Dogfish Head Gives Me Permission to Drink Beer For Breakfast

Whether by design or by happenstance, Dogfish Head has been helping me out greatly as of late with a couple of beer releases that apparently have been made specifically to accompany certain everyday activities.

It started with Beer to Listen to Music To, a nice little Belgian Triple that as the name would seem to indicate should pair well with my music listening habits.

But recently DFH took a big leap in the enabling of a more questionable habit by offering up their latest libation in the manner of their stout styled Beer For Breakfast.

Now I don’t have any reprobation about sipping suds at sunrise, after all, I’ve participated in some recreational activities that almost demand you drink a beer regardless of what time it is. You all night BBQers and homebrewers know what I mean, right? That’s right. Get it up there!

Nobody? Troglodytes.

But unfortunately there was once a time when my forenoon festivities were not the occasional hobby related indulgence, no sadly I’m talking some “8:30am is the new happy hour” level stuff here. Not to say that my experience is unusual. I’m sure many of you out their have similar stories.

Quickly put, I spent a lot of my early work years in north New Jersey working straight shifts that ran from 11pm to 8am, which meant that many of my (and my fellow employee’s) “Friday nights” often started at 8:20 in the morning at the nearest bar that would cash our paycheck and more often than not, ended when the 11am lunch crowd started to file in with a look of both loathing and disgust on their faces as they realized we’d already been drinking there all morning.

Nothing harshes your Long Island Ice Tea induced breakfast buzz like people who have been working all morning taking seats at the bar while loudly nattering about how Steve once again conveniently forgot that it was his turn to bring in the Friday doughnuts.

Nothing harshes your Long Island Ice Tea induced breakfast buzz like people who have been working all morning taking seats at the bar while loudly nattering about how Steve once again conveniently forgot that it was his turn to bring in the Friday doughnuts. So my morning would usually end with me yelling, “You’re an assistant manager, Steve! Spring for some freaking Krispy Kremes once in awhile you cheap bastard!” as the bar’s manager roughly tried to pry my hands off the door jam as I resisted being tossed out into the sunlight like a vampire in a John Carpenter horror movie.

But I still have money on the bar!!!

But I’m older, wiser (don’t laugh) and my job is now a normal 9-5 gig that contains none of the benefits and almost all of the occupational and social stigma from starting to pop tops when you roll out of bed to the annoying buzz of a 7am alarm clock.

But now here comes DFH with Beer For Breakfast, a stout whose ingredients are so Mrs Butterworth meets Juan Valdez it’s as if the brewer is handing me a plate at the beginning of a Golden Corral breakfast buffet line while reassuring me that nothing bad has ever come from drinking 7.4%ABV beers first thing in the morning. I have experience that says otherwise.

Let’s taste.

This is a coffee stout. Through and through. From the aroma, to the flavor, to the intense blackness in the glass as if like you’re looking into Darth Vadar’s soul.

THEM: From the website, “A stout tricked out with all sorts of breakfast ingredients including Guatemalan Antigua cold press coffee, Maple syrup harvested from Western Massachusetts and for the quintessential Delaware breakfast touch – Rapa Scrapple and their secret blend of spices. 

2-row Applewood smoked barley, Kiln Coffee malt, Flaked oats, Roasted barley, Caramel malt along with additions of Molasses, Milk Sugars (lactose), Brown Sugar, Roasted Chicory lay the foundation for this malty, breakfast-themed concoction. Enjoy huge notes of coffee in the nose and savory layers in the flavor.”

Beer for Breakfast clocks in at 7.4%ABV and 30IBU.

THE BUZZ: Beer Advocate 89%, Untappd 3.88, Rate Beer 97%

AVAILABILITY: Readily available in DE.

ME: Before we address the 800 pound post-processed porcine product in the room let’s get to the heart of this beer and the reason I underlined “coffee” and “chicory” in the above description.

This is a coffee stout. Through and through. From the aroma, to the flavor, to the intense blackness in the glass as if like you’re looking into Darth Vadar’s soul. The sugars play nicely together, with hints of maple syrup and brown sugar popping out in the aroma and flavor every now while supplying  a velvety mouth feel and sweetness for all that roast flavor to play out on, but Beer For Breakfast never strays to far from its roots, from the the first sniff to the sticky iced coffee after taste.

But let’s prattle the pork….the scrapple!  I’ve read a few reviews/comments that say they don’t taste any of the scrapple in the beer. On the one hand, that’s a relief because on the package a Rapa scrapple I opened the other day (by the way, all the women of the Kerper clan from my mom to my great-grandmother salute DFH’s use of Rapa – that’s the stuff right there) listed pork snouts as the third ingredient. Not sure I want to taste that in my beer.

But on the other hand it’s not just the meat that makes scrapple, it’s the blend of spices as well and after about half a glass I could almost convince myself that I was getting some woodsy spices out of the nose, plus a slight warmth like a pepper in the after taste.

If you’re a beer hunter and a DFH fan, you’ve probably already tried this. If you are and you haven’t – there’s nothing here to make me discourage you from giving it a shot, just as long as you remember that the key word here is coffee. As for the casual fan or everyday drinking? Well, at a $15 a six price point I don’t think I’ll be buying too much of it. Your dollars may vary. Having said that, I applaud DFH for at least not dropping it down to a 4-pack. Because in 2017 just like 2016, 4-packs are devil witchery.

