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The Sovereign Belgian Bar & Bistro Coming to Georgetown

Beer director for Neighborhood Restaurant Group, Greg Engbert announced the opening of The Sovereign, a bar and bistro located at 1206 Wisconsin Avenue (at the end of the alley at M Street & Wisconsin Avenue) in Georgetown later this Fall. The two-story bar and bistro will be comprised of an 84-seat first floor dining room and 47-seat bar on the second floor.

The Sovereign will showcase the widest array of drafts and bottles from the very best Belgian brewers. With 50 drafts and 200+ bottles, the beer program will feature the work of Belgian brewers who embody the standards, techniques, and innovative spirit that underpins the fabled Belgian brewing culture.

Just as The Sovereign will be championing brewers that use simple, true recipes and let technique and patience yield complex flavors, so will the menu feature rustic ingredient-driven dishes of Belgian cuisine, which draws from French, German and Dutch cooking traditions. Executive Chef Peter Smith of PS7 and Vidalia has developed the menu –which will be available throughout the restaurant and bar– by combining his French training with experience gained while traveling through Belgium with Engert.

While dishes will change with the seasons and use local ingredients, Smith has also worked to source key products like domestically farmed, bottom harvested Dutch-style mussels. Diners will also find traditional small bites (such as Saucisse Ardennaise, anchovies and pickled onion, or gruyere with caraway seeds, a range of Flammkuchen or Tartes Flambé, and a variety of braises and stews such as Lapin a la Kriek or Rabbit in Cherry Beer.

The Sovereign is committed to celebrating the brewers –many of them little known and rarely found in the US –who are sustaining and evolving the brewing traditions and culture that created Belgium’s reputation as a beer mecca. An expansive breadth of selections will illuminate the flavor-driven, craft-brewed complexity that is the trademark of the best Belgian beers.