From Caffeine Warnings to Snallygaster: Craft Beer, Community and a Festival Built to Give Back

Speaker Identification

Speaker 1 – Gary Monteroso – Host. He identifies himself by name at the beginning and again at the close of the episode.

Speaker 2 – Katie Johnson – Interviewer / Contributor. Gary introduces Katie before the interview, and she identifies herself at the beginning of her segment.

Speaker 3 – Greg Engert – Guest. The closing identifies him as Greg Engert. Earlier automated transcription renders the surname as “Ingrid,” which has been corrected consistently to Engert. He identifies himself as Beverage Director and Partner for Neighborhood Restaurant Group.

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Speaker 1 – Gary Monteroso:
Welcome to Beverage Chronicles. Gary Monteroso here. I’m your host, always happy to be with you each week. We have such a huge show today. It’s a special edition because we have a really remarkable interview that our Katie Johnson did.

But first, real quickly, I want to talk to you a little bit about caffeine. It’s in just about everything: coffee, energy drinks, pre-workouts, even snacks. But now the FDA is saying that the way caffeine is labeled isn’t keeping up, and consumers are often taking in way more than they realize.

The agency’s biggest concern is pure and highly concentrated caffeine powders and liquids. A single teaspoon of some of these products can equal 20 to 50 cups of coffee. The FDA says that’s not just confusing; it’s dangerous. Several deaths have been linked to accidental overconsumption.

So they’re pushing for clear, prominent labeling that tells you exactly how much caffeine is in a serving, along with stronger warnings when products combine multiple caffeine sources. The goal isn’t to ban caffeine; it’s to make sure people don’t accidentally take a dose that could seriously harm them.

The bottom line is that the FDA wants caffeine labels to be honest, obvious, and impossible to miss. So the next time you grab that energy drink or supplement, take a look. The label might be changing, and for good reason.

Now here is our Katie Johnson. She has an interview with a gentleman who’s going to tell us about a really unique event that’s going to be taking place very, very shortly. So here’s Katie.

Speaker 2 – Katie Johnson:
Hi, friends. It’s Katie, and today we’re going to talk about the Snallygaster Beer Festival in Washington, D.C. Named after the old American cryptid, it is now the largest beer festival on the East Coast, and it’s back for its 14th year on October 10 with 450 different beers from 166 producers.

A staple feature of this event is that ticket sales benefit a D.C.-local nonprofit that focuses on a more sustainable and accessible food system. This year will feature 50 new breweries, 30 international brewers, and 34 of the 136 United States brewers will be local to the D.C. area.

Here to tell us more about this amazing event is Beverage Director and Partner for Neighborhood Restaurant Group, Greg Engert. Greg, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me.

Before we get into this year’s Snallygaster, I’d love to start with a bit of your own history. Please introduce yourself and tell us how long you’ve been involved with Snallygaster.

Speaker 3 – Greg Engert:
My name is Greg Engert. I am the Beverage Director and Partner for Neighborhood Restaurant Group.

I actually started back in the late ’90s, in 1997, with our first restaurant in Alexandria, Virginia, which just happens to still be going strong. It’s called Evening Star Cafe. We opened a couple of other restaurants, but then really started to focus on beer with a restaurant called Rustico, which is also still going.

It’s 20 years old this year. We opened that in 2006, and that’s when I joined the company as the Beverage Director. Back in those days, beer was—it’s kind of unbelievable now—you couldn’t find craft beer in every grocery store and every dive bar and everything like that.

So this is pretty cool: right from the start, we actually launched an Oktoberfest event. Those were also not as ubiquitous as they are today. Back in 2007, we held it in the parking lot behind Rustico, and we hosted it there for five years, until 2011, because a couple of things happened in 2011.

One, the event had grown substantially over time. It started as a little Oktoberfest and just kept expanding. I think we had maybe a thousand people the first year, but by year five, I think about 5,000 people showed up. People were spilling onto neighbors’ yards, and so the City of Alexandria kindly asked us not to host what was then just known as the Rustico Oktoberfest—very generic—there anymore.