Time for another beer.

THE FINAL SIP: Get it while you can! DFH’s Beer for Breakfast is currently not on their 2017 beer release schedule being replaced by Post Boil IPA as the winter seasonal. Post Boil is described by the brewery as an IPA with no kettle hops added as the beer will get all its hop characteristics from a huge addition to the whirlpool.

Class In A Glass: Dogfish Head’s American Beauty

A lot of craft beer buzzing has been made in my area recently when DFH announced that the next in their line of musical inspired beers, “Beer Thousand”, inspired by the 20th anniversary of Guided by Voices album Bee Thousand would soon be available in both bomber and 12oz bottles.  Possibly overlooked with that announcement is that their previous release in the series, American Beauty, was making its second appearance on beer shelves.

The “music series” as I like to call it refers to a series of beer that DFH releases that takes its inspiration from an artist or group in the the musical world.  Some, to me, are fairly obvious like Hell Hound on My Ale which is a nod to the late, great Robert Johnson (one of my fav blues players [I realize that’s probably boarder line cliche] and one of my favorite DFH beers), to acts that I probably should be ashamed to say I’ve never heard of like Deltron 3030, which was the inspiration for DFH’s Positive Contact.

It really should be no surprise (at least in hindsight it’s not to me) that sooner or later DFH would land on the improvisational, jam band The Grateful Dead to inspire a beer. And inspire they did.  Not only is the beer named after the band’s double platinum certified 1970 album, but DFH took this opportunity, inspired (there’s that word again) by the grass roots element of the band, to do what they have done with several of their beers – rely on crowd sourcing for the ingredients. DFH pooled the Grateful Dead fans as to what they felt would be excellent ingredients for the definitive Grateful Dead beer and received a good number of suggestions (20% of which Sam says were illegal) and the one that stood out the most was granola (organic naturally). 

While casual outsiders may associate the Grateful Dead more for tie-dyed shirts and the willingness to allow concert members to record shows; those who followed the band and spent many hours in the park lots before those concerts also equate the band with the granola that sustained them while they awaited their favorite band to hit the stage.  One aspect of this crowd sourcing was that each submission had to come with a story as to why the suggested ingredient made a connection with that person to the Grateful Dead, and Tom Butler’s story was chosen from the granola suggesters which allowed him and his father to go to the brewery and take part in the brewing of American Beauty.

If you think about it, granola is a slam dunk in beer recipes.  Consisting of things like rolled oats, nuts, honey, rice and dried fruits, this health food staple isn’t very far from things that brewers would use in beers naturally.  So this beer should be pretty straight forward, right?.  Is it?  Let’s taste.

THEM: American Beauty is designated as an Imperial Pale Ale brewed with all-American malts and hops, so I’m expecting a pop of hop, but not in the IPA/DIPA range.  Orange blossom honey granola from Grizzly’s Granola in Eugene Oregon, was added to the hot side of the beer.  The newish hop #366 hop was used for both aroma and locking in the 55IBUs, and the alcohol measures in at 9%ABV.

Hop #366 is an experimental variety that several of the breweries are playing with now.  A relative of Warrior, this hop is supposed to bring all sorts of good things to the party; citrus, tropical fruit, floral, herbal characteristics, lemon, lime, papaya, apple, and green pepper.  It still is referred too as #366 in a lot of places, although it’s apparently been named Equinox(TM) by its developers, The Hop Breeding Company.  Besides American Beauty you can find it in Brooklyn’s Scorcher, and a version of Lagunitas Sucks.

ME: This is really nice.  As I hoped, the hops are not overly done here but they do bring a nice citrus to the party.  I was getting a little lemon in the mix along with a touch of pine, and when it warmed it actually had a little tea quality going on.  The subdued hops allow the malt, grain, honey and a nutty quality of the beer to shine through that for me is the really beauty of this American beer (I know, malt over hops?  Blasphemy!).  The booze hides pretty well while the beer is cold, but you can detect a bit of the warmth the closer to room temperature it gets (although you might not want to let it get as close to room temperature as I did.  I poured my second glass and then walked away from it and got side tracked).  The carbonation is just the way I love it (if it’s not overly nerdy to geek out over carbonation).  The head is pretty good and doesn’t fade totally away after the initial pour, but I love the rush of bubbles that’s formed in the liquid that’s at the edge of the glass (plus the sparkling lace that’s left behind) when you tilt the glass back and forth.  I may have to post a video of that one day just so everyone knows what I’m talking about.  It really is a good looking, and good tasting, beer in the glass.

I’m actually sad I waited so long to review this beer as I probably would have picked up several bottles and enjoyed it on draft a couple of times over that past months.  Luckily, as I said above, DFH given me a chance to atone for my mistake by releasing another bottling onto the shelves pretty soon.  Thanks guys! Time for another beer…  

When I reviewed DuClaw’s Sweet Baby Jesus, Peanut Butter Porter, I jokingly stated that if the trend of peanut butter in beer keeps up they’d have to start putting allergy warnings on beers.  This from the Dogfish Head website: ” NOTE: THE GRANOLA INSIDE THE AMERICAN BEAUTY RECIPE DOES CONTAIN ALMONDS.”

