Outdoor beer geek heaven, made so by 20 beers brewed on premise, a touch of beer-snob pretentiousness (Different beers get different glasses! 19 fermentation vessels!) and a 72-seat patio. While the unremarkable sidewalk setting and across-the-street construction site might preclude it from being the dominant outdoor destination on this list, the impressive brews and overall deification of our favorite beverage ensure its inclusion. The beer selection rotates, but be on the lookout for favorites Forbidden Planet kolsch, the Lost Planet IPA and Black Eye porter.

Although visitors have to navigate through the overly dark, sometimes funky-smelling main bar to get there, the back patio at the Big Hunt is a longtime Dupont Circle oasis. Sometimes forgotten among some of the shinier new arrivals to the DC craft beer scene, the Big Hunt’s well-curated and frequently rotating tap list always seems to include a few surprises and sought-afters from local and national breweries — Atlas Brewing’s Home Rule and Boulevard’s Grainstorm being just two of many recent examples.

Situated just south of the main Adams Morgan strip and with an elegant design scheme, Jack Rose delivers a more sophisticated outdoor beer experience than most. A teak and slate roof garden with retractable ceiling panels is one of the city’s more well-conceived outdoor spaces, and the beer menu holds up its end of the bargain with selections that recently included a variety of styles from St. Louis’ highly-regarded Perennial Brewing and the rarely-seen Saucony Creek out of Pennsylvania.

While many Washington Harbour restaurants seem geared to tourists or DC’s version of the bridge-and-tunnel crowd, Farmers Fishers Bakers' beer list belies that description. With an outdoor bar window and a vast patio boasting views of the Washington Harbour fountain and Potomac River, the restaurant offers one of the area’s best spots for people-watching, and an extensive and intelligent beer list that balances popular favorites with hard-to-find drafts. Recent highlights include Troeg’s tremendous Nugget Nectar and small-batch selections from several local breweries.

A bit more worn-in than many of the destinations on this list, the patio at DC Reynolds feels like it established itself well before the rest of its Petworth neighbors arrived. Framed by the back porches of several nearby rowhouses, this bare-bones backyard patio offers picnic tables and eight taps, six of which were recently devoted to area breweries.

Another place that violates the no-sidewalk-views rule, Garden District merits inclusion on its spare, "I-Exist-Only-to Give-the-Good-People-of-DC-a-Place-to-Drink-Good-Craft-Beer-Outside" vibe. A small-ish tap list but one that includes a few otherwise-unseen drafts, including such gems as Founder’s Red Rye and one of the most recent (and best) IPAs to enter the DC market from Atlanta’s beloved Sweetwater Brewing.

Slightly removed from the 14th Street/U Street nightlife axis, American Ice’s well-concealed patio is dressed in industrial chic and features a garage door that blurs the line between inside and out when open. The restaurant’s signature mason jars hold drafts representing a good range of styles from some of the best regional craft breweries — Bell’s Amber, Lagunitas IPA, Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald Porter — and its rotating tap recently poured a terrific kolsch from North Carolina’s Mother Earth.