For the second installment of The Session’s 2025 reboot (despite best intentions, I missed the first one for reasons that may soon be obvious), Boak & Bailey asked: “What’s the best beer you can drink at home right now?” In normal circumstances, I might’ve gone on a riff about the troublesome idea of “best” (or even “good”) but right now it’s the notion of “home” that’s more complicated for me. Anyway, the answer is still clear enough: it’s National Bohemian — Natty Boh, to its friends.

As of a few weeks ago, “home” is Washington D.C.. Naturally, there’s a fair amount of disorienting culture shock going on, the many superficial similarities (between here and Australia, nevermind New Zealand) somehow making the differences much starker. And that’s before you factor in the, um…, Interesting Times. So we’re hardly settled, or particularly well-versed in the neighbourhood,¹ and there’s a not-insignificant amount of comfort to be found in making sure there’s a supply of simple treats in the fridge.

Decent beer is extremely widely available and, as takeaway at least, pretty shockingly cheap. The tradeoff is that it’s proving hard to find somewhere with a good range of interesting singles; back home (there’s that word again) I’d often go to a bottle store and grab a half-dozen different interesting-looking things to try. Here, I’ve got less base knowledge and less money, so four-packs of some unknown IPA or whatever are a less appealing prospect, sitting outside the range of what I’d happily take a gamble on. So our pattern is to go out for a beer one or two nights a week, but otherwise just have something affable and affordable on the couch.

There’s a bunch of such things in six-packs of heritage-branded tallboys — 16floz / 473ml — for less than ten bucks. The history evoked by the label is often a bit of a fudge, papering over changes of ownership or long gaps in production or both, but right here and right now, I don’t much mind. We haven’t yet hit a dud, and they’re distinct enough to avoid blurring together: Narragansett’s a little sweeter, Utica Club is super clean, Yeungling’s maltiness makes for a nice small step sideways. And fractionally outside that price point / format, there’s also D.C.’s own Old Time and Senate Beer — both are delightful, and the latter is a genuinely interesting project of recreation done in collaboration with a local museum.

Natty Boh wins, though. We were introduced to it when we visited friends nearby in Maryland a year or so ago (it’s from Baltimore,² just up the train tracks from here, but now owned by Pabst and probably brewed hundreds of miles away) and it’s lean and dry in a way that fits my usual preferences, but it’s also just kind of adorable and I don’t mind admitting that that counts. That bizarre one-eyed mascot (the why of which is evidently lost to history) won me over pretty much instantly and I came home with his face stuck to my laptop — which, in this subculture, is a level of endorsement and commitment somewhere between an enamel pin on your bag and an actual tattoo. So that’s our comfort beer; something moderately familiar to help rest and recharge between more-adventurous outings.

D.C. does have an excellent beer scene, that much is already obvious, and I’m enjoying exploring it a some more. We even managed to get to a little beer festival last weekend, which deserves a write-up.³ And the city itself is fascinating, with a deep and rich history, and a few million residents who are doing their best, trying to get by, and enjoy themselves occasionally — to live pleasantly, in the words of Mr. Boh (or at least his marketing agency). There’s no shortage of things to write about. But then, there never was. That’s always been both blessing and curse, much like may you live in interesting times.

1. Recommendations welcome; we’re staying in Chinatown (that’s the view from our building’s terrace, above), but enjoy a walk, the Metro’s good, and we plan to get bikes, so we’re interested in hearing about things within a wide radius.
2. The can pictured above is the baseball season variant, orange for the Orioles; they also do a purple one when the Ravens are playing football. The base design is a more heritage-y white with red and gold.
3. And I’m still waiting on some paperwork before I can even really start looking for work, so I have even fewer excuses than usual for not spending some time here.