 

         

In Review – The Dog(fish Head) Days of Summer

And there you have it space fans.  Twenty-Three Dogfish Head beers in the month of August, plus one straggler in September.  I have to admit, I though this would be a little bit of a chore when I started but it was actually a lot of fun to revisit some of my favorite DFH beers, try several I haven’t had before and try to rank them within the universe of beers that is Dogfish Head.

I’d like to thank everyone who stopped by to read – new official one month page hit record, new unofficial single day page it record (my official record is 2916 but I don’t count it as it was some webbot thing looking for the movie poster for The Shawshank Redemption).  I’d also like to thank everyone who decided to stick around both here and on Facebook.

So with that, here’s a quick run down of how the beers of DFH fared:

TASTER – 120 Minute (only as a precaution.  Try free first if possible.  I love 120), Sah’Tea, Ta Henket and Midas Touch

GLASS – Positive Contact, Noble Rot, Festina Peche

4/6-PACK/GROWLER – 90 Minute, Chateau Jiahu, Firefly, Urkontinent, Immort Ale, Palo Santo Marron, Raison D’Etre, Red and White

CASE – 60 Minute, 75 Minute, Rhizing Bines, Indian Brown Ale, Bitches Brew, Black and Blue

Kegerator – Hellhound on my Ale, Theobroma, Burton Baton

So there you have it.  I’ll be pulling back to my usual 2 post a week schedule after this with a couple “Local Tap” posts and a few “Welcome to Delaware” posts coming up in the next couple of weeks.  And of course, throughout August some interesting beers hit the shelves that I was not able to review, so I’ll be getting to a few of those over the next month.  Will any of them be DFH?   Well I still love the brewery but as it stands right now I think this picture says it best…

I love you DFH, but really I think I need a break. Maybe we should see other beers.

Time for another beer….

Festina Peche – The Dog(fish Head) Days of Summer

Ok, only two more beers to go for this roundup of DFH beers, and I’ll be honest gentle readers, this one has me a little scared.  Oh not because it’s some “totally out there” beer like Rocky Mountain Oyster beer or Beard beer.  No, the beer in question is a simple fruit beer.  Why the dread?  Because so many people LOVE this beer.

So far I haven’t gotten a lot of negativity during this.  I figured once I started poking DFH with a stick, the millions (AND MILLIONS!) of the brewery’s fans would gather and demand to know why I rated their particular beer so low.  But so far the only thing that’s happened is two guys on Reddit stated that they loved Midas Touch, and another guy asked which ancient ales I preferred over Midas Touch.  When I told him, he kindly thanked me for the information.  That’s criticism I can take all day long.

Every year when Festina Peche is released people seem to go wild.  They seek it.  Buy it.  Hoard it.  Sing songs about it.  Built monuments to it.  Name babies after it.  Ok, maybe that last one is an exaggeration, but man people around here do love them some peach.

And why not?  After all, what’s the first state you think of when you think of peaches.  Why, Delaw….GEORGIA?  Who said, Georgia?  Come on.  Somebody fess up.  Ok, fine.  But we’re not continuing until someone comes clean.

And I have all day.

Nothing else to do.

Just waiting for someone to say something.

Ah, I though it was you.  Well just so you know, although Georgia is the peach state it’s not the top peach producer in the US.  And I’ll have  you know that for part of the nineteenth century, Delaware was the number one producer of peaches in the US.  How important was peach production to the state back in those days?  Well, important enough that the state flower was designated the peach blossom, and the state dessert is peach pie.  And of course the official state fruit is….strawberries.  Hmmmm, ok we seemed to have missed the mark on that that one.  Anyway, Middletown, Delaware still holds the Olde-Tyme Peach festival, as does the town of Wyoming.  So although we may not be “GEORGIA”, we do have a little peach in our blood.  But how about our beer?  Is that really where we want our peach?  Let’s taste.

Dogfish Head’s Festina Peche, $8.99 a 4-Pack

THEM: DFH describes FP as a neo-Berliner Weisse which is a wheat beer brewed with ale yeast; and Lactobacillus and Brettanomyces to give the beer its signature acidity and earthiness respectively.  The beer can sometimes be served with a sweet syrup (such as raspberry) to balance out the sourness.  But in the case of FP, DFH does it by adding peach puree.  The beer clocks in at a non-threatening 4.5%ABV and has an almost non-existent 8IBUs.

ME: Peche pours golden with a quick energetic head that quickly fades.  Man the peach is already jumping out of the glass and I haven’t even put my nose up to it yet.  I’m finding the nose a little subdued, there’s not much beyond the peach to be honest.  But there is that sourness in the nose to warn you of what’s to come and a touch of what I can best describe funk meets earthiness fall in love and have kids.  This is really clean in the taste with the front being almost empty and the peach coming in the middle.  There’s a slight sweetness from the peaches, but that gets clear out quick by the sour/tart finish like a NYC bouncer on a drunken patron.  Right between the peach and the tartness however, is a flash of earthy/funky something that is distracting me from this beer for about 5 seconds.

My overall impression of this beer is that it’s interesting.  It is definitely peach.  But if you think this a glass of those sugar-water packed peach slices your mom used to put in your school lunch – you couldn’t be more off the mark.  FP has a nice tart kick in the back end that not only serves to balance the beer out, but cleanses your palette at the same time.  Personally I’d go GLASS on this one.  It would be good to have from time to time, but nothing I’m overly crazy about.  The earthiness was a little off for me, but since that’s a characteristic of a Berliner Weisse I certainly can’t say it shouldn’t be there.  Maybe I should rate the style a GLASS, and the beer a 4-PACK?  Naaaa.  Sorry, just not for me I guess.  Oh well, let the stone throwing commence (stone – peach pit, get it?  Get it?  Is this thing on?)

