Denizens Brewing

Last year I would’ve given this place 4 or 5 stars but getting rid of the food truck is a real bummer. The outdoor patio space is wonderful. Employees are friendly and the beer is decent. We used to love to bike to Denizens for a drink and lunch but will now need to find another spot. The outdoor menu is limited and not well paired with beer. We had the old bay chips (ok) and the beef sandwich. Everything was pre-​prepared and the sandwich was nothing special. Since it was stored made in the fridge the bread was dry and the sandwich was mediocre at best.

Believe it or not, our friends and we drove all the way to Silver Spring from Bethesda to try Denizens, and now that I’ve been here, I will return.
Visited here on a Saturday night after 10 PM, perfect weather for dining outdoors. It happens that there was a huge brewery show/​convention downtown, so I presume that all the area brewers and brew fans were there, leaving people like me to visit the brewpubs in the ‘burbs.
Coming down East-​West Highway from the west, you don’t really see the place until you’ve passed it. Using GPS we knew we were there and parked in the public parking garage next door (and wound up spending $ 9 just to park!). Then we wandered around small streets and alleys and finally figured out which building was Denizens. They could use some directional signs from the parking garage, as they have for other local stores.
We entered from what I think was the back, which turns out to be the restaurant portion of Denizens. We wandered around and didn’t find the friends we were meeting. The area was attractive for sitting and hanging out. We then passed the brewery setup which is impressive, and we went down and up various staircases. Finally we figured out there was a whole ‘nother portion of Denizens, the deck area. Totally charming, especially on a warm comfortable evening as this was. We found our friends and were seated.
We learned that this area is totally self service, little to no wait staff. You go to a line with a snaking rope thing to keep people lined up. You order beer from a counter, which is poured immediately. If you want food, there is a limited menu of items that are pre-​packaged, and they hand it to you right there. The server called it their «instant gratification» menu.
There is a more extensive menu too, but this is only served in the restaurant portion of the place, and you must be seated, have a waiter, etc. You can’t order something from that menu and have it brought to you on the deck.
The beer selections were excellent and the beers I tasted were first rate. Selections included a tripel, IPA, pale ale, pilsner, and my choice, ESB (a British-​style «bittter» that was far less bitter than an IPA). The ESB was truly special, I had never tasted this style before.
This experience led me to instantly compare Denizens to many other brewpubs where the beer is trying to be different or make some kind of statement. Those beers are intolerable and undrinkable in my opinion. Here at Denizens, the beers are made for drinking with or without food, and they are totally delicious.
The atmosphere was terrific. I could have stayed there all night drinking beer and talking with friends. So comfortable and lovely.
I found the self-​service style of the deck annoying. We were hungry, we hadn’t had dinner, and really wanted some of the items from the restaurant menu, but just wanted it on the deck. instead we bought a bean dip that came with a sandwich bag of carrots and celery, and our friends got a pre-​made chicken sandwich. None of this was particularly delicious and it barely staved off our hunger.
As we finished our beers, staff cleared the glasses, so at least that portion was not self service.
Ratings: atmosphere 5, food 2, service 3, beer 5, thus my overall rating of 4.
I would recommend that Denizens make available many more items from the restaurant menu, and have the freshly prepared food available for self-​service pickup. I would have been thrilled to be alerted and then I go get my food from a central pickup counter.

This is a hidden neighborhood gem! My fiancé and I wanted to go out Friday night, outside of our usual Bethesda and Rockville bars. We stumbled across Denizens on Unilocal and it was exactly what we were looking for!
The outdoor patio was lively, with great music (a live DJ), friendly people (tables are picnic benches), and good beer (and not too expensive). We didn’t order food, but the few options did look good.
A great spot to grab a beer outside!

I live next door and have been to this place a half dozen times. My overall review is… they seem to make things more complicated than they need to be. Simple food choices that pair well with their beers would go far.

Great place with a sophisticated top level (street, plus outdoor patio area) and a below decks drinking pub area! Try the flights of beer to taste, you won’t be sorry!

