like Nelson Sauvin hops to simulate the taste of a brut Champagne, and Astral Weeks (4.5%), a farmhouse ale fermented with Brettanomyces yeast and Lactobacillus in an open fermenter. Washington beer drinkers had never tasted anything like these beers, and they wanted more. Readers of USA TODAY picked Right Proper as one of the 10 best new breweries in the nation; DC’s City Paper named Right Proper as Washington’s Best New Bar in 2014, and it would continue to win Best DC Brew Pub for the next eight years.
I was fortunate enough to visit the Shaw location just before it closed in early March 2026 after a successful run of more than a dozen years. Tunes from a Jack White Rodeo playlist fed the chill, somewhat nostalgic mood I was feeling. The wall-to-wall artwork was engaging as ever. And my food—Thai-seasoned shrimp and fries cooked in truffle oil—was still affordable, creative, and just filling enough.
Ten beers were on tap, including several Right Proper classics from its mid-2010s heyday. The floral, tart Diamonds, Fur Coat, Champagne was still as delicate and distinctive as I remembered it from a decade ago. Baron Corvo (7.6%) was brewed in the rustic French bière de garde style, fermented in oak foudres with a mix of wild microflora and the brewery’s mixed house culture plus dark cherries. The balance of malt, funk, and acidity was spot on, reminiscent of the best wild ales of from that era. The finale was a snifter of the latest vintage of Le Flaneur (10%), Zeender’s unique “vin de céréal,” or French barleywine. Blended every year, solera-style, the brew includes portions of every vintage, going back to 2013. Unlike British or American interpretations, this barleywine tastes more like wine than barley.
Early on, Cheston and Zeender could see that the brewery’s 5-barrel brewhouse was not sufficient to meet the growing demand. A former car repair shop in Brookland, across the street from Zeender’s home, proved to be the perfect place to expand. They filled the 6,300 sq. ft. building with a 15-barrel brewhouse, six 30-barrel conical fermenters, and three 45-hectoliter French oak foudres for mixed fermentation beers, expanding production from 1,000 to a potential 15,000 barrels a year. Right Proper’s new Brookland production site opened in December 2015 with a small tasting room and a covered patio.
I visited the Brookland site just as it was opening on the Sunday following Christmas in 2025 and was greeted by an intense, invigorating, nutty, earthy, roasty aroma that permeated the small tasting room. No, it wasn’t an imperial stout or barleywine, but a freshly brewed batch of Zeke’s coffee. In an unusual collaboration, the Baltimore-based roaster occupies one side of Right Proper’s cozy tasting room, serving its fragrant coffee from 7 am to noon, after which the taproom begins pouring pints of fresh beer.
I don’t believe I’ve ever visited a taproom that felt so intimate and comfy. There’s space for six at the bar and dozen more at three tables. An adjoining parlor makes an ideal reading room with a small table surrounded by two ladder-back chairs and a loveseat and illuminated by two table lamps. A spacious patio covered by solar panels can accommodate perhaps 20 more customers.
Displayed throughout the taproom is the witty art of Patrick Owens, which depicts animals as the masters and humans as the subjugated species. (Some of his murals also enlivened Right Proper’s Shaw location.) Most surprising of all is the upright piano (in tune!) in the bathroom.
Not so surprising was the lineup of beers. Here were draft versions of what can be found in cans, including Senate Beer (4.7%), a recreation of the Christian Heurich’s flagship lager that filled Washington mugs both before and after Prohibition, and three hoppy beers of varying strengths (5%, 6%, 7.2%) none of which was hazy or especially bitter. Most interesting were the three draft-only beers: Staycation (4.8%) a second wit beer, but seasoned with New Zealand hops; Coffee Häxan (7%), a java-juiced version of their robust porter; and the best beer of the day: Scottie Doesn’t Know (4.6%), a West Coast Pilsner jacked up with Cryo and served through a LUKR side-pour tap. (The name refers to brewing the beer behind the boss’s back.) Missing were the unique, funky, mixed-fermentation foudre beers that once set Right Proper apart from every other brewery in the DMV.
The opening of the Brookland production brewery in 2015 reordered priorities for the brewing staff, as they scaled up from a pilot-sized 5-barrel brewhouse to a production-oriented 15-barrel system. Meeting production schedules would now take precedence over frequent experimentation. Zeender’s vision of Right Proper as “sort of a personal brewing project and yeast cult, under the guise of a brewpub” was becoming less and less sustainable.
In 2018, Zeender left the brewery to follow a new muse: natural wine. His “low-intervention” Hibernaculum wines (and ciders) would be as uncompromising as the beer he once made at Right Proper: fermented by native yeasts; with no sulfites, added enzymes, chemicals, or additives; no filtration or fining; and extended skin contact. He approached the winery with his customary DIY flair. It was housed within a repurposed shipping container containing three 550-gallon stainless steel fermentation tanks that could be loaded and transported on a flatbed trailer to wherever the fruit was harvested. Solar panels would maintain consistent temperatures. (While conventional wine sales have declined by 9% since 2021, sales of natural wine have been growing 20% annually, with the US as the third-largest producer.)
In 2020, founding partner John Snedden exited and Cheston’s wife Leah assumed a larger role as co-owner, eventually chairing the Brewers Association board of directors. Covid restrictions accelerated a shift to packaged beer, even as price spikes for aluminum added a nickel to the cost of every can. And yet, Right Proper emerged from the pandemic looking to expand. In December 2023 the Chestons announced plans for a second brewpub in the Eckington neighborhood, scheduled to open the following fall.
Right Proper’s neighborhood bonds remained strong. As DOGE initiated massive federal layoffs in early 2025, Right Proper offered to help the best way it could: with free beer. Its “Executive Order Me a Beer” program encouraged paying customers to “pay it forward” by buying a beer for federal employees who had been laid off. All you had to do was show a federal ID.
As of March 2026, Right Proper’s status is unclear. The Shaw brewpub closed, and only the production brewery in Brookland remains open. The long-delayed Eckington site is scheduled for a spring opening along with a new venue, Right Proper Kitchen, in a space previously occupied by Brookland Pint along the Brookland Arts Walk. When completed, the new Right Proper will comprise a tap room, brewpub, and restaurant—a right proper goal for DC’s favorite homegrown source of good food and great beer.
RIGHT PROPER TAPROOM
920 Girard St. NE
Washington, D.C. 20017
OPEN
Monday–Thursday: 4 pm–9 pm
Friday & Saturday: noon–9 pm
Sunday: noon–7 pm
NUMBER OF TAPS
11
AVERAGE ABV
5.7
OTHER DRINKS
cider, margarita, spritz
5 wines by the glass
2 NA beers
FOOD
pop-up food trucks
PARKING
street parking along Girard and 9th