Which De Garde beer is your favorite?

Apricot gose. Start there... I say that until i open my Broken Truck soon

 

Hop Bu itself is pretty amazing. Imperial Blackberry Bu absolutely blew me away.

 

Citrus Deasay

 

Framniscus, Hose, Cherry Gose...hard to choose. They're all pretty delicious

 

Broken Truck.. Honestly, gives Cantillon geuezes a run for their money.. One of the best overall beers I've ever had.

 

Cherry blu bu is tasting very good right now

 

Out of the 4Q releases, the Raspberry and Boysenberry Premiere were both fantastic... I really liked the Currant Gin Bu... It made me think of a cocktail my wife would order at a bar.

So far, my favorites out of the bottle have been the Vin Lee and Imperial Vin Bu. I dig where they are going with wine grapes.

 

All of them....except chat d'or

 

I've only had a small portion of the approximately one billion beers they've released, but Imperial Orchard Bu has so far been my favorite

 

While I've loved each of the Bu variants and Lee Noir was great, my favorite is Petit Desay. Simple, perfect (for me) saison with an easy everyday price, and for a while there it was real easy to find. Hope it returns with bottles of Bu Weisse soon.

 

I really liked the Hose. It tasted so clean, and smooth..almost like drinking flavored water.

 

Dear lord - I clicked on this expecting to see nothing but Oregon.

I'm still fairly limited, but the Blu Bu has been my favorite followed closely by the Cherry Raz Bu.

The Citrus Desay is also the orangiest damn beer I've ever had.

 

Hose, Broken Truck, and The Anniversary.

I vastly prefer their lambic-style beers to the Bus. Don't get me wrong, the Bus are good, but I feel that if you've had one, you've had them all (I've had many, many of them). The lambics (and even the saisons, though they're really too sour to be called saisons, I think) have so much more complexity.

 

The Archer and Currant Gin Bu from the last party were amazing.

 

Start by getting a sampler and don't be too picky. Get examples across several styles - berliner, gose, fruited and hopped, lambic styles if you can swing those (they are usually the hardest to get), saisons, sour reds, etc. As you can tell, pretty much everyone has a different favorite. The sheer diversity is one of the things that makes De Garde special, IMHO.

 

Having had nearly all of the 150+ beers released by de Garde in the past two years, I can definitively answer your question with: it depends. They have released so many beers that span a huge breadth of flavors that even my own preferences change depending on what type of beer I'm looking for, if the beer is being drank with food, or if I'm sharing it with others. But to go back to your question, broken out into categories.

The lambic inspired "The" beers: The Broken Truck. Best American gueuze I've ever tasted, hands down. Unfortunately, prepare yourself to send body parts or a first born son in trade to get one. It will be easier to track down one of the more recent releases (Lily, Peach, Purple, Archer) and age it for six months or so. Or trade for a The Lucy. This was a lambic inspired wild ale with grapes similar to The Lily, but way easier to get. I find it to be almost as good.

The Bu/Imp Bu's: Beaucoup Berry Bu. The Bu's are nearly all the same except two factors: the type of fruit and the level of acidity. The brewer has way dialed back the acidity in more recent batches, making them softer and easier to consume. And since I prefer berry over stone fruit in my Bu's, the recently released BBB is one of my favorites. Don't get me wrong - Imp Black or Purple Raz is great, but I can't drink one solo due to the acids making a mess of my stomach.

Simpler Beers (Hose/Gose/Saisons): the most recent dry hopped Hose available. Really can't go wrong here. But don't over look some of the fruited Gose (cherry raz for example). And in the saison category, if you like citrus, track down an Desay l'Orange.

Other Wilds: really hard to pick a favorite here. I stay away from the dark beers and generally go with fruited monsters like Beaucoup Violet or the recently released Raz/Boysen Premieres. Deux Tetes, Herbes Houblon, Vin Lee, Lee Kriek all deserve mention. Actually, put anything with wine grapes on this list. Forget fruited Bu's, I'll take a de Garde wild ale aged in wine barrels with wine grapes any day.

 

None. All their beers are awful. They are terrible brewers. Save yourself the time, money, and heartache, and just get other beers. Any other beers. You're welcome.

 

It's too late, man. Look at all the answers from outside the PNW here.

All you can do now is talk up Wolves & People in hope that you can distract all the out-of-state De Garde fans with new bright shiny things.

 

My favorite De Garde beers:

-The first release of Imperial Boysenberry Bu. My god, so much succulent, jammy boysenberry goodness.
-Earl Desay. Perfect tartness, complimented by subtle notes of honey and bergamot. Exquisite.
-Spears. A beautifully hoppy wild pale ale.