Reason for Existence

Dogfish Head do some unusual beers. Their Raison D'être is a case in point, first brewed in 1998, it is not your usual American brown ale. First of all it is strong at 8%, secondly it uses some unusual ingredients including beet sugar and green raisons.

Pours a lovely deep red colour with a thin off white head. The aroma is spicy with an underlying sweetness, the green raisons are very apparent on the nose. Medium to heavy bodied with a nice light level of carbonation. The mouthfeel is slightly cloying, coating your mouth and throat.

The taste is quite far away from what I would consider a brown ale to be, it tastes more like a strong Amber ale. The flavour is very malty with plenty of caramel and toffee in the middle, put I have to say the start and end of this beer, normally where the hops do their thing, is pretty disappointing. Being a hop focussed beer guy, my disappointment is a little unfair on this beer. This beer is tasty with a lovely depth of flavour in the malt profile and this is really what this beer is all about.

If you enjoy malt heavy ales, then you should certainly pick up a bottle of this, let it warm up and enjoy it's subtleties, just don't be expecting the usual Dogfish hop hit.

Indian Brown Ale - Dogfish Style

Dogfish Head Brewery make some great beers, especially their series of 60 and 90 minutes IPA's, we won't mention the peach 'beer'. So I was really looking forward to see what they would do with a Brown Ale.

The beer pours a very dark coffee colour with a thick tan head, almost stout like in appearance. Roasted malt dominates the aroma with a nice kick from the goldings hops (they also use liberty in this beer). Medium to full bodied with a tracle like texture. Nice level of sweetness (they add caramelised brown sugar to this beer) balances out the dry, bitter finish. As the beer warms up you get hints of apricot from the aroma which is very nice.


A very drinkable beer that hides it's 7.2% ABV with its smoothness. In a blind tasting I would probably think this is a porter and I find it difficult to discern the liberty hops, however I think this is a very good beer and I would highly recommend picking up a few bottles.
 
This beer has taught me something that has been screaming at me for quite a while now. In future I need to be patient and allow dark beers to warm up slightly before tasting. My fridge is too cold and invariably I drink a beer straight from the fridge and only when I am half way through do I start to appreciate the complexity of aromas and flavour that come out when the beer has warmed up a bit. Note to self: leave dark beers out of the fridge for at least 20 minutes before opening.

It's a Peach...but not a beer!

Should I even be writing about this, a beer blog that leaves the path most travelled by, is this even beer? I think not, but it was made by Dogfish Head and so I suppose I must talk about it.

The front of the bottle of Dogfish Head's Festina Peche describes the drink as a 'malt beverage brewed with peach concentrate'. interesting I thought. However this was a very unusual 'beer' in every sense.



Festina Peche, an unusual 'beer' in every sense.

It pours a cloudy light yellow colour, the head dissipates quickly to leave nothing behind. The look of it as I poured and watched the head dissapear reminded my of champagne or prosecco. It was not very enticing looking. Little or no aroma is apparent (although my wife thought the peaches were very apparent), certainly no malt or hops discernible on the nose. The taste is fizzy and watery. The peach flavour is there but it is not what you would expect. There is little or no sweetness and this characteristic is accentuated by the very dry finish. This may have started as a brewing experiment but I can't help but thinking that this should have never made it past the pilot brewery! Not a 'beer' for me*.
* Having said all that my wife drank the rest of the bottle and loved it, she decribed it as tasting like a posh lemonade!

Beer Review: Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA

A love the big bitter slap
in the face that the 90 Minute
IPA delivers.

I have been looking forward to this beer ever since I tried its stable mate, the 60 Minute IPA. The name of this beer comes from the fact that during the boil part of the brewing process the wort is continually hopped for 90 minutes.

The beer pours a lovely amber colour with a thick creamy white head. Fantastic citrus hop aroma, that is slightly sharp on the nose. Medium bodied with a creamy texture, hop flavour at the beginning is replaced by a big bitter slap across the face at the end, fantastic stuff. The hop bitterness comes in quickly and lasts long after your mouth is dry. Despite the powerful bitterness and the 9% ABV this is immensly drinkable and you need to be careful as you would quickly forget the ABV as you reach for another bottle.

This is the extreme end of the hop scale, but Dogfish have taken this one step further with their 120 Minute IPA; a beer I have to try. Buy this beer now!

Resurrecting Dead Beer

No the title does not refer to a batch of homebrew that has died and I am trying to resurrect, but to the fact that Dogfish Head have brewed a beer based on traces of a drink that was found in the remians of a pot from China that is estimated to be 9,000 years old. The beer is called Chateau Jiahu. This continues their series of ancient ales which also includes; Midas Touch and Theobroma.

Here is a little on the process used, taken from the Dogfish Head website:

"In keeping with historic evidence, Dogfish brewers used pre-gelatinized rice flakes, Wildflower honey, Muscat grapes, barley malt, hawthorn fruit, and Chrysanthemum flowers. The rice and barley malt were added together to make the mash for starch conversion and degredation. The resulting sweet wort was then run into the kettle. The honey, grapes, Hawthorn fruit, andChrysanthemum flowers were then added. The entire mixture was boiled for 45 minutes, then cooled. The resulting sweet liquid was pitched with a fresh culture of Sake yeast and allowed to ferment a month before the transfer into a chilled secondary tank."

Unfortunately they are only making a few thousand cases and so it probably won't be exported, but it is certainly an interesting idea.

Beer Review: Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA

Continuing my journey through the great American craft brews, next up is the 60 Minute IPA from Dogfish Head Brewery in Delaware. 60 Minute IPA gets its name from the fact that during the one hour boil hops are added at every minute over the course of the boil, they use a blend of Northwestern US hops and this beer is the little brother of their 90 Minute and 120 Minute IPA's. The beer is 6% ABV and comes in at 60 IBU's.

Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA,
highly recommended.

The beer pours a lovely rust colour, with a thin white head. The aroma is beautiful, dominated by a lovely grapefruit and lemon zest on the nose. Medium bodied with a nice level of carbonation. Coats the tongue but not in a bad way. The finish has a smooth bitterness with a little alcohol burn on the end. This beer is all about the hops, but in a very balanced way, good flavour and aroma with a nice smooth bitterness that does not overpower the palate, combine this with a nice malt profile and this beer, although hoppy, is very well balanced.

A beautiful beer, a hop monster, but one which does not leave your mouth feeling like it has just been assaulted. Highly recommended and I look forward  to trying some of the other Dogfish head beers that we can get in Ireland.