DEWEY, DELAWARE

On the bustling corner of New Orleans Street and Coastal Highway, Dewey Beach landmark Gary’s Beach Grill started crafting homemade suds under the latitude/ longitude handle 38-75 BREWING in 2017. Homebrewing owner Gary Cannon has operated this summertime hotspot for thirty years.

A crowded, low-ceilinged, wraparound joint with a cornucopia of cool beer bottles and cans lining the wall (near loads of pop culture memorabilia, beer label stickers, cartoon snippets and surfing regalia), Gary’s also features a covered wooden side deck with multiple neon-lit beer insignias plus a nifty green T-Rex model and aquamarine turtle mural.

An L-shaped railroad tie-sided bar stretches across the front end to the rear where the pale blue walls melt into grey sky walls. Five tables snake around the multi-draught stationed bar and two rear tables offer more seating.

My wife and I with Roscoe the dog grabbed one of those back tables to sample all four available house brews this seasonably warm Saturday in early January ’21. Cannon’s appealing midrange fare went well with my yellowfin tuna sushi. But all the sandwiches, wraps, apps and ‘seafood pasta’ health-oriented dishes looked great.

Three of Gary’s blue collar offerings this mid-afternoon were interconnected by rye wheat. Traditional famrhouse ale, For Your Ryes Only, allowed saison-like herbal lemon zesting to ride above mild rye spicing while Malt-forward ESB, Bucket O’ Parts, let buttered rye breading pickup subtle spiced orange zesting as its whimsical sweet potato adjunct faded.

Grassy citrus-juiced Comet hops fortified the rye-spiced black tea sedation and chocolate-daubed carapils malting of Holly’s Comet, a casual dry-hopped India Pale Ale.

Soaked in Jim Beam for three days, mild Scotch-licked dark chocolate malting delicately paced Cleveland Beamer, an oak-chipped brown ale with nutty toffee spicing and drifting perfume-hopped pekoe tea snips.