As someone who goes to breweries and bier gartens pretty often, I really wanted to like Denizens. I overlooked the negative and mediocre reviews and hoped my love for bier gartens would sway my vote in a positive way.
The good: The décor is nice, especially outside (bumping my review from 1 star to 2), and most of the staff is friendly and willing to help; the black’s one eye’d hellesbock
The bad: A lot of the beers had very similar taste profiles, despite the laundry list of varying hops and flavors; one waitress looked absolutely miserable/​seemed to have a short fuse, which was kind of off putting… first, she approached us to take our order after having seen the menu for 10 seconds, and then 2 minutes later when we tried to get her attention, she looked at us and walked right past… we noticed she had the same demeanor with other customers and even some employees, so we didn’t take it personally. it just wasn’t the friendly customer service you’d necessarily expect.
Overall, an interesting experience. If Denizen’s was more centrally located in DC, I’d probably give it another try, but since it’s up in Silver Spring, I won’t be making the trip up there for this.

This is a hard review, because I feel like I am talking about two different places as I do it. The beers are all absolutely fantastic and deserve a five star rating! Honestly, it is a great place to sit outside (or inside when its cold) and have a couple of well made beers.
Unfortunately, ever since the BBQ bus has left, the menu has left me wanting a whole lot more. The indoor menu has a couple of options where you might be able to cobble together a meal, but the picnic menu, which is the sole outdoor option, is full of salads that don’t pair well with the (amazing) beers that are offered in the garden.
In summation, 5 stars for beers and ambience, 1 for food. If they are unwilling to provide a few more beer friendly options outdoor, I’m hoping that they will start letting people bring in their own food, because I could happily spend a lot of money there given the opportunity.

Lived across the street from this place for about a month. They play great live music every Saturday. Overall, the beer was good, the curry chicken sandwich was super tasty, and the ambiance on the patio was nice on sunny days.
A good place to go in a pinch, but not my hands down favorite.

Hosted my husband’s 40^th birthday here last weekend and we had a great time. We received excellent service from everyone at the brewery from Jack with special events, to all our servers and tour guide Natalie. I’m glad we took the chance, as we had actually never been to the brewery prior to this event. For food we had the pork carnitas sandwiches and mac and cheese. We also had a few orders of wings. Everything was very good — heard a lot of people say they really liked the mac and cheese.
Most importantly the beer is excellent, but be careful, it is strong.
I would recommend the brewery for a casual private event. Looking forward to going back in warmer weather, the patio looked really nice!

Popped into Denizens with some friends for a B-​Day. Tiny little bar area, and I went in the winter, so I uncomfortably tried a flight of beers, they definitely specialize in the funky/​bitter varieties. I want to come back in the summer and frequent the massive porch area! I’ll bet it’s poppin, and a cold beer sounds better in the sun. TBD

Came here for a few beers and to grab some quick dinner when I was in town on a business trip. Was really happy to discover there was this brewery just two blocks from my hotel, and being I arrived around 5pm after waking up at 330 in the morning same day, driving from Richmond up to Baltimore, working for several hours and then driving from Baltimore back down here for a meeting tomorrow, after checking into my hotel I was exhausted and desperately in need of some food, a chill atmosphere and a couple drinks.
Unfortunately, things didn’t quite turn out that way. Upon entering, they have a beautiful beer garden just outside, and also an inside bar and seating area. I originally first walked inside just because I wanted to check the place out. Being from out of town and a beer lover, I like to check out places like breweries. I ordered a pint and a salad at the inside bar, handed the bartender my credit card, then grabbed my beer and walked outside to sit in the garden, since it was 5pm, bright and sunny and 72 degrees on a glorious April evening. Not to mention; it was unbearable for the 5 minutes I was even sitting inside since they have 3 TVs surrounding the bar that are blasting a movie on full volume, and the high pitched, nasally voice of the woman sitting at the other end of the bar who literally would not shut up was causing me to develop a migraine.
After moving outdoors I was quickly approached by the bartender and told when my salad was ready, I wouldn’t be permitted to eat it outside so he would have to ask that I come inside to consume my food when it was ready. The thought of sitting inside under blasting televisions and within a 100 foot radius of aforementioned loud as hell, obnoxious woman literally made me rather starve to death so I asked him to cancel my food. He offered no apology, or care in the world.
I was thus forced to leave after my one beer, when I surely would have stayed and consumed several more, plus food, and spent a decent penny. Instead, I left after 1 drink and spent my money elsewhere because I was so hungry that I didn’t want to stay and drink if I couldn’t also eat without being subjected to blasting TVs and obnoxious customers, and not being permitted to enjoy the last hours of daylight after having just spent the entire day in my car.
I mean, if it’s two separate establishments, that I would totally understand. I’d never bring food from an outside establishment and expect to eat it somewhere else. But if I can run up the same tab both at the indoor and outdoor bars, and order drink from either interchangeably, I should be able to eat my food wherever I damn well please.
Pretty poor business move, Denizens. I wanted to enjoy you, I really did. But you let me down. Also, they don’t accept cash???
They also fucked up my check when I closed out and charged me for the salad I never got and it took 3 people and 8 minutes to correct the mistake on my bill.

