Cox and Durgin in their soon-to-open brewery. (Photo via Facebook)

A few years ago, D.C. was utterly bereft of commercial breweries. Today there are three, and a fourth is planning on opening early next year. Atlas Brew Works is aiming to open in the first quarter of 2013, churning out a menu of original beers from its plant in Ivy City.

Atlas Brew Works is the doing of brewmasters Justin Cox, a former federal government employee and avid home brewer, and Will Durgin, who has done time at Telegraph Brewing Company in Santa Barbara, Calif. and Pyramid Breweries in Portland, Ore., both of which have won several awards for their West Coast ales.

Cox and Durgin, who met as students at Vanderbilt University, are planning on opening with a 3,500-barrel annual capacity; they’ve got three 20-barrel and two 40-barrel fermenters on order for their 9,200-square-foot brewery. And both brewmasters have binders full of recipes from their respective days as home and commercial beer-makers.

To start, though, Atlas Brew Works will churn out two flagship beers: a pale ale dubbed “Rowdy,” made with a little bit of rye and tasting quite hoppy, and District Common, in the style of a California common or “steam beer.” (Though don’t expect to order it by that term, “Steam Ale” is a tightly held trademark of Anchor Brewing Company, which gets litigious when other breweries use the phrase, Cox says.)

For Cox, opening the brewery is a kind of wish fulfillment. After eight years of living here and learning how to make beer in his kitchen, he’s ditching his job at the General Services Administration and getting into the booze business. “It’s always kind of been a dream,” he says. “What better way to do it than have your own beers?”

And as popular as D.C. Brau, Three Stars Brewing Company and Chocolate City have been since their 2011 arrivals, Cox figures the District-made beer market still has room to grow.

“It’s a really burgeoning beer scene. Lots of local support for artisanal things,” he says.

First though, Atlas Brew Works will need to clear the usual regulatory circuit. Cox and Durgin just applied for the permit to renovate their facility at 2052 West Virginia Avenue NE, and will also need to get the permissions from the District’s Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration and the federal government’s brewery registry. Cox is optimistic all the paperwork will be sorted out a few months into the new year.

When it gets going, Atlas Brew Works will, like Three Stars, focus primarily on delivering draught beers to bars and restaurants around D.C. “Of course we’ll have a tasting bar in the brewery where people can come in and take a tour,” Cox says.

But Cox says to expect a wide variety of beers. “I have a huge backlog of recipes from my home brewing days,” he says. “Will really has a taste for sour beers. We plan to do a lot of experimental beers.”

Cox adds that some of those experiments will include aging their beers in whiskey and wine barrels.