De Garde at Ten: How Wild Ales Have Changed in a Decade

De Garde’s side-by-side coolships, filled simultaneously from the kettle.

Ten years ago, Linsey and Trevor Rogers founded a brewery that, if anything, seemed less strange then than it does today. American beer drinkers had discovered Belgium, and many were aware of the tiny lambic breweries around Brussels who “spontaneously” fermented their wort rather than adding commercial yeast. It was becoming common for breweries to experiment with wild yeast and bacteria, and a few had even set up coolships to make lambic-like beer. Trevor and Linsey decided to go all in, though: they would only make spontaneously-fermented beer.

It was a different time, when experimentation and exotica were in, and De Garde’s purist approach scored very high on the coolness meter. Their spontaneous-only approach was unusual, but a lot of odd stuff was happening. Well, ten years later, a lot less odd stuff is happening. In the intervening years, American brewers have gotten a lot better at making wild ales (whether with pitched yeast or spontaneous fermentation), but many have scaled back or discontinued wild programs. These beers have a finite and small audience. Other breweries known for wild and spontaneous beers have acknowledged the realities of brewing in the 2020s and started brewing IPAs.

De Garde—even when Covid nearly put them out of business—has stayed the course. The brewery is designed to make one kind of beer, and they’re sticking with it. Indeed, De Garde is possibly the only brewery outside Belgium exclusively making spontaneously-fermented beer [in comments below and on social media, it appears “one of the few” would be more accurate], which in 2023 looks radical indeed.

The commitment to one kind of beer has protected De Garde’s identity, which has helped them survive in a diminished space for wild ales. But more than that, in the ten years he’s been making these very difficult beers, Trevor has honed his craft and is making some of the most accomplished, elegant wild ales in the world. In that smaller space, his beers stand out. De Garde isn’t the equivalent of a lambic cover band, however. Taking inspiration from Belgium, the Rogers’ have refashioned their beer into something American, something of the misty, forested Pacific Northwest coast. For their tenth anniversary, I made my first post-Covid return visit and toured the brewery with Trevor to catch up.

The Same, But Different

Of all the styles of beer in the world, none are as specific to a place as lambics, where all the breweries adhere to surprisingly consistent methods and ingredients. When Trevor starting making spontaneous ales, he had the American freedom to reconsider those elements. One of the things he scrapped was the incredibly convoluted and laborious turbid mash Belgians use by tradition, if not necessity. They argue the method is important in creating starchy, dextrinous worts that feed Brettanomyces for months or years.

Was a turbid mash the only way to get there, though? Trevor didn’t think so. “My thought on this was that there had to be other ways to make less fermentable worts.” He devised a system that was basically the opposite of turbid mashing. He asked me not to mention it the first time I visited, but he’s become more comfortable since, and has shared it with others. It is the picture of simplicity: “We dough-in at 165 degrees (74° C) looking to denature some of the enzymes, and immediately start vorlauf [recirculation].” He’s not looking for it to run clear, but be absent “significant solids.” Then it’s off to the kettle with consecutive 198° sparges to fully stop conversion. He looks for a fast run-off, too. “We do it as fast as we can without sticking the mash.” That’s it: a single, short and hot infusion, quick run-off and he’s done. The whole process takes less than an hour.

More than three-quarters of his production is a single base beer of around 42% unmalted wheat and Idaho-grown barley malt from Great Western. (Any beer with a name starting with “The” is one of these.) He isn’t fussy about the wort’s gravity, which starts somewhere between 10.5 and 11.5 Plato, because he boils the wort for 3-4 hours and can time things to hit a more precise target after evaporation. He uses aged American hops, and doesn’t mind letting them go longer than the three years Belgians typically age theirs. That wort goes to the coolship and then into small foeders (vats) or 500-liter puncheons.

The process is effective in creating thick worts he can age for years and years (many of his lots are older than the typical three years of “old” lambic); it doesn’t get thin and creates an excellent base for the yeast and bacteria. “We may take a small hit in efficiency versus turbid,” he said, but it doesn’t affect the beer. “A little higher ratio of wheat helps.” (Belgians use 30-40%.)