Time for another beer.

Noble Rot – The Dog(fish Head) Days of Summer

Sam Calagione is a wine guy.  Oh, don’t let the fact that he owns one of the largest craft beer players in the game deceive you.  He’s a wine guy.  One only has to look at his DFH webpage to see that.  Every beer brewed by DFH has a comparable wine listed, and the newest core beer added to the DFH line up, Sixty-One was created from Sam’s love of pouring a little red wine into his 60-minute IPA.  Not to mention the other wine/beer combination I’ve covered this month.

So it should be of no surprise to anyone that one of the things DFH loves to do is beer/wine hybrids and the wine/beer hybrid I want to focus on in this review is Noble Rot.  Do wine and beer make good bed-fellows.  Let’s Taste.

Dogfish Head’s Noble Rot, $13.99 a 750mL bottle

THEM:  I couldn’t explain this beer any better than Wiki, so here it is.  “In 2010, Sam Calagione collaborated with Washington winemaker Jarrod Boyle of Alexandria Nicole Cellars to produce a “hybrid” beer-wine beverage labeled Noble rot. A saison-style beer, the brewery uses botrytis-infected Viognier and Pinot gris grapes from Alexandria Nicole’s Destiny Ridge Vineyard in the Horse Heaven Hills AVA in the brew. This results in a beer with 49.5% of the fermentable sugars coming from grapes that finishes with a 9% alcohol level. Alexandria Nicole presses the grapes, leaving the skins with the must, and Dogfish co-ferments the Viognier and grains while adding the Pinot gris later in the process. In 2012, the beer went nationwide in the United States in more than 27 states from coast to coast and was received favorably critical acclaim”

Noble Rot is build off of a grain bill of pils and wheat malts and fermented with a Belgian yeast strain.  It contains 18IBUs and has an ABV of 9%.

For those not in the wine know, Botrytis cinerea or noble rot is a fungus that grows on wine grapes that if controlled, is actually considered beneficial for well know wines such as Sauternes from France , and Beerenauslese or Trockenbeerenauslese from Germany.  It is also an important factor in aszú from Hungary, Slovakia, Romanian Grasă de Cotnari, and Austrian Ausbruch.

ME:  Unsurprisingly, NR pours like a carbonated white wine.  and visually could pass as an inexpensive champagne in the glass.  The nose also wants to convince you that it’s a wine with a touch of earthiness against a back drop of grape.  There’s little if any “beer” to be recognized here.  The flavor is light with notes of grape, green apple and some grains, but there is that Belgian yeast “spice” to remind you that this is supposed to be a saison in style.  The finish is wine-like as well with no hop bitterness from the beer or acidic bite from the wine.  Really, if I blind folded a group of people so they couldn’t see NR some would probably think it’s an inexpensive white wine, not a beer/wine hybrid (which isn’t all that inexpensive).  Is that good?  I guess it depends on whether-or-not you feel beers should be beers and wines should be wines.

Here’s where ratings hit another logical brick wall.  I’d go GLASS on this as it probably would be a great beer to sip on a hot summers day, although probably not something you’d want to drink all day.  I’d recommend TASTER however, because I think if you’re a beer lover,  you really should know what you’re getting into before you plunk down a lot of money on it.  It’s not a bad DRINK, but it might not be everyone’s glass of beer.

Time for another beer.

Raison D’Etre, Oliver Gray Guest Post – The Dog(fish Head) Days of Summer

[AUTHOR’S NOTE: Oliver originally wrote this with Shelter Pale Ale in mind, but realized late that DFH no long offered it in bottles. He wrote the story below with a combination of SPA and RD’E as only Oliver can do. I will always thank him for his contribution to my blog]

Today I’m thrilled to have Oliver Gray from the awesome blog Literature and Libation as a guest poster here at tDoB.  I’ve been reading Oliver’s blog for quite awhile now and it’s an amazing mix of posts on writing, beer, brewing and beertography.  If you have not check it out, I highly suggest you do so.

One of the things I like most about Oliver’s blog is that his reviews aren’t the traditional by-the-numbers reviews that so many of us do.  In keeping with his passion for writing, Oliver takes the essence of the beer, plus a little pinch of whatever is inspiring him on that particular day and scripts a piece of beer review fiction.  Past stories have ranged from a wheelchair bound man dreaming of surfing, an elderly man at a nursing home reliving one of his last lucid memories, and a woman struggling to find the proper words at her brother’s funeral – inspired by DFH’s own Noble Rot.

So with that, let’s get to this.  But before we do, keeping with the other reviews that I’ve done this month, let me toss out a few words about this beer.

THEM:  Raison D’Etre is a French phrase that means “Reason for Existence”.  I think this is a pretty clever play on words, one because beer certainly is one of the things that make existence enjoyable and two, DFH brews the beer with green raisins.  The beer is also brewed with beet sugar and fermented with Belgian yeast to 8%ABV and bittered to 25IBU.