At the same time, in 2009, we had opened our first place in D.C., which was [beer-bar name unclear], our beer bar. We were getting ready to open our brewery, Bluejacket, which is in the Navy Yard neighborhood of D.C.

So we kind of felt like, okay, maybe now that we got kicked out of our parking lot in Alexandria, we’d better go to D.C. Maybe let’s rethink this event, make it bigger, and find a place for it in the city. That’s how Snallygaster was born.

We first did it in 2012. I think we had probably 3,000 or 4,000 people that time, and that was excellent. But we actually ended up hosting it in different kinds of parking lots—big parking lots in the Navy Yard—over the next, I guess, five years.

All along the way, we were growing the event, adding music, adding food vendors, adding more beers and more brewers. But we were also getting bounced around based on development. Over time, we were getting surrounded by buildings, so it wasn’t as beautiful as we wanted.

This whole time, we had been eyeing Pennsylvania Avenue in D.C., with the Capitol Building as a backdrop, between Third and Seventh Streets, and basically asking the city, “Let us bring Snallygaster there,” for years.

Finally, in 2018, they let us do that. So we moved into our forever home and have been hosting Snallygaster there ever since. This year is going to be the 14th anniversary of the event. I’m really excited to host it once again.

Speaker 2 – Katie Johnson:
I even think a thousand people starting out at a festival, in the genesis of the whole thing, is still a lot of people for a festival.

Speaker 3 – Greg Engert:
It’s a lot for us. And now we max out and sell out. We sell out annually at about 8,000 guests.

We need a lot of room because not only do we need room for people, the stages, the bands, the food, the family-friendly activities, seating, restrooms—you name it—we also need room for all these beers. We have 450 different beers from about 170 to 175 brewers. There’s always a last-minute change to the list and things like that.

One of the reasons we have so many beers and brewers is that we like to spread them out so the lines remain doable and reasonable. You don’t want to spend a whole event waiting in line. I think we’ve got the map down to kind of a perfect science. It really works out well to make sure everyone can get what they want.

Speaker 2 – Katie Johnson:
And speaking of the brewers and the amount of staff and folks that you’ve got there just inherently for the production of the event, we’re expecting a lot of brewers to be present this year.

Can you tell us more about how important the interactions are between the brewers, the staff members, and the attendees? What is the emphasis on that?

Speaker 3 – Greg Engert:
Back in the old days, there were fewer beer festivals, and then there were a ton, and now there are fewer again, I’d say. But when craft beer was super hot—I’m talking like 2012 to 2018—if you had the rare beers, people would come for them.

In those days, I think a lot of brewers were just starting out. They didn’t have the travel budgets. Business was good at home, so they didn’t travel quite as much. We’ve always had a great representation of brewers at Snallygaster, honestly going back to what you just said, to the Rustico Oktoberfests almost 20 years ago.

But over time, I think the legend of the event has grown, and brewers come every year. It’s a chance for them to get out of their brewery. They have a little bit more of a travel budget, and there’s also an opportunity to distribute—not all the time, but a little bit—to new territories, meet new guests, meet new distributors, things like that.

But most of all, I think they love to interact with guests, get back to what got them interested in the first place, and interact with one another. That’s been really cool.

It is just a really amazing time. The weather is perfect. There’s so much beer, but there’s also so much music, and the people are wonderful. We host [unclear] for them, so we take really great care of them when they’re here, and the word has spread.

Now a majority of the brewers who are featured at Snallygaster come in person. A lot of international brewers come, and that is, to me, one of the coolest things. Brewers come from [unclear location], Germany, Latvia, [unclear location], Brazil, Mexico—I mean, you name it, Japan. These brewers are coming to town to be with us, and it really does, to your point, make a difference.

We have a ton of volunteers because, obviously, VIP starts at noon, general admission starts at 2:00, and the whole thing runs until 6:00. So we have a lot of people to help these brewers pour and give them some breaks.

But I can say with full certainty that if you come to Snallygaster, you’re not just tasting a bunch of beers; you’re going to be tasting most of them with the people who made the beers. And that, I think, is what makes this festival really special.

