{"id":3310,"date":"2012-09-04T13:46:12","date_gmt":"2012-09-04T19:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tombedell.com\/?p=3310"},"modified":"2023-10-22T11:23:00","modified_gmt":"2023-10-22T17:23:00","slug":"tap-beer-of-the-week-gearys-london-porter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/golf\/lifestyle\/3310\/tap-beer-of-the-week-gearys-london-porter","title":{"rendered":"TAP Beer of the Week: Geary’s London Porter"},"content":{"rendered":"

[July 30, 2023–David Geary died Wednesday at age 78, closing an early chapter in the U.S. craft brewing book–or micro-brewing, as it was called back then. It was a pleasure to have met the man, playing golf with him and naturally having some of his beers post-round. Though Geary sold the brewery in 2017 and all the numbers in the report below have changed dramatically, it remains a good summary of the man and his career. There’s a postscript below, too.]<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

[Sept. 4, 2012]–<\/em>Our foursome was a few holes into the round at the Purpoodock Club in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, when someone asked David Geary where the name \u201cPurpoodock\u201d came from.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Geary on the golf course<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s from one of the Maine tribes,\u201d he said. \u201cIt means: Where the wind is in your face\u2014on every hole.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Although part of the purpose of the jaunt north was certainly to have a go-round on Geary\u2019s home course, it was more to talk about beer, and his pioneering role in establishing New England\u2019s first microbrewery.<\/p>\n

Geary was a medical equipment salesman in the early 1980\u2019s when he became something of a regular at Three Dollar Dewey\u2019s in Portland, then being run by Alan Eames.<\/p>\n

\u201cEames did everything wrong,\u201d said Geary. \u201cThat is, everything that conventional wisdom said was wrong. There was no Budweiser, no Heineken, no television. There were benches at long tables covered with copies of the New York Times<\/em>, classical music playing and people drinking Guinness and other virtually unknown imports.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Eames would later replicate the Three Dollar Dewey\u2019s experience in Brattleboro, Vermont\u2014the forerunner to McNeill\u2019s\u2014and continue his beer adventures until his untimely death in 2007.)<\/p>\n

\u201cBack then almost all the good beers were imports. We barely knew about the microbreweries out west\u2014there were fewer than 15 in the country at the time\u2014and we couldn\u2019t get any of the beers anyway. But the beers Eames was serving\u2014Gale\u2019s Prize Old Ale, Traquair House Ale\u2014were a revelation to me. Until I tasted it in beer I thought \u2018ester\u2019 was a girl\u2019s name.\u201d<\/p>\n

The men became friends and at one point Eames said to Geary, \u201cYou need to get into the booze business.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEventually I met Peter Maxwell Stuart of Traquair House and we, too, became friends\u2014he stayed at my house on a visit over from Scotland and told me, \u2018If you ever need anything, I\u2019ll start you on your journey.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The journey began in earnest when Geary and his first wife, Karen, incorporated as the D.L. Geary Brewing Company in 1983. In February of 1984 Geary took off on a four-month journey to the highlands of Scotland and the south coast of England, doing hands-on unpaid internships at various breweries and studying at the Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh.<\/p>\n

The plan for a brewery was taking shape, and a recipe for the first beer being formulated. But first, Geary said, \u201cIt took us about a year and half to put together a business plan, find a location, design packaging and raise enough money.\u201d<\/p>\n

On December 10, 1986, Geary\u2019s Pale Ale went on sale. \u201cThat was close enough to the end of the year that we thought we could celebrate our 25th<\/sup> anniversary in both 2011 and 2012.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The beer was patterned on a traditional English brew, using yeast that Geary had obtained from the former Hull Brewery in Yorkshire. The yeast has outlived the brewery, now an office complex; Geary has propagated the yeast 4,000 times in a quarter-century.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t all clear sailing from the start. \u201cEverything was a bit of a struggle in the beginning because there were no road maps back then,\u201d said Geary. Not everyone made it–he mentioned Steve Mason, who started the Catamount Brewing Company in Vermont in 1986, but which went under in 2000 after an overly ambitious expansion.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were never that close to going out of business,\u201d said Geary. \u201cIt was never an option.\u201d<\/p>\n