Love this place.
The first time I came here was on their 2^nd or 3^rd weekend, back when they were offering only one of their beers (the Lowest Lord, still one of my faves) and guest taps. I love seeing how much theyve grown.
Their patio is killer, but my fave space is the downstairs bar. I love being able to look into the brewhouse while Im enjoying their product. And speaking of product, I’m lucky to have been able to try a lot of it. My favorite will always be the Shirtless Horseman, their Russian Imperial Stout, but they also have one of the only rye beers in the area that I like, the Southside Rye (soon to be found around town in cans!). The staff here is fantastic as well.
I always hear that this space used to be a number of different things, but Im pretty sure Denizens will be here for a very long time. This place is an awesome addition to Silver Spring.

This place has been great for a while now but ever since their partnership with barbeque bus ended there food had gone downhill hard. Now there food is frustratingly terrible… cold purée sandwiches that wouldn’t pass at a gas station from the fridge for ten bucks. That being said it is a brewery and the beer is better than good just don’t eat here IMO.

We came in as a group of 10 with no reservation. The waitress took each of our cards and opened a different tab for each person. The food was good and also they let us have tastings of each beer. You can also get beer flights if you wanted to try different things (they have three types). All in all, a good place to hang out. The food was good, the beer was good and so was the service.

I dunno, guys. I keep reading in magazines and blogs that craft beer is a bubble that will eventually pop when supply vastly outstrips demand from hundreds of new breweries opening each year. When it does, the breweries that just rode the popular wave and offered mediocre takes on ordinary styles will probably come crashing down to earth, and I fear Denizens may be one of them.
I tried the «malty» flight of four beers, all of which were pretty middle of the road. The tripel is blandly sweet, with little of the spicy tang you get from the Belgian originators of the style, the oatmeal stout is thin on body and lacks the creamy mouthfeel you should get from the oats, and the others were equally unmemorable. Honestly, while none of the beers was undrinkable, none really made me wish I’d brought my growler. The place itself is nice, clean aesthetic and a large patio which is probably great in warm weather, although on a Friday night it was jam-​packed and noisy enough that my friend and I had to shout to be heard. Didn’t try any food but the menu looked decent if a little pricy.
This place feels like it’s coasting, content with a GPA just a shade above a 3.0 because it knows it will still pass. With such strong competition in the DC area, from 3 Stars and Hellbender to the northern VA breweries like Port City, these days your beers have to stand out from the crowd. Denizens seems like they have potential, but I need to see something more stellar on tap before I can recommend it as anything more than a decent local watering hole full of noisy young ‘uns.

It’s taken me way too long to make my way up here. I know, I know, I’m District-​ist, but it just seems soooo far. But, I had a friend in town whose only request was «good beer» and that sealed the deal for me. We met up on a Sunday before the holidays around 1pm, and the place was more or less ours.
The beer is great. I had a flight and settled on my favorite, but I don’t even want to go into the details of which was better because they were all good. I just found the one that I was most in the mood for at that moment.
This place is seriously worth a visit, and not just for the beer. The staff was lovely and walked us through the downstairs area, and helped us by talking through all the beer choices!

