“Leave it to an Oregonian bluegrass picker to set up Honduras’s first microbrewery and hostel in the middle of the God-blessed jungle.”
These words from my Moon Handbook Honduras, written by notable catrachophile Chris Humphrey, first planted the seed in my mind of what the D and D Brewery, near Lago de Yojoa, might be like. My wife Lisa and I decided to spend a weekend there in October, and we were not in the slightest bit disappointed by what we found. Mr. Humphrey and his Backpacker Bible could not have been flattering enough.
D and D Brewery is a gorgeous, Goddess-blessed oasis of great suds, ebullient gardens and spontaneous bursts of coffee plants, and really cheap and comfortable rooms, located a few miles inland from the western shore of the largest freshwater lake in Honduras. The proprietor, Bob Dale (one of the D’s), is a charming, Woodstock-era character who speaks little but says a lot. With his slightly haggard gait, half-paranoid gaze, and reluctant smile, he appears to be a recovering (or still active) Deadhead. Maybe he dreamed up this place while on a really good acid trip in Golden Gate Park. Bob, as we soon learned, has a penchant for aquatic engineering, sustainable agriculture, and archaeology.
The centerpiece of the brewery/hostel, besides the lush gardens with a huge array of subtropical flowers from orchids to hibiscuses, is a mouth-watering in-ground pool that Bob himself designed (he has actually designed and built multiple swimming pools in the area). You can see a picture of the pool above.
Much of the property is a working coffee finca, with pockets of healthy looking café plants spread liberally throughout. Bob assured me that he never sprays any kind of herbicides on them.
Bob has found quite a few ancient stone figures and pottery shards in the Lago de Yojoa area, which, 1500 years ago, was heavily populated by the ancestors of the modern-day Lenca people who now live in various remote areas of Southwestern Honduras. At the end of our stay, Dean ushered me into a secluded little room, the door bolted by a heavy-duty type of lock, and showed me his personal artifact collection. He was so cautious and vigilant it was like he was showing me a room full of budding pot plants. There were oval-faced ceramic warriors, just slightly rusted; a couple of well-preserved bowls with thin red lines around the sides; shards of various pieces that likely had practical uses, such as cooking and eating. Bob the Indiana Jones figure, hoarding pieces that could make the British Museum jealous.
Two pleasant eating areas, with hand-carved wooden tables and chairs, and several well-placed hammocks, abut the swimming pool. These eating areas are a melting pot of nationalities at mealtimes, and the informal happy hour which seems to last from about ten in the morning until eight at night. Bob frequently gets guests from all over Europe, the United States, and Down Under, in addition to a fair amount of Hondurans. During our stay, Lisa and I met a handful of Peace Corps volunteers from various sites throughout Honduras, and we hit it off immediately. These folks had an easygoing ruggedness and desire to adapt culturally that we could relate to well. For us Corps and BECA volunteers, the chance to go to a place like D and D, with its perfect balance of familiar and exotic elements, provided a well-needed respite from the rigors of our service jobs, and a chance to reconnect with a homeland that we have willingly left behind, as has Bob Dale.
The D and D restaurant serves really good food, emphasizing what Bob probably thinks his vagabond mostly U.S American granola crunchy Birkenstocked guests would want to eat at his place. Hormone-less chicken and cheese sandwiches with a garlicky mayo dressing, giant salads of pristine, crispy local lettuce, peppers, tomatoes, and sprouts, savory pan-fried tilapia, and exquisite BLT’s (made NYC deli style) are the highlights of the lunch and dinner menu. Breakfast features fresh baked cinnamon rolls and blueberry pancakes with, oddly enough, real blueberries that are grown locally, on a small farm in the cool, misty heights of the nearby Santa Barbara cloud forest. Bob told us that an unusual series of currents from the ocean one hundred miles away saturates a particular spot in the cloud forest with atypically mild breezes and just the right amount of moisture, creating an ideal growing environment for blueberries. Bob said that this is one of only two places in the world where this climactic phenomenon occurs (the other is somewhere on the island of Kaui).
The rooms at D and D are simple but not rustic-the mattresses are more than standard hostel quality, and the showers have loads of hot water whose scorching essence feels really good on those cold Yojoa nights. Bob has installed his own water treatment system throughout his property, making D and D one of the few places in Honduras where it is decidedly safe to drink the tap water.
The only drawback to D and D, in my very humble opinion, is most of Bob’s music collection. For a snob like me, with a low tolerance for anything produced by Jerry Garcia or his colleagues, what came out of the state of the art speakers, installed in the upper reaches of the eating areas, was often quite grating. Martin, Medeski, and Wood they just please stop taking so many psychedelic drugs and put down their instruments forever. The Eagles could never soar high enough to be bearable. Deep Purple makes my face turn Deep Red with anger. To be fair, there was the odd Beatles song circa “Rubber Soul” and “Sergeant Pepper’s,” a little bit of vintage Santana, and the first few songs from Buena Vista Social Club, which is in grave danger of being overplayed from Honduras to Laos, and creating the impression that the virtuoso musicians assembled by Ry Cooder never made any other records. I would have much preferred to load down Bob’s CD player with cd’s of my favorite bands for sipping great beer in a tropical locale-the sultry vibes of roots reggae artists like Black Uhuru and Jacob Miller, some chilled out hip-hop such as Jurassic Five and the Roots, and perhaps some good classic rock, like Velvet Underground and Creedence Clearwater Revival. If I had had the chance to hear “Pale Blue Eyes” or “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” while guzzling a mug of porter, I might have become dewy-eyed with unabashed glee.
The biggest highlight of D and D Brewery, in case you are thinking that I am not going to describe it in refreshing detail, is, of course, the beer. Bob brews, on site, about five different ales and one porter, as well as root beer and several natural fruit sodas. My first brew pick, that first night, as the rain danced gently on the slanted thatched roof of the eating area, was Bob’s Amber Ale. Smooth and full-bodied, with a delicate color akin to rusty copper, Bob’s Amber was at least half as good as Fat Tire (the best Amber on the planet, unavailable outside of the United States at this point). His Porter is thick and syrupy, without being too heavy at the same time, and could easily be consumed as an appetizer. Bear in mind here that I am not as adept in describing the nuances of beer flavor and appearance the way that the guy in “Sideways” talks about Pinot Noir and other wines. The third beer that I tasted during our weekend stint was the Apricot Ale, and I hesitated at first to order one. Fruity ales are not ones that I generally find very appealing. I am not sure why, but maybe it is because I associate fruits with good health, and I want to drink beer at least in part because it does not normally contain vitamins or minerals, because there is something unhealthy about beer that is defiantly liberating. Bob’s Apricot was delectably tangy, with a crisp apricot bite, but not too sweet. It reminded me of another fruity ale I like, Magic Hat Number 9, which would keep me warm on many a cold and blustery Vermont evening.
D and D is one of the coolest and most unique places to visit in Honduras. I generally prefer to support Honduran owned and managed establishments, following the philosophy of “spend your duckets on the locals when you are on their turf.” But the fact that Bob is an expat gringo is irrelevant to me. What he has done here, in the heart of a major tourist region between the two biggest cities in the country, is too important for his nationality to matter. If any catracho could brew an Amber Ale as mean as Bob, then I would love to try it…