ME: Nice head and carbonation.  Notes of fruit, caramel, dark sugars and Belgian yeast in the nose.  Interesting spice up from in the mouth, with what you get in  the aroma peaking through which clears out to leave a nice malt finish with perhaps a touch of booze.  There’s a sweet stickiness left behind when it’s all said and done, with the clean finish you’d expect from 25IBUs in this beer.  This is a pretty decent beer, but for some reason it’s not doing more for me than a 4-PACK.  Some might go CASE, but I think there’s a few things about the beer that keep me from going that extra rating point.  If I were to cheat, I’d go two 4-PACKS because that’s pretty much where this thing sits for me, but I’m not going to muddy the waters in the last week of doing this thing.

And now Oliver:

With my back turned, all I could hear were the whimpers of the other dogs, the longing whines of those furry faces trapped behind cross-hatched steel. I could picture all of the faces that went with each canine cry – the ugly beauty of the smoosh-faced Pugs, the dopey loyalty in the eyes of the Labradors, the regality and inborn pomp of the Poodle mixes – all staring out at me, trying to win me over with a melting puppy gaze if I’d just turn and look.

But my mind was made up. I couldn’t own a dog, not even one as painfully adorable as Nymeria. I wasn’t a “dog person.” Never had been, never would be. Dogs meant pre-sunrise walks and poop-scooping and hundreds of dollars at veterinary offices just to find out the dumb thing had eaten a frog that didn’t agree with her.

No. No dogs.

I signed the papers to give her up, but refused to turn around.

Ϟ Ϟ Ϟ

The font of the note was 11 point Calibri. The default. He hadn’t even bothered to change it to something more thoughtful, more meaningful, something with a goddamn serif. It was just a wandering explanation of reasons, some apologies, some blames, some pathetic attempts to justify leaving abruptly after 9 years.

His hasty signature at the bottom sliced through the arteries that pumped blood to my inner romantic; a formality that made it seem like our love had been some kind of official arrangement or contract, to be severed or ended whenever one party was no longer satisfied with the work being done. He didn’t even close it with “love” or “yours,” just a perfunctory penultimate punch: “thanks.”

He’d loaded up most of his clothes and electronics while I was at work. He’d faked sick that morning, letting me worry about how he was feeling while he was dismantling and unplugging his life from mine, leaving half of an apartment and half of a home for me to return to. He’d been conservative in what he took, perhaps to assuage his guilt, leaving most of our “joint” purchases behind like inappropriate gifts.

If his reminders had been left at the material, just those physical items abandoned in the ruins of our relationship, I could have sold them or washed them or performed rituals to purge his energy from them. But of course, that asshole left the dog. No note about coming to get it later, no instructions for where to take it. Just a drooling mess of barks and pee, rolling around blissfully happy in the dirt and petal mess he’d made of my prize hibiscus.

I’d fought getting the dog in the first place, but he had always wanted one – a purebred Chesapeake Bay Retriever, specifically – and saying no to Alex was like trying to ask a hurricane to kindly go away and come back at a better time. He’d promised me that it wouldn’t be a hassle, that he’d train the thing and that it would be good for our social lives to get out and interact with other dog owners. But all of his plans devolved into spoiling the ball of tangled golden fur, giving into its every whim like it was a bratty child, smothering it with sometimes overly enthusiastic affections.

And now, he’d left it with me. He wouldn’t answer his phone, the coward. I assumed my voicemails would be deleted as soon as they hit his inbox. I tried email, and Gchat, and speaking to him through his mother, but he had, as far as I could tell, managed to completely excise me from his life. His last will and testament to our love left yellow stains on the carpet while I was at work and completely voided my security deposit when it voided its bladder. I wasn’t cut out to own a dog; especially one whose shining brown eyes did nothing but remind me of its former master.

It wasn’t lightly that I decided to take it to a shelter. I knew what shelters meant, knew what connotations sat like vultures atop the brick façade. I secretly hoped that its purebred blood and youth would get it adopted before anything bad happened, so that I wouldn’t feel too bad about having this dumped on me during an actual dumping.

Ϟ Ϟ Ϟ

I rested my hand on the bar of the door, taking a moment to curse Alex under my breath, damning him for making me do this. The smell of wet dog and industrial cleaner and stale dry dog food hung heavy in the air, and I wanted nothing more than to escape into the oppressive warmth of late-summer Delaware.

But my hand would not push, and my feet would not move. My mind kept me planted, replaying mental home movies of Nymeria, like when she leapt up on our bed at 2 AM covered in mud after having escaped through a poorly secured door, and us laughing while trying to wrestle her into the bathtub.

I remembered all the times her smiling face, tongue flopping lazily as he spun in little circles, greeted me as I came home from a long day. The sound of my keys in the lock was a herald of excitement for her, the trumpets blaring the return of the master, and I could trust she’d be there ready to jump on me without fail. It was Nymeria who cared about me, was always happy to see me, while almost antonymous, Alex sat on the couch, eyes unmoving from the TV, barely acknowledging my presence.

I hear people talk about “man’s best friend” but is it reciprocal? Who is “dog’s best friend,” if not man? We’re so selfish in our desire to be loved and not be alone, that we treat these perfectly loyal creatures like emotional putty, to be molded and shaped and forced into the holes of our psyche. It wasn’t Nymeria’s fault that Alex had been a terrible dog owner.

