During our recent trip to Portland, we stopped in at D.L. Geary Brewery and got to talk to David Geary about his beers and Geary’s brewery. Geary’s brews traditional styles and focuses on session beers, including their Pale Ale and Hampshire Ale. However, recently they have dabbled a bit in more “experimental” styles, “knuckling under the tyranny of the hop” as David shares and brewing an Imperial IPA and a crazy dry hopped creation which will be coming out this summer.
David gave us some of the background of the growing brewery and their need to expand (anyone have a 100 barrel system for them?). According to David, they are currently running a “22,000 square foot brewery in an 18,000 square foot building”. But you wouldn’t get that feeling (ok, aside from the row of storage boxes out back) as the facility is really well laid out and organized.
We really appreciated Davids matter of fact personality and his focus on lower alcohol beers with flavor. There is something to be said for how solidly rated every beer from D.L. Geary’s is on the major beer rating sites. While we all appreciate the occasional extreme beer, it’s the staples like Geary’s Pale Ale that are my go to, more often than not.
For more from our trip to Portland, check out the Portland Maine section of Here for the Beer or follow along with us on Twitter. For more about Geary’s check out their website (and yes, you can order your Geary’s thong here!).
Hey T&A! Love the new vid…
At first I found David to be dry and boring. Then, I realized this man is ridiculously smart, knows what he’s doing, and he has a sense of humor – albeit a bit dry – but that’s ok.
Gonna keep my eye out for Geary’s. Not sure if it will make it to the Midwest, but that Imperial IPA sounds like a winner to me!
I wonder how much the character of the beer has changed if they’ve used the same yeast for 24 years. I guess by creating lower alcohol beers he doesn’t stress the yeast enough to make it mutate dramatically. Cool way to do things. Very different.
It is interesting to hear from someone with as much experience as David who has held true to his style and origin. We loved the fact that he emphasized the cost of the yeast, Geary’s certainly fills a niche for the craft beer lover who wants a tasty, reasonably priced, low alcohol, everyday beer. We really hope that we get some more of his product down our way. Thanks for the comment and watching Chris! Cheers!
I agree – I almost wanted to put a warning on the video to say give it a full watching. David had an earnest and dry way about him, but his honesty and straightforwardness really was warming. He puts out a great product that he is proud of, and that showed in every aspect of his brewery and in the brief time we got to chat with him. We are keeping an eye out for Geary’s to make its way down here too and Amy is certainly stoked about the Imperial IPA! Thanks for writing Aaron – Cheers!
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