I’m going to be traveling to the Seattle area and was wondering if any of you knew a good bottle shop that would have possibly de garde, or just a good selection of hard to find stuff in general. Also the big one I’ve heard of up there for sours is Urban Mountain. Any other brewers you’d suggest for good and creative sours?
Urban Family has more fruit sours. Holy Mountain tilts towards the saison side of things. These aren't absolutes, but that's what their tendencies are.
Urban Family isn't hard to find, but the brewery usually has a lot of bottles, and it's 5 minutes from Holy Mountain, who always have a to-go selection that pretty much matches what you'd find at bottle shops (HM doesn't sell any of their rare beer outside of releases at the brewery.) Youl could easily visit both taprooms. De Garde is not very common here, but they do occasionally send some beer up. The bottles we get up here aren't super sought after, so there's a chance you'll find some. Bottle shops which should be easy to google: Chucks Greenwood and Chucks CD (HUGE selection at both, food trucks are convenient) Full Throttle Bottle (south of downtown, decent selection, random rare beers) Beer Authority (North edge of Seattle, decent selection, things dont sell out here as fast, chat up Burc the main co-owner and he might pull something out of his cellar) The Beer Junction (W. Seattle, nice hood to visit with lots of food but kinda out of the way) Teku (downtown near space needle, newer, not a huge selection but not bad) North of Seattle also has a few, 20-30 minutes from downtown). Special Brews, Stogies and Hops, Bridgids. There's even more than the list above, but those are my recommendations. Any particular place you are staying, do you have a car?
Yes we will have a car. We are staying in Bellevue but I will have one free day to roam as I please. And I have full intentions of heading to Urban Family and now holy mountain since I know they are so close together. I’m willing to drive around a little to find something good as I don’t get there often. The fruit sours are my personal favorites but I don’t mind some others like the saisons, or some hazey ipa’s. I normally get the fruit ones for personal consumption and I like others to bring to bottle shares. I can do the footwork looking into shops I was mainly hopping for some names so I do appreciate what you’ve told me so far.
Yeah Teku is not bad, and it's also kinda close to Holy Mountain. You'd probably drive right past it on your way to HM coming from Bellevue. It probably has half the amount of bottles a place like Chucks or The Beer Junction have though. There's a place called The Cave on the east side just North of Belevue that's also pretty good: http://www.cavecraftbeer.com/
Ahhh. I was going to say that Pint Defiance and Edison City Alehouse in Tacoma have had DeGarde in the past.
As others have mentioned, de Garde stuff is pretty limited in the SeaTac/Puget Sound area, and I'm pretty sure you won't find any of their fruited wild ales in the area (if that's what you're hoping for). Portland gets a much better distribution of dG stuff, and even there, it's fairly uncommon to see any of the fruited wild ales (those places that do get them - Arch Bridge and Tin Bucket seem to get the best supply of dG beer - usually run through them pretty quickly). Don't mean to be the bearer of bad news, but just so you don't get your hopes up too high. Lot of other great places to visit while in Seattle (I'm sure you'll have a great time at HM and UF), but if you have your heart set on fruited wild ales from dG, your best bet would be to make the drive down to the brewery. Have fun.
Yeah I kind of figured it would be. Last time I was there talking to them they said they have a distributor that brings a little up to Seattle. Just hopeful thinking.