It still isn\u2019t, though Geary said older microbreweries have to keep their game fresh: \u201cInitially we had plenty of buzz just because we were new, and we had great demographics.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company was almost the only game in town for a time for people looking for something different. But that\u2019s all changed. Portland is now a hotbed of craft brewing and nationwide the brewing universe seems to going through its version of the Big Bang, ever expanding.<\/p>\n

The Brewers Association figures from late July showed 2,126 U.S. brewers in operation, with 1,251 breweries in the planning stages.<\/p>\n

Indeed, it\u2019s been easier in these southern Vermont parts lately to find beer from Portland upstarts like Allagash and the Maine Beer Company than Geary\u2019s (although Brattleboro Food Co-op beer and wine manager Jeff Houle said he expected to have some soon, as it\u2019s now being distributed in the state by the Craft Beer Guild of Vermont).<\/p>\n

Some of this shows on Geary, who has a roadmap of a face and a bum knee that knocked him out of the golf round early. But he clearly still has a zest for the game and a sly humor to help see him through.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Geary mugs for the camera at the brewery<\/p>\n

He fondly recalled the marketing campaign for the company\u2019s Hampshire Special Ale, originally a winter seasonal beer that was: \u201cAvailable as long as the weather sucks.\u201d But the beer proved so popular that it\u2019s now available year-round, no matter the weather.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cWe\u2019re a 22,000-square foot brewery brewing in 18,000 square feet,\u201d Geary said. \u201cWe\u2019re doing 150-barrel brews in two shifts five days a week, about 18,000 barrels a year. But in late fall we\u2019re attaching a new building that will add 15,000 square feet and allow us to do 22-ounce bottlings, ramp up to seven days a week brewing and do some contract brewing. The demand is there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Pale Ale is still the flagship beer, except when overtaken in the warmer months by the Summer Ale, available from April to September, and also evidence of trying to keep the game fresh. The company awards an annual $5,000 scholarship to a Maine College of Art undergraduate who submits the best design for the Summer Ale packaging. (This year a junior studying Graphic Design, Annie Mora.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>My favorite of the year-round beers is the London Porter, a 4.2% ABV beer which, by not trying to do too much, succeeds splendidly. It was the top choice of a New York Times tasting panel on porters in 2006, which said it, \u201c\u2026hit all the classic porter notes\u2026dry and tangy, softly carbonated, with earthy coffee and espresso flavors\u2026.\u201d Fair enough, and I\u2019m picking up some bittersweet chocolate flavor in the mix as well.<\/p>\n

At 4.2% ABV it\u2019s a fine session beer, made with pale, crystal, chocolate, and black English malts, as well as Golding hops. But a few American hops sneak in as well (Cascade and Willamette).<\/p>\n

As part of the anniversary celebration Geary asked some of his former brewmasters to develop some recipes, hence some departures from the core brands\u2014an Oatmeal Stout, a Wee Heavy, a Red Ale and an Imperial IPA.<\/p>\n

But surely Geary knew the whole \u201cImperial\u201d trend, slapping the term on a style and almost doubling its strength, was a bit ersatz?<\/p>\n

With that sly smile, he confessed that surely he did. \u201cYes, I gave in. Sometimes it\u2019s just easier to ride the horse in the direction he\u2019s going.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The Commons, Sept 5 2012 issue<\/p><\/div>\n

Name: London Porter
\nBrewer: D.L. Geary Brewing Company, Portland, Maine
\nStyle: Porter
\nABV: 4.2%
\nAvailability: 14 eastern states
\nFor More Information: www.gearybrewing.com<\/p>\n

In somewhat different form this piece first appeared in the August 1, 2012 issue of The Commons<\/em><\/a>, an independent non-profit weekly newspaper covering Brattleboro and the towns of Windham County, Vermont.<\/p>\n

[I sent the piece along after it first appeared, and received the appropriately Geary response: “Got it yesterday. Thanks. Nice job. Road map of a face? Fuck you.”]<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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