Dacha Unveils Its Gigantic Navy Yard Beer Garden

Dacha’s giant new complex in Navy Yard reveals its full potential today with the opening of an outdoor beer garden overlooking the Anacostia River.

Fans of the 5-year-old German beer garden with the same name on Seventh Street NW will feel right at home at an outdoor space (79 Potomac Avenue SE) with capacity for 700 drinkers. While all 26 drafts from Shaw will be available at the restaurant and bar inside, a vintage airstream cooler will dispense a beer menu that exclusively features cans.

The opening also marks the release of Dacha’s exclusive collaboration brew with DC Brau, dubbed Dachnik True Helles Lager. The tall can’s design is inspired by the new beer garden’s riverfront camping ground vibes, complete with an image of the same vintage Lada station wagon that the partners plunked on-site.

Co-owner and Moscow native Dmitri Chekaldin told Eater that a generation of Russian parents threw their kids into the backseat of those cars to take trips to their dachas, or country houses.

“This traditional style Helles fits right in with Dacha’s curated list of beer styles you’d find at any great, traditional beer garden in Europe,” DC Brau CEO Brandon Skall says of the clean, malty beer with a dry finish.

Al fresco drinkers can opt to stand on the huge patch of mulch, claim a red chair around circular cafe-style tables, or squeeze onto one of many slick wooden communal tables.

There’s a drink ledge accented by colorful flower boxes that wraps around the entire garden. Other outdoor accents include canopy lights stretching across the sky and a lush grove of linden and maple trees that were planted by the partners themselves last year.

Miriam Razavi/Dacha

The spacious setup opens with limited capacity and no food to start, although eventually there will be an outdoor kitchen selling pretzels and sausages.

Guests inside the restaurant have upscale eating options like lobster linguini; a large-format, coffee-brined Muscovy duck; and a tuna crudo with ginger citrus consommé poured tableside.

The beer list outside will fill out later this month. Here’s a look at the first dozen brews available:

Opening hours for the beer garden are 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday with an 11 p.m. closing time on Friday. Weekend hours are 1 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturday and 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Sunday.

• Dacha’s New Navy Yard Location Is Way More Than a Beer Garden [EDC]