I turned around. The woman who had taken my paperwork was sitting down at her computer, about to process my information. The green leash that belonged to Nymeria’s green collar was coiled in a pile on her clipboard. She looked up at me, her gaze equally sympathetic and confused.

“I think I made a mistake. Can I have my dog back?”

Beertography Credit: Oliver Gray

I’d like to thank Oliver for taking the time to do a guest post for me, especially under what could be described understatedly as a very difficult month for him.  Again, check out his blog and read all the other excellent “reviews” that Oliver has written.

Time for another beer…

Midas Touch – The Dog(fish Head) Days of Summer

Ok boys and girls, pull up a chair.  Grandpa Ed is going to tell you a little story about a spice you may not have run into very often, saffron.  Hey!  Sit down you ingrates!  Your mom left you here so she could visit her “friend” Paul.  You know, the young buck that never comes around when your father is home.   So you’re going to sit down an listen.  Now where was I?  Oh yeah, saffron.

Saffron comes from the flower of Crocus sativus or saffron crocus which was originally native to Greece and Southwest Asia.  What?  Yeah, like those flowers that come up in the snow every spring.  That’s them.  Anyway, each crocus can have up to four flowers and each flower has three crimson stigmas, which when harvested make saffron.

Saffron has a ton of aromatic compounds in it, and besides giving its unique flavor and yellow color to a variety of dishes (especially rice) it has also been used as a dye, an ingredient in perfume and has been studied for its medicinal properties.

What? Mom doesn’t have it in her spice cabinet?  Not surprising because saffron can be very expense with a jar of just a few threads easily topping $30  Think I’m joking?  I just saw a variety of saffron on the Walmart website that went for $38.54 for 0.01oz.  Think that idiot down on the street corner makes a good profit margin selling those bags of oregano that ain’t fooling anyone?  Well I’m hear to tell you, saffron blows all that away.

Why is it so expensive?  Well, in order to get a pound of saffron (that’s 0.45 grams for your friend down at the corner) you’d have to plant a plot as big as one pro football field.  Then there’s the hand-picking, cleaning, sorting and toasting that has to happen. 

How do I know so much about saffron?  Well many years ago, when I was about the same age as the guy you’ll soon be calling “Uncle Paul”, the Dogfish Head Brewery released a beer called Midas Touch.  Ohhh, I remember it like it was yesterday….

DOGFISH HEAD MIDAS TOUCH $13.99 a 4-Pack

THEM: Midas Touch was the first “anceint ale” produced by Dogfish Head. Although usually thought of as a myth, Midas did exist (actually there were three of them) and ruled the kingdom of Phrygia (located in a region of Turkey) around the 8th century BC.  In 1957,  a team from the University of Pennsylvania discovered a tomb in what is now modern day Yassihöyük, Turkey that contained according to one source,  “the best collection of Iron Age drinking vessels ever uncovered”.  It was from residues found in these 2,700-year-old drinking vessels that the recipe for Midas Touch was formulated.

Midas Touch is brewed with barley, honey, white muscat grapes (a variety used in wines, raisins and table grapes) and saffron.  It clocks in at 9.0%ABV and 12IBUs.

ME: I would have gone golden in color but I guess that would have been to heavy handed.  The color is golden around the edges of my glass, but through the middle it’s a nice shade of orange.  The carbonation is good, no wasted effort on any large head, just a nice ring around the edge of the glass and some very fine lacing.  The nose is light, with hints of grain, perhaps a bit of cracker, a touch of grape and some earthiness that I’ll assume comes from the saffron.  The flavor is also light and slightly sweet,  A nice bit of honey and a bit more grape, along with some hay and herbs.  The finish is pretty clean, it leaves your mouth with a slightly sweet coating, a little mouth water in the check and no real bitterness.  Not a lot to really say about this one.  It pretty much is what it says it is on the label.  A little bit of beer.  A little bit of mead. A little bit of wine.

I haven’t had this beer in years, and to be honest, I didn’t like it when I first had it.  I guess I’ve grown a bit because it’s not as objectionable to me now, but compared to everything else I’ve tasted from DFH this month I’d be doing a total disservice if I rated it any more than a TASTER.  It’s well constructed, and drinks fairly well, but I’d make sure it was something I liked before I plunked down nearly $15 for a 4-pack.

Time for another beer…

Palo Santo Marron – The Dog(fish Head) Days of Summer

Wood.  What would we do without it?  Besides the basic essentials of life – water, air, food, Kardasians; one could make an argument that the most important substance to our very existence on this planet is wood.  After all, what would the ancient cave men burned once they discovered fire?  And what would maritimers of old build their ships from? What would the second little pig have built his house out of?  What kind of nickle would we have ended up being warned not to take?

No, wood in its various uses is like sign posts for the evolution of the human species.  There isn’t an aspect of our lives that it doesn’t touch, or hasn’t touched in the past, only to make way for more modern, practical man-made substances.  We build our shelters out of it, use a form of it in daily correspondence, and make sporting equipment, musical instruments and hell, just about everything out of it.  It seasons our food (cinnamon), is an essential part of Tabasco and Balsamic vinegar production,  and of course puts the cue in barbecue.

So it should be no surprise that along the way it’s become an integral part of the production of alcoholic beverages, including bourbon, scotch, sherry, brandy, port and of course wine.  But beer is not to be left out of this company.  Storing, aging and serving beer in wooden barrels was common before the advent of metal kegs.

