De Garde Brewing founder Trevor Rogers explains an all-time favorite beer
Everyone has that one beer – the beer that lit ignited your love for craft beer and sent you on a journey. This could be a basic lager or something more complex like a gueuze or lambic. In many cases, it’s a flagship from one of the pioneers of the craft beer industry. In our hyper-local craft scene where breweries often crank out several new releases every week, sometimes we overlook the classics and the staples that may have been super exciting at one point in time. These beers may feel antiquated or old man-ish compared to the latest pastry stouts or quadruple dry-hopped haze bomb, but they are still just as worthy of attention. They are also quite often the go-to beers for brewers who want a beer that is balanced, respectable, and not too much of a palate overload. In our column The Beers That Made Us, we talk with brewers about the beers that have made the biggest impact on them in terms of their personal taste and love of craft beer as well as well as how it inspired their approach to brewing.
For this edition of The Beers That Made Us, we spoke with Trevor Rogers, Head Brewer/Co-Founder/Co-Owner of de Garde Brewing in Tillamook, Oregon. For the last eight years, Rogers and his team have worked to make de Garde one of the most respected breweries in the world with their spontaneously fermented wild ales. It’s no secret that Rogers is heavily influenced by the historic brewing tradition of using a coolship, but where he differs from traditional Belgian lambic producers is in his devotion to using local Oregon ingredients. The resulting beers are often rooted firmly in the past while offering a new perspective on wild ales and farmhouse ales. If ever there was a brewery dedicated to the concept of terroir, de Garde is it. With that in mind, Rogers’ choice for a beer that has made a big impact on him may come as a surprise to some and an expected inspiration to others.
Gueuze is a blend of 1 and typically 2-3+ year old Lambics. These sour Lambic beers are produced by spontaneous fermentation in open coolships. Brewers such as De Garde make their own new world versions of Lambic and Gueuze but the style is fiercely protected as being strictly Belgian under European law.
Beer:
Tilquin Gueuze
Trevor Rogers (TR): Yes, the blendery may not have been around much longer than our own, but it's anachronistic in its representation. It's a beer that clearly is of the region and the quite old traditions, but it is a new product from a newer producer. It's a literal blend of beer, fermented and aged from the wort produced at some of the oldest remaining Lambic breweries, but at a fresh location. It's fairly regularly available, and absolutely worth purchasing and drinking. You'll not find a better beer for the money, I believe, and certainly not one representing such a classic and complex style, with such notable consistency and superbly high quality.
Your first time:
TR: The first time I tried this beer was shortly after its initial release. Should be sometime around the Summer of 2011, as I recall. It was revelatory. I'd had good, even great Lambic and Gueuze prior, but this was amongst the best I'd experienced. And from such a new blender! From their first bottling! The possibility that such a beer could come from a new business was remarkable, and inspirational. Yes, [founder] Pierre [Tilquin] had some experience working at two more historic and historically high-quality breweries (3 Fonteinen and Cantillon), but this was not an operation that had been around for generations.
What makes it special:
TR: It was and is just so damn good. That could be the end of any commentary. It is just damn good. The minerality, the deft weaving of multifaceted character, the stereotypical yet unnamable complexity of 'funk' that you expect in great Gueuze and Lambic, but that can't really be described. Yes, there's a delicately savory component, something vaguely sulphurous in there too, an idea of citrus and of straw, something vaguely saline and something a bit feral and possibly agricultural. Maybe petrichor? Crushed, wet river rocks? So many unfolding layers working together. It's as it should be; a singular experience, and something that can't be precisely described relative to anything else. Not really. Not truly.
Why this beer is influential:
TR: For me, at the time, I was just considering the possibility, the perhaps very misguided possibility, the terrifying and complicated possibility, of opening a brewery (a wild/spontaneous fermentation focused brewery, at that). The idea of starting a brewery that could and would focus on brewing, fermenting, maturing in barrel (for years!) and ultimately packaging spontaneous beer seemed like a near impossibility. Certainly, a very steep hill to climb. It's incredibly hard for any brewery to go through the complicated process of opening, much less thriving. Compound that with the fact that your beer will take months or even years to produce and sell instead of a few weeks. The tied-up ingredient costs, the requisite space and operating costs consumed, the compounding efforts and intensive labor...
Pierre Tilquin and this specific beer proved that it could be done. He started a blendery, made magnificent beer, and found an audience. Yes, the beer is great. Truly great. But, the dedicated effort that he made, the fact that the beer was made at all, notwithstanding the quality, was even more inspirational. That was an undertaking. An admirable one, and [one] bearing delicious fruit. An effort to celebrate and admire, and one that inspired me. It showed that it could be done. Or, was at least possible.
Why beer drinkers should pay attention:
TR: We can talk for days about what's new and has people excited, about what's delicious and novel, but you won't find a higher quality fermented beverage than Tilquin Gueuze.
Gueuze in general is definitely unique (that's a bit of the attraction, no?), and the flavor, acid component and aromatic profile may not please everyone. Certainly, there are beers, wines, etc. that don't call to me, yet I can appreciate those that are well made. I'd recommend that anyone try this beer, and try not to be at least impressed. There's a reasonable and I believe pertinent comparison to great wine to be made when speaking about spontaneously fermented beer. The greatest wines have a sense of place. They are of a location and, all other human inputs aside, could not be made the same from a locale other than their own. That simply doesn't exist in beer, other than that which is spontaneously fermented. You can take a culture of lab isolated yeast and/or bacteria for a beer, utilize the same ingredients and equipment, the same processes, and make the same damn beer pretty much anywhere. You can't precisely emulate the layered, impossibly complex fermentation and aging of site-specific yeast and bacteria gleaned from the air in miniscule amounts from an overnight rest in a coolship. Much less the uniquely area-specific character those yeast and bacteria provide when working together in a natural progression and balance. There's nothing wrong with something replicable, or something else, but man, I do like a unique expression. Something inherently singular. Something with a soul, and with verve.
I can't define value for anyone else though. Such is beauty.
How this beer inspired your brewery:
TR: We draw our greatest influence and inspiration from Gueuze and Lambic traditions and beers. That certainly includes Tilquin Gueuze. Though we cater our recipes, ingredients, timelines and processes to our own specific locale and its unique native yeast and bacterial populations, it's a simple and obvious fact that the preservation and evolution of the Belgian brewing and blending traditions educated and inspired our own exploration. We simply would not be here without that history.
I think that can perhaps be clearly seen in some of our multi-year blends, such as The Maison. It's a blend of three years of barrels (one, two and three year aged), blended for complexity, character and balance. It's not Gueuze, and it's not trying to be. It's an effort to represent our own location as best as possible, much the way that Belgain Lambic and Gueuze speaks of its own very specific place. The process and ingredients are relative to and inspired by those of making Lambic and Gueuze, though we've found changes that we believe help us to best make the highest quality beer for us, in [Tillamook]. We owe a debt for the inspiration and for those traditions, and we are grateful. I think it's best repaid by acknowledging and celebrating it, and pursuing our own native expression. One that doesn't try to precisely equate or simulate. One that embraces the goodness of being here.