Speaker 2 – Katie Johnson:
I wanted to touch base on how you select who’s coming and who’s not. I know that Neighborhood focuses on intentional curation. What are you looking for when you’re deciding that a brewery belongs at Snallygaster?

Speaker 3 – Greg Engert:
It’s a good question. It’s a difficult question because a lot goes into it, and there’s a lot of great beer out there. We can’t include everybody we want. That’s a fact. It’s tough.

It’s similar to what goes into curating the list in all of our beer bars. The first thing is that there’s a core group of brewers that we’ve been friends with forever. We love their beers. They make the highest-quality beers, and they’re going to be there every year no matter what.

At the same time, there’s this need for us to rotate brewers because one of the coolest things about beer in general is how much is out there, right? Another cool thing about this festival, and D.C. in general when you have beer bars like we do, is bringing in beers from breweries that people have never heard of.

Of the 170 brewers that we have every year, we try to rotate out about 50 of them. This just means that we have to make some really tough decisions. We want to make sure that we have a good representation of local, national, and international brewers.

First and foremost, it’s quality. Then it’s making sure that we have representation geographically, and also ABV- and style-wise, right? We don’t want this all to be hazy IPAs. We don’t want it to just be imperial styles. We want a nice blend of classic styles and nuanced styles, barrel-aged beers, things like that.

And then we have to take into account the rotational aspect.

Speaker 2 – Katie Johnson:
I took a peek at it, and I’m super excited as well. There are some familiar ones on there to me and a lot of new things.

So, with that, we’ve talked about the importance of quality as well as variety. But one other thing that I think makes Snallygaster unique and different is the community component. If you want to touch on the Arcadia stuff a little bit, tell us more about the cause.

Speaker 3 – Greg Engert:
My partner, Michael Babin, is the founder of Neighborhood Restaurant Group and our CEO. He’s an amazing guy—just super smart, talented, boundless energy. He’s always got a lot of things going on.

Back in 2010, as we were wrapping up an earlier iteration of the festival, in addition to overseeing all these restaurants that we have, he was in the process of starting a nonprofit called Arcadia Center for Sustainable Food and Agriculture, which you just mentioned.

It’s an incredible organization. Our director is Pat Hass, and she’s been leading this organization for years now. She’s also a super impressive, dynamic person.

The goal when Michael started it was to create an organization that could really impact the local community. He wanted to make sure that we could get access to great, healthy food to all manners of communities around the D.C. market. And so we started Arcadia to do that.

They have this food hub to purchase local produce from tons of farms in the area, and then they operate these mobile market buses that are filled with local produce and brought into various areas of the region that don’t have access to really great, healthy local foods, accepting SNAP and other benefits that people have.

We also host these cool summer camps for kids to teach the younger generation about the importance of food and agriculture.

One of the other really incredible things is that, obviously, we’re in D.C., in proximity to the military and to veterans. So Arcadia operates a veteran farming program that basically teaches veterans how to become farmers.

As they return from the service and they’re looking for their next thing in life, we’ve been able to train a lot of them to become farmers and to further the work of growing great food and making sure that people are eating great food.

So this all coincided with the move to D.C., and we decided from the get-go to make Arcadia the primary beneficiary of Snallygaster. That’s one of the things that I think should be remembered, and I’m glad you gave me the opportunity to talk about it.

From the beginning, we wanted to do two big things. We wanted to pay for every drop of liquid. It also frees us from having to work with gigantic breweries with huge marketing budgets. We get to work with whoever we want, and we like working with small, independent producers throughout the world.

So we pay for it all, and it’s a pretty expensive event to put on—taking over five city blocks outside and having to build and tear down in one day. But after expenses and things like that, the profits are given to Arcadia Center for Sustainable Food and Agriculture.

Snallygaster is a huge fundraiser for Arcadia every year. You’re getting unlimited tastes, access to great music, DJs, family activities, and more. It’s also going to a good cause. All those things together, I think, make it a very unique festival.

Speaker 2 – Katie Johnson:
Yes. So accessibility, sustainability—and I did not realize that it was also teaching people skills. As far as the farming program for veterans and things like that, that’s fantastic.

