de Garde Brewing Anniversary

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The policy was explained in this thread and on their Facebook post as well I think. The guy in Line that was handing out bracelets mentioned this to us as well. Then when we got in the door, it was explained again. Finally a bit before 2 the brewer stood up to make a formal announcement explaining it again. I'm not sure how you missed it.

 

Just wanted to give a huge thanks to @deGardebrewing for a fantastic event, with the hope of many more to come.

Many of the tapped highlights are already detailed above, so a big +1 to those.

Other highlights:
- Trevor bringing donuts out at 8 AM for those of us dumb enough to get there way too early
- The people - every single person we met was just awesome. I was the guy with the redhead who got there way too early and had the tent up at the front of the bottle line - it was a pleasure meeting you all and you made the waiting in line go by that much faster!
- Pulling Nails - to the guy who gave me a pour, shoot me a BM
- The extremely friendly, albeit tired, and awesome folks working the sales of the bottles. Thank you thank you thank you- you seriously rock.
- No line for Brandy Huna for about 2-3 minutes after everyone who wanted it got a pour
- Magnum T25
- The party moving on to the Pelican in Tillamook
- The bottle share after the event at the Mar Clair

Thanks again for a great time, looking forward to doing it again net year.

 

Really the only thing they could have done to speed up the bottle purchases would have been to have the 11 bottles available pre-boxed as someone suggested earlier in the thread. However, I overheard Linsey talking about how their last bottle shipment didn't come with boxes so they might not have had enough to do that anyway.

For me it was a fair trade-off to hang out inside drinking great beers while still being able to get a bottle of everything but the Vin Bus by the time I finally decided to go outside and wait in the small line that was still there at ~3pm. I do feel for the people that didn't realize they could just walk in and start drinking though.

Even without comparing this event to how it could have gone down if it had taken place in other regions, I was very happy to have attended.

 

Really fun event! I thought it was very well run, especially considering all the variables in play. Big thanks to Trevor, Linsey and all involved. Too many great beers to pick a favorite, but vin melange has to be up there for me. I am still amazed by the dynamic flavors they can coax out of those barrels, and how unique the characteristics of each variant are. Well done all around!

 

Will there be anything left for the poor folks who show up this Thursday?

Seriously though...will there?

 

I think it could have been sped up in other ways. I imagine it would be really efficient if they split it into two jobs. Have a table in the middle with 11 lines of bottles. On one side they fill boxes very quickly without any searching needed. The other side would just keep the 11 lines filled. Just how I thought it could have worked, but I'm not complaining at all. Loved every second of the event and had no problem waiting for those bottles.

 

I think on Sunday there was still Hop & Cran available. Not sure if they made it through the day.

 

Darnit! Also, I didn't realize they are open on Sundays.

 

Schedule on FB says Th-Sat. Maybe they plan to open up on Sundays once summer arrives.

 

well im the debbie downer.

Positives: Great great beer. apricot was outstanding, as was boysenberry. the guest tap I tried (cant remember name) was also great. Desay, imperial Bu, etc. etc. I will always support de garde and every time I see a keg of theirs on tap I will order it because their quality and innovation is awesome. so cool that oregon has so many world class sour/funky beer producers

negatives: I think my expectations were a bit out of line so I will take the blame on that as I had never been to their facility. But basically it was a cold damp day and we were all packed inside a warehouse that smelled like dump-bucket beer and B.O from the obese comicon/beer nerds sweating alcohol and trying to gobble every keg they could get to. Look, I enjoy good beer, like really enjoy it, but the nerdery here was on Magic the Gathering/star wars geek type level. They were having fun and the owners were in a very good mood, but as an "event" it was really just people standing and drinking beer. no music, nowhere to sit and hang out so you were forced into close proximity of level 10 beer dorks just talking about all the beer they have. as a representation of my hobby, this was not a good look, and I think I will calm it down a bit.

after we tried all the beers on tap, we high tailed it back to PDX and went to the Whiskey Library which made everything better. I also missed out on Huna, Peche, and some others but we were a little late


all that said. again, I will always buy/supprt De Garde and its truly awesome they are doing well. cant wait to see what they come up with in the future.

 

You are complaining about people being nerds about beer on a site called Beer Advocate on the internet.

 

My neckbeard is rustled.

 

Yes big props to the ladies doing the bottles! They were slammed but were still very nice and helpful. I remember getting a bunch of 1$ and while counting it got two twenties in the bundle of 1's for my change. I let them know and they were like, OMG! Needless to say I was sure to give them a nice tip and it looked like many many others did the same.

Oh and another thing, not sure who it was but early in the line I'd say around 1230 or so somebody dropped their wallet and guess what some kind soul went around the line asking about it and then went inside the building. Not sure what happened after that but that just shows you who was at this event. Very nice people and honest people at that.

 

Splendid. Can't wait!

 

I get some of what you're saying, but... it's a brewery, dude. Maybe if they had been able to use the neighboring space there would have been some seating, but I guess there were some legal / licensing / permitting issues that kept that from happening. If there had been seating inside the brewery, it would have been even more crowded.

I'm personally glad there wasn't music; it would have made it a lot harder to actually talk to people. (And, yeah, there was a lot of hard-core geekery, but again, not really sure what else you expected. I personally spent a decent amount of time talking with friends about non-beer subjects as well.)