Fermentation and Aging

Ten years is enough time to chart the change in climate, even in the cool band that protects the Oregon Coast. Very hot summer days, once unthinkable on the coast, now visit for brief periods every year. Still, Tillamook, which Trevor chose for its no-extremes, gentle temperatures, is an excellent place to ferment wort naturally. They were running wort into the coolship when I visited at 3pm, and would transfer the wort the next day around mid-morning, when the temperature was about 65 degrees (18 C). There’s no glycol in the building, so everything depends on the cool coastal climate. That includes the barrel rooms, which occupy two stories (foeders on the bottom, puncheons above). When this hot days do arrive, inside the brewery it almost never gets warmer than 65 (18 C). One hot day, “We actually filled our coolship with ice and placed fans around it to circulate cold air through the building”—but it didn’t last long enough to jeopardize the beer. Eventually, they may have to install more formal cooling to combat hot summers.

For six months of the year, however, the weather is ideal for natural fermentation. To ensure consisted exposure, Trevor installed a system to circulate outside air into the building when the coolship is full; it was more reliable than just throwing open the brewery. “We have fans that pull outside air into the building, over the surface of the coolship, and then out of the building,” he told me. I was surprised to learn that De Garde also completely scrubs their oak after they drain them, using steam and hot water. “The biggest challenge is to discourage acidification,” he said, and it helps to start with a clean slate each batch. “It’s really important that we don’t have any carry-over of yeast and bacteria.”

He sent samples of his his beer Dana Garves at Oregon Brew Lab and found that the air around Tillamook has three separate strains of Brettanomyces. Two are fairly gentle and earthy, but one is more aggressive. It is very tropical and citrusy, but prone to produce acid. It’s more predominant in the warm months. I asked if he’d considered collecting and using these, but he didn’t seem to have much interest. He likes collaborating with the wild yeast rather than controlling it. “I trust nature to do a better job than us to find a natural balance,” he said.

The coolship from the other side of the room.

The Beer

The first time I went to Belgium, back in 2011, I had an epiphany: wild ales shouldn’t be punishing. I’d had lambics in the US, but the experience of drinking many over a short period drove the point home. At the time, Americans were making extremely sour beers, partly because extreme flavors are an American tendency, and partly because it’s hard not to, especially when working with spontaneous fermentation. When their beers debuted, De Garde was pretty sharp. Some were honestly a bit hard to drink. Within a few years, though, they had come more into balance, allowing for greater expression of the subtler fermentation characteristics. Now, after a decade and hundreds of batches, the beers have become even more refined, and are the equal of the lambics made by the breweries that inspired the Rogers.

“Our beers have a greenness to them. We hop them more than anyone else I’m aware of. It tastes like you’re near the coast. Foresty.”

— Trevor Rogers

They’re also not precisely Belgian. Before we started the tour, we shared a bottle of The Kriekenmaak, which is a good example of De Garde’s deviations. It’s a blend of older lambics and cherries, but also includes vanilla beans and cinnamon. “It’s not a pastry-type beer,” Trevor said as he poured it out. “We’re trying to accent the flavors already in the beer.” Cinnamon is a common flavor note in krieks—the pits contribute a cinnamon-like tannin. The vanilla was very subtle, but likely helped in the perception of sweetness. There was no doubt it was a spontaneous beer, though. It’s the kind of thing an American brewery can do. Most customers won’t have any idea that such ingredients would be considered risqué around Brussels—they just seem intuitive.

Beyond spices, De Garde experiments broadly with fruit and other ingredients. No surprise, hops are part of this. They use classic American techniques like dry-hopping their beer and even a form of whirlpool hopping—adding hops to the coolship. Like most other Oregon breweries, they do a fresh-hop beer (which is not one of the beers people should age!). They currently have a beer made with super long-aged (49 years) Pu-er tea leaves.

One thing that surprised me was how long they age the beer. Some lots go on well past the typical three years of old lambic. Trevor will keep beers five years or even longer. The reason gets back to the pursuit of harmony and subtlety. “Older beer gives better balance,” he said. That comes at a cost. The longer they age the beer, the less of it they have to sell. De Garde can now produce about 800 barrels a year—half the production they had several years ago. (The bottles, which go for about $18, haven’t doubled in price, either.)

But then, I guess when you’ve invested as much as Trevor and Linsey have to this very rare pursuit, you can’t very well stop following it where it leads. De Garde is committed to making the brewery succeed for decades to come, but on its own terms. As I was about to leave, Linsey came in with the newest member of the De Garde family, the couple’s year and a half-old daughter. Who knows, maybe in thirty years, she’ll be carrying on the tradition of spontaneous fermentation on the Oregon Coast.

BreweriesJeff AlworthApril 27, 20235 Comments