We’ve talked about some of the evolution over time with Snallygaster: the location, the size, the quantity, and things like that. What do you think is one of the biggest changes in beer culture in general, or the beverage industry, events or otherwise, that you have seen or witnessed in your experience in the industry?

Speaker 3 – Greg Engert:
Back in the day, when we started Snallygaster, people were really interested in ticking beers and tasting a lot of different beers. They were really interested in trying super-rare beers and a lot of stronger beers, a lot of hype beers.

When hazies came along—hazy DIPAs and barleywines, maybe with some lambics, long-aged mixed-culture beers, fruited sours, things like that—people liked lagers and classic styles, but that was kind of like the old days.

For me, in the ’90s up until the early 2000s, and even before that, it was a lot of classic styles. Then really big beers started to come along, the hop bombs started to come along, then the hazy craze and the pastry styles, fruit and sour, kind of brought us into the late 2010s.

But starting before the pandemic, a lot of those beers mellowed a bit. People are definitely coming around to—and happily coming around to—straight-up lagers and classic styles.

We’ve been serving cask ale at our restaurants for 20 years, and I can honestly say people are super interested in it again. We used to have to keep pushing it.

Craft beer comes in waves, and we’re in a place right now where I think it’s just as good as it’s ever been because people are interested in everything again. It’s been a cool evolution to see.

I love thinking about someday, what does a Snallygaster beer and beverage list look like in 2036? Because it’s not going to look like this, and that’s an exciting thing to look forward to.

The other thing about craft beer is that people are drinking lots of different things again. Whereas craft beer certainly had its moment where people were really focused on it, there’s been a little bit more branching out, I think, even myself included—cocktails and wines, and obviously a lot of people are drinking a lot of nonalcoholic stuff.

Along the way, we started to expand the selection at Snallygaster to be more inclusive. Obviously, it’s still all about the beer. We’ve always served a good amount of cider, of course, because we love that too.

But now you’ll also find dozens and dozens of amazing wines from small wineries all over the world. We have whiskey. We have cocktails made by our team.

In fact, I think last year we did this, and we’re going to do it again: we get these giant pumpkins and dispense cocktails out of them. We’ve had a dragon ice luge for whiskey and Chartreuse. I mean, all sorts of crazy stuff.

And we have an expanded nonalcoholic selection of NA cocktails, but also NA beers, seltzers, hop waters, and things like that. So you don’t have to just be a craft beer drinker to love this, and that’s really, really important. That’s the selection.

Speaker 2 – Katie Johnson:
Also, it’s family-friendly. I think a lot of people think of 8,000 people and beer and whiskey and an ice luge, and they’re like, “What? Kids?”

Speaker 3 – Greg Engert:
Yeah. Absolutely. It’s a daytime event, and we have an awesome kids’ zone. We have bouncy houses and activities and things like that. So there’s really something here for everybody.

Speaker 2 – Katie Johnson:
Sounds like it. Where can folks find out more information and purchase tickets?

Speaker 3 – Greg Engert:
That is a great point. So, yeah, let me just give the quick rundown.

Snallygaster 2026 takes place Saturday, October 10, in Washington, D.C., on Pennsylvania Avenue between Third and Seventh Streets.

You can get tickets to Snallygaster at snallygasterdc.com, and head on over to get a ticket because we do sell out, and we will sell out, and we’d love to see everybody there.

So thank you all, and thank you, Katie, for having me on.

Speaker 2 – Katie Johnson:
Absolutely. Greg, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. I really appreciate it.

I’m looking forward to seeing what you and the team have put together this year. And for everyone listening, stay tuned for another live interview at the event. That’ll be posted on our socials at She Reviews Brews and at Beverage Chronicles Show.

Speaker 1 – Gary Monteroso:
Thanks, Katie, for that great interview with Greg Engert, who is staging the upcoming Snallygaster event in Washington, D.C., very, very shortly. Make sure you check that out.

So that’s going to wrap up today’s episode of Beverage Chronicles. I’m Gary Monteroso, and we will be right back here next week.

Stay well, everyone, and take care.