swung by de garde brewing on sunday to find out they were closed due to the flooding. was real bummed because our plan was to stop in and take a nice long break from driving down the coast to california, and really, there's nothing else around tillamook. they had a nice note posted on the door to call with any questions if you came from out of town. i called the number to see if there was anywhere around town i could buy their beers since i've never had them before, and the nice women on the phone asked if i could wait 15 minutes, and that she'd come down and open up.
about 20 minutes later, we were inside de garde, just the three of us, tasting their four beers they had on tap (bu, berry bu, stone bu, and cran bu), shooting the shit with the co-owner. i bought 1.5 cases of their beer, exchanged the only beer i had with me in the car (a fremont 4-pack) as a thanks, and left humbled and more or less speechless about the whole situation.
two things really stuck out. one - i hope i can one day have a profession where i'd go that far out of my way to show how much i care about my work, and two - their beer is fucking amazing. the labeling, the ingredients, the process, the prices... it's all stuck out as completely original without escaping the idea that it's just beer.
i very much look forward to opening bottles of their bu, mperial peach bu, boysen, lucy, and petite desay that i purchased, and hope i can make it back there soon to drink more of their beer.
