Despite vandalism, Red Bear Brewery finds support among LGBTQ patrons, allies

“Shattered and unplugged” is how Bryan Van Den Oever described the weekend that Red Bear Brewery had after employees opened shop to find their windows smashed in Friday morning.

Van Den Oever is one of the co-owners of Red Bear Brewery, a gay-owned and operated brewery in NoMa near Gallaudet University. After the vandalism left five out of eight of the windows on the brewery’s M Street side shattered, Van Den Oever was also greeted by a Comcast shortage.

What followed was a tweet from the brewery — “Someone must really dislike craft beer, queerness, or…just us. Either way, this is a frustrating way to start the day.” — and an outpouring of support from patrons, LGBTQ and allies alike.

“I think we got, like, 92 new followers,” Van Den Oever said, laughing.

Van Den Oever said he’ll never know if it was a targeted attack, as other non-LGBTQ+ businesses in the area have faced a similar level of increased crime.

“I don't really feel that we have been targeted because of our queer space — knock on wood, that that doesn't change,” Van Den Oever said. “But I could see businesses being targeted; the world is not really safe for the LGBTQ community, we always have to stay vigilant and protect ourselves as much as we can, but also stay a welcoming place.”

For NoMa residents and craft beer fans, supporting the brewery in times of crisis was all the more important because it is an LGBTQ space.

Nick Carton, a D.C. resident and lobbyist, tweeted in support of Red Bear Brewery after the vandalism.

“Across the country we're seeing increased crime levels, but then especially when it targets LGBT places there's an added layer,” Carton said in an interview. “Do we know if it was intentional or not? No, but that doesn't necessarily matter either.”

Carton and his friends are regular patrons of Red Bear Brewery, which he said is an ideal combination of the relaxed atmosphere he prefers in a bar, craft beer and LGBTQ-owned.

“Post-pandemic there are fewer and fewer places, especially in the LGBT world, to go,” he said, adding, “So especially when you see something like breaking windows, which tons of businesses in a city are going through … it's just super unfortunate, especially in places that are near and dear to the community.”

Dacha DC, a gay-owned beer garden in Shaw, also responded to Red Bear Brewery’s tweet with an experience of their own.

The beer garden tagged several district public officials and shared a picture of spray paint vandalizing their shop. “Still ‘addressing the underlying issues’? Maybe you should address the fact that gay owned and operated businesses are harassed routinely in your ward?”

Chad Torres and his wife grabbed their pride socks and went down to Red Bear Brewery to grab a beer after they heard about what happened.

Van Den Oever said that while the brewery was both without Internet and full-window coverage, they still had a sizeable crowd on Friday and Saturday. Torres said the aura of support was apparent when you walked in the door.

“The one thing that is so beautiful about that is just the energy, right? The energy of rallying behind someone,” he said. “And you could tell that there were people in there that didn't care about beer, there are people that, they were just happy to come support a business that was struggling, regardless of their affiliation.

The word “community” in Red Bear Brewery has a few different meanings. For one, the neighborhood — which is “small … when you really look at the map” — came out in support of the business, hunched around drinks and doing it “responsibly,” Torres said. Showing their vaccination cards and IDs was a telltale sign that this community was here to support each other, he said.

There’s also the fact that it’s a queer space, but an inclusive one, something that is central to Red Bear Brewery’s methodology. It’s a place to build community for LGBTQ folks and support LGBTQ business owners, but also a place for all who will be respectful of their friends and neighbors, Van Den Oever said.

“The difference is, in my opinion, whether or not it was charged by hate, it was more about there's not enough recognition that goes into gay owned businesses,” Torres said. “And

regardless, let's make it about being pride and being allies.”

While Red Bear Brewery is in communication with police and city officials to increase surveillance in the area, Van Den Oever said he and his employees are just happy no one got hurt.

“Property damage, though it sucks, can be replaced,” he said. “With somebody getting hurt, that it could be lifelong, traumatic experience.”