Of course as stainless steel became more available and more practical, wood began to take a back seat in the beer world.  But modern brewers have a strong sense of tradition about them and so many have begun to look at wood again and the awesome influence it can have on their beers.

Dogfish Head is no stranger to the marriage of wood and beer, producing several that are aged in one type of wood or another.  The one I want to look at today is Palo Santo Marron.  Let’s Taste.

Dogfish Head Brewing, Palo Santo Marron, $14.99, 4-pack

THEM:  PSM is an unfiltered brown ale.  That’s pretty much it.  There isn’t a lot else said about it, or to say about it. Twelve-percent ABV, 50IBUs.

But the real story behind PSM isn’t in the grain bill or hop schedule anyway, it’s in the wooden 10,000 gallon tank that it ages in.   Of course Sam does nothing conventional so you can expect that this isn’t just any old wooden barrel.  No, the barrel is made out of Paraguayan Palo Santo wood that is more commonly used by some South American wine makers.  Palo Santo (which in Spanish means “Holy Wood”) refers to  Lignum vitae a trade wood from the genus Guaiacum, or either  Bulnesia sarmientoi or Bursera graveolens.

Santo Palo wood is known for its density and is used in many hard wood applications such a construction, cricket bats, and, mortar and pestles.  In one telling of the Arthur Tale, Merlin’s wand was made out of Lignum vitae because it was believed to have magical powers.

The wood is credited for the “caramel and vanilla complexity unique to this beer”.

But the wood isn’t all, the 10,000 gallon tank (which stands fifteen feet high and measures ten feet in diameter) was the largest wooden barrel produced in the US since prohibition.  DFH currently has two other tanks of the same size sitting next to it, both manufactured from oak.

Marron?  Well according to my research, it’s either a species of crayfish, or a French description of a certain variety of chestnut.  Knowing Sam, it might just go either way.

ME: I’d love to try this beer without the wood aging because I think it would be an excellent comparison to demonstrate what the Palo Santo wood is bringing to the party.  First, there’s an ever so slight roast in the nose, and the slightly darker than tan color of the head is definitely influenced by dark grains.  I’m also getting touches of caramel, chocolate and a light spice in there as well.  The flavor is owwww so smooth in the front with an amazingly silky mouth feel delivering caramel, chocolate, a nondescript woodiness, vanilla and perhaps a touch of coffee .  For all the flavor in the front, the back is surprisingly clean with just a little stickiness left coating the mouth and not a whole of bitter.  I can sense the booze in this.  It comes at the end like the lingering reminder of a shot or sip of bourbon.  Especially when you burp.  Maybe 12%ABV is a little too much to ask of this beer to hide.  You wouldn’t think so though, because this isn’t no mamby-pamby beer.  It’s packed with all kinds of things that your mother told you were good for you.  Ok, maybe not, but she SHOULD have.

I’ll admit I ended up liking this one a lot more than I thought I would.  I liked the smell, and loved the flavor and mouth feel, but the alcohol on the back end made it finish a little harsh for me in the beginning (I got used to it).  Still, not a bad beer.  Let’s give it a 4-PACK, although I have no doubt some of you out there will really enjoy this one.

Time for another beer….

Immort Ale – The Dog(fish Head) Days of Summer

Today I’m going to be looking at a heavy weight in the DFH line up, the 1997 release Immort Ale.  This was the first hint we got from DFH that there were big things on the horizon (as well as the first glimpse of all the maple syrup to come) as the beer clocks in at a substantial 11%ABV and is packed with all kinds of flavors.  I don’t really have much of a lead in for this one, so let’s just taste.

Dogfish Head’s Immort Ale, 12oz bottle, $16.99 a 4-pack.

THEM:  Immort is classified as an American Strong Ale.  It is brewed with maple syrup, peat-smoked barley, juniper berries and vanilla.  It is then fermented to 11%ABV with a combination of English and Belgian yeasts and then aged in oak tanks.  It finishes out at 50IBUs with a non-specified hop.

ME:  Wow.  This beer pours dark, but if you hold it up to the light it’s sporting a nice, deep, ruby red color.  The carbonation and lacing are nice, considering the head fades pretty rapidly to just an island of bubbles on the top.  The nose (oh, the nose) is an amazing combination of dark sweetness that comes across as maple, caramel malt and perhaps a touch of brown sugar thrown into the mix.  There’s also a hint of wood/smoke to be had, as well as a subtle fruitiness that for lack of a better word I’ll describe as raisony.  The flavor is really where the smoke shins through.  The other aromas translate over to the flavor, but they’re in a supporting roll here as it’s the smoke that’s the main player.  There’s a sweetness to this beer as you’d expect from all that dark, sugary stuff but it’s not cloying.  In fact there’s a little smack of it after the finish (which doesn’t have any a strong hop bitterness) but  not so much that it’s overwhelming by the end of the glass.  Speaking of end of the glass, towards the end I found the Juniper berries peaking through.  Not too aggressively, which is good because they’re not one of my favorite flavors.  If you take the time to climb into this glass to see what it’s all about, I think you’ll really appreciate the complexity that’s going on.  But if you were just drinking it to drink it, you might be a tad overwhelmed if you’re not a fan of smoke.  Then again, if you love smoke, there probably isn’t enough.  But then it would really drowned out the rest of what’s going on in the beer.