This is the type of place that’s probably much better during the summer.
Was invited here recently by a friend. From the reviews, I was really looking forward to great beer and barbeque. (1 out of 2 isn’t so bad; scratch that, it’s pretty bad.)
The first thing I noticed as I walked up to the place was the huge outdoor seating area. It’s probably bustling when the weather’s warm, but the 55 degree night sent everyone inside. Not to worry, there were plenty of cool, comfortable seats in the relatively intimate indoor area.
I had arrived looking forward to some brisket or pulled pork, only to find that the kitchen no longer exists. There was a crêpe truck outside. But when you’re in the mood for barbeque, and have been looking forward to barbeque all day, crepes are not an adequate substitute. So I skipped them and went straight for the beer.
They have a pretty awesome selection of unique brews. I started with an amazing coffee stout and finished with a pretty solid pumpkin porter. If not for having to work the next day, I probably would’ve tried a few more. Definitely looking forward to returning to try out the ones I missed.
Great place, great beer, but no food. Great barbeque would’ve easily bumped this to a 5-​star review.

We came here on a Friday late afternoon (~4/​5pm). We loved the outdoor seating– although it was a little hot for us to stay outside, it would be perfect on a somewhat cooler day. When you sit outside, you order at a table in the back, pick up your beer there, and then head back to your table. The woman taking the orders wasn’t too friendly and I was confused a few times because while they had signs (e.g., credit cards only), you couldn’t see them when you were in line. We also found it odd that although some of their beers were sours, they weren’t listed as such on the menu, so we had a surprise or two along the way.
We ended up moving inside, which was pretty quiet, although it was getting somewhat more crowded when we left. There was a bar inside, as well as a good number of tables and couches for seating. The inside also had table service, which was somewhat sporadic, but our waitress was friendly. We ended up ordering some fries, which were pretty good, ordering some beer flights, and playing cards (we brought our own).
We had a blast, and the only reason I gave this place 3 stars was because we didn’t love a lot of the beers. I found one or two that I enjoyed, but we were a bit disappointed overall. Even with the three different beer flights (seasonal, malty, hoppy), several beers overlapped across the list. We were trading beers by the end («I’ll drink your super lemony beer if you drink my soapy beer»). That being said, we each liked one or two beers, and we managed to have a lot of fun regardless!

I rarely give five stars but when I do, my experience was foodgasmic! Where do I start?
My hubby and I went here at 4pm and it was dead. We worried for nothing because the service was amazing. Friendly staff all willing to give you recommendations on food and beer. Let me stop here and go straight to food.
This isn’t your typical bar food served on the side. They take pride in their barbecue and damn was it good. The meat fell right off the ribs and oh so tender. Teach me how to cook ribs, please?
The French fries, yes fries, were awesome. I loved the seasoning! I also loved dipping them in the ranch sauce that came with the wings.
The wings were perfect along with #5 sauce… I’m sorry, I can’t type out a grunt in happiness.
And then there were tacos, yes we ate a lot. They do not go cheap on the fillings. The black beans were tender and the pulled pork was flavorful. Add extra #5 and you’ll enjoy it more.
I don’t know how we were able to eat four small plates of food on top of a beer flight, and three pints but we conquered the meal.
I had the seasonal beer flight. My favorite was the anniversary and third party. I can’t remember what they were made of but I believe one of them had candied pears.
I also had the big red norm. I wasn’t a fan of this but my husband enjoyed finishing it for me.
My husband enjoyed the trainspotting and did not like the bohemian. We swapped beers at the end.
We paid around $ 60 including tip and it was worth every penny. I don’t know why it took us so long to visit, but we will be back and with a group of friends. I can’t wait to sit outside and enjoy a nice cold beer.
Service: A
Food: A
Beer: B
Environment: A (bring a sweater)

Really, really enjoyed Denizens. It’s got a huge outdoor area, plus two floors inside. Friendly staff, tasty brews, and delicious BBQ in a relaxed setting makes it the perfect place to unwind.
I only had time for one beer – the saison – due to a prior engagement. But I had a few tastes before deciding on that one, and I like a few others that I aim to try. I ordered the pulled pork sandwich with fries. Eats are from the BBQ Bus, of which I’m a fan. And BBQ definitely hits the spot with the beer. Happy hour is offered, and most of the beer were brewed in-​house, except for the cider.
I love breweries and I hope to return often to Denizens.