This is a beer all about seasons.  On a hot summers day, don’t open it.  But if it’s a chilly autumn night or a cold winter’s afternoon, Immort is definitely your glass of beer.  Which is pretty funny as Immort tends to be brewed in the spring, to coincide with the harvest season for maple syrup.  I’m giving this a SIX-PACK.  It’s big and it’s deep, and definitely deserves a place in your fridge.  But it’s not a beer that you need a ton of (especially if you consider the $$).  And although I’m not normally one for aging beers, this is one that might be fun to save a bottle until next years first snow.  You never know what you might have.

Time for another beer.

Every year these Mantids think they can get some of my beer.

Ta Henket – The Dog(fish Head) Days of Summer

I’ve always been fascinated by Egypt.  The history, the temples, the pyramids and of course, Lon Chaney Jr as the Mummy.  When my ex and I decided to take one big trip before we settled down to start what would be our future family, it took no time at all to agree that we should see the land of the Nile.

As you’d expect the trip was interesting.  What made the trip very interesting is that three weeks before we were scheduled to go, the first Gulf War broke out.  (Maybe stupidly) we didn’t think much of it, but apparently others did.  When we gathered together with our group on the first day we learned that 2/3 of the booked travelers had cancelled.  The same had happened with other groups as well.  It was good for us, as it meant we got a small intimate look at the country and its people.

Oh there was a few interesting events.  The streets were full of military trucks full of armed soldiers, but when I ask about them our guide informed us that it was common and that there weren’t any more on the streets than normal.  When we arrived in the airport in Cairo we missed our group leader.  We had booked through Brendan Travels and was told to look for their representative when we landed.  Unfortunately, no one told us that the parent company for Brendan was Globus so we walked right past the nice lady that was holding that sign.  By the time we found where we were supposed to be, our luggage was the only ones that had not been picked up in baggage claim.  Unclaimed baggage at an Egyptian airport.  You think the TSA is tough.  When I went to claim it, three men with guns that I’d only previously see in movies were standing next to it.  Luckily, they were extremely happy to see me as it meant the luggage was no longer their concern.

When I tell people I’ve been to Egypt, everyone immediately asks about the pyramids, which I’ll grant you are pretty spectacular.  But what I really loved was the temples such as Luxor, Karnak and Edfu.   But especially ones like Abu Simbel and Philae which had to be dismantled and moved when the Aswan dam was built.  Building these things must have been an undertaking.  Taking them apart stone-by-stone and putting them back together in another location must have really been a monumental (if you pardon the almost pun) feat of engineering and jigsaw puzzlery.

Some tall, ratty, dirty thing in the shadow of the pyramids. The camel was a mess as well.

So having said that, I’m really looking forward to my first taste of DFH’s fourth venture into the Ancient Ale series, Ta Henket.  Let’s taste.

Dogfish Head Ta Henket, 750ml Bottle, $13.99

THEM:  Ta Henket is built on a base of wheat and bread.  That’s right bread.  Apparently DFH found hyroglyphs that showed people throwing loaves of bread into what was supposed to be jug of alcoholic drink.  So of course Sam said, “why not?”.  From that, they build flavor by addition of the following ingredients:

• Za’atar – A mixture of Egyptian herbs.  Usually oregano, several varieties of thyme and savory.
• Doum Fruit – the date like fruit of the tree Hyphaene thebaica.  It was considered sacred by the ancient Egyptians
• Chamomile – A daisy like plant from which some varieties are commonly used in teas

But Sam must have been feeling particularly creative at the time because it didn’t stop there.  No, DFH actually flew to Egypt and set “traps” at a date farm near the pyramids to capture indigenous fruit flies.  From these flies they were able to extract a local yeast that appeared to be perfect for their needs.  At least that’s what they thought.  The captured yeast gave the nose of the beer a sulfur smell that was conflicting with all the other aromas.  DFH had to set up a copper electrode to remove as much of the sulfur as they could before bottling the beer.  The contains 4.5%ABV and 7 IBUs.

ME:  no, No, NO!  I wanted to LIKE the Egyptian one!  Sigh.  There’s a slight herbal tea in the nose, but mostly I’m getting a strong smell of cracker with some fruit notes in the mix.  The Chamomile and fruit really jump out in the mouth.  The more I sip, the more the herbal aspect of this beer is really shining through.  Ta Henket is light it body, and mild in the finish with a little lingering tea sensation and no real bitterness to speak of.  The herbs come through as almost an earthiness rather than any particular herb taking center stage.  At 4.5% this could almost be considered a session beer by ancient ale standards.  It’s drinkable, I’ll give it that.

Why am I disappointed in this one?  To be honest, I’m not sure.  I mean, it drinks exactly as advertised so it’s not like there’s any saddening surprises jumping out of the glass.   As a representative of alcoholic drinks from ancient Egypt, I really wouldn’t expect much more.  Light, easy drinking – probably goes down well on a hot day while you’re trying to get that pyramid finished by the agreed upon date.   Maybe it’s the chamomile, or the light body.   I’m not sure.  Fine enough drink.  Just not for me I guess.

Sadly, I’m going to rate this a TASTER.  It’s simply one of my least favorite beers from DFH I’ve had so far during these tastings.  Which means you’ll probably love it.  After all, what do I know?

